Too ill to attend birthday celebration, says Castro

HAVANA - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said today that he was not well enough to attend the opening of several days of events celebrating his 80th birthday.

"I'm not in medical condition to be there," Castro said in a statement read by a presenter to thousands of supporters from dozens of countries at the start of a gala in Havana's Karl Marx theater that was to mark the opening of the celebrations.

His birthday was August 13 but he postponed celebrations after undergoing emergency surgery that forced him to hand over power temporarily to his brother Raul in late July.

- REUTERS