Castro fails to appear at May Day celebrations in Cuba (Roundup)

May 1, 2007, 12:55 GMT

Havana - Ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro failed to make a public appearance on Tuesday as tens of thousands of Cubans celebrated May Day with parades and rallies across the country.

Speculation had been rife that the veteran leader would emerge May 1, with expectations heightened by the publication earlier in the day of a new press article bearing Castro's name and again slamming US intentions to boost the use of ethanol alongside Brazil.

Interim president Raul Castro again took his brother's place and presided over the country's biggest parade on Revolution Square in Havana.

Castro, who delegated powers to his sibling nine months ago in order to recover from stomach surgery, has not appeared in public since July 26 last. Information on his health remains a state secret.

However the figurehead leader received a top-ranking envoy from Chinese President Hu Jintao on April 21, and also sent letters in recent days to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez and to the Argentinian Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The increase in activity by Castro, as well as four press articles in just over a month, had prompted speculation in Havana and abroad that he might soon reappear in public and slowly begin reassuming some duties of office.

Last weekend, Bolivian president Evo Morales expressed the assurance that Castro would reassume power on Tuesday, but neither Cuban officials nor Chavez, Castro's main ally in Latin America, had confirmed it.

In the latest of Castro's press pieces - referred to as 'reflexions' in the Cuban media - Castro also repeated his criticism of the US decision to release on bail radical anti-Castro activist Luis Posada Carriles.