Fidel Castro urges energy revolution in new article

HAVANA: Cuban President Fidel Castro issued his fourth news article late Monday in the nine months he has been recovering from intestinal surgery, hours before May Day events get under way.   

Under the headline "It is time for an energy revolution right now," Castro, 80, addressed US-Brazilian cooperation on biofuels, and urged that the issue be discussed on International Workers' Day.   

Among other things Castro called for a wholesale replacement of incandescent lights with fluorescent bulbs, and massive replacement of domestic and commercial systems using older technologies that require two to three times more energy than new systems.   

"Tomorrow May 1 is a good day to have these thoughts go out to the workers, and all of the world's poor, along with a protest against something incredible and humiliating that has taken place: the release of a monster of terrorism," Castro wrote in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, referring to Luis Posada Carriles.   

The Cuban-born Venezuelan former CIA operative, wanted by Cuba and Venezuela for the deadly downing of a Cuban jet, was freed on bond in Texas last month.   

Castro did not say whether he might attend May Day events in Havana. If he did, it could be his first public appearance since July 26 -- a day before intestinal surgery and just before his July 31 temporary handover of power to his brother, Raul Castro, 75.