Recovering from illness, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said he is not well enough to talk in public but he is doing what he can, like meditating and writing, the official local daily Granma reported Wednesday.

 

"I do not have the necessary physical strength to talk directly to the people of the municipality where I was selected for next Sunday's elections. I do what I can: I write," Castro wrote in an article for his "Reflections" column dated Monday and published Wednesday.

 

"I barely have enough time to write, now that I have more time to read and meditate about what I see," Castro wrote.

 

In the "Reflections" published on Wednesday, a column he began in March 2007, Castro reiterated his rejection to biofuels which were defended by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, especially ethanol based on sugar cane.

 

Castro also wrote that US President George W. Bush's tour of the Middle East posed a threat "to the world with a nuclear war."

 

"All the world knows he wants a war against Iran," Castro wrote.

 

Castro held talks with Lula on Tuesday for two hours and a half during the latter's 24-hour visit to Cuba.

 

Three photographs showing Castro with Lula at the meeting are published by the local papers. In another photo, Castro was shown as taking a picture of Lula with a camera.

 

Castro, 81, temporarily ceded power to Defense Minister Raul Castro in late July 2006 due to an intestinal hemorrhage.

 

Castro "is in very good health, with a lucidity like in his best moments," Lula said after the meeting. The "Cuban leader will soon be ready to assume his political role in the island, in history and in the current globalized world," he added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2008)