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Bolivia's Morales Visits "Very Lucid" Fidel Castro

HAVANA (AFP)--Bolivian President Evo Morales met Cuba's Fidel Castro here late Thursday and said the ailing revolutionary icon was "very lucid" and looking much "stronger" than last year.

"He appeared very lucid, very wise and stronger, because after my previous visit, months back, I was worried. But now I know that Fidel is feeling very well," Morales told reporters shortly before leaving Havana after a one-day working visit to the island nation.

The Bolivian chief executive, a close ally of communist-run Cuba, was also received by Castro on his previous trip in May 2008. He stressed after his latest two-hour meeting that the former Cuban president, 82, was "as always, preoccupied with politics," society and economics.

Castro has been hampered by health problems and formally handed over power to his brother Raul, 77, in early 2008, but he regularly publishes comments in state media.

Morales also met President Raul Castro to discuss bilateral cooperation, attended a conference at the University of Havana and played a game of soccer with Bolivians studying medicine in Cuba.

About 2,000 Cubans work in Bolivia, South America's poorest nation, on health and educational programs, official data show, while some 5,000 Bolivians study medicine in Cuba.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
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