HAVANA
Castro more active months after surgery
Photos in Cuba’s party newspaper Saturday showed Fidel Castro meeting and shaking hands with a visiting Chinese Communist Party official, the latest sign the Cuban leader is becoming increasingly active more than eight months after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery.
While he looks somewhat pale after months indoors, Fidel Castro, 80, appears stronger than the early images of him last fall.
Castro’s condition and exact ailment remain state secrets, but he is believed to suffer from diverticular disease, which can cause bleeding in the colon.
NABLUS, West Bank
6 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers
Israeli troops killed six Palestinians in the bloodiest day of fighting this year across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said Saturday.
The dead included three militants traveling in a car in the northern West Bank and a man in Gaza killed in an Israeli airstrike in response to a Palestinian rocket attack.
Also Saturday, about a dozen masked Palestinians bombed and set fire to the American International School in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, officials said. The attack caused extensive damage but no injuries.
SANTIAGO, Chile
Earthquake rattles southern region
A strong earthquake Saturday rocked a part of southern Chile that has been hit by hundreds of tremors since January and may be related to the birth of an undersea volcano.
The government said reports indicate there were no victims or major damage in the sparsely populated area.
