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New images show healthier Fidel Castro

  • Story Highlights
  • NEW: The video of Castro is the first broadcast in at least a year
  • New photo shows fit-looking Castro meeting with Ecuadorian president
  • Report: Castro and Correa met over economic matters and medical checkups
  • He ceded Cuba's presidency to his brother in 2008 but is still Communist Party chief
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HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- A new video and a photo of ailing Communist leader Fidel Castro surfaced on Sunday, revealing a healthier-looking man than in previous photos.

A man in Havana, Cuba, reads a newspaper on Sunday featuring a picture of a healthy-looking Fidel Castro.

A man in Havana, Cuba, reads a newspaper on Sunday featuring a picture of a healthy-looking Fidel Castro.

State-run Cubavision aired video of Castro during its Sunday news broadcast, saying the footage was taken Saturday when the former president met with Venezuelan law students.

It was the first video of Castro broadcast in at least a year.

The photo -- the second in 10 days -- published in Cuba's state-run youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, shows Castro, 83, meeting with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Friday. The photo shows a well-groomed Castro wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and standing face-to-face with Correa.

The meeting involved discussions of economic matters and medical checkups, according to the state-run newspaper.

Another photo of the former Cuban president was released on August 13 by Pastors For Peace, a U.S.-based advocacy group that recently traveled to the island nation and is pushing for an end to the near half-century-old U.S. trade embargo.

Castro, who came to power in 1959, underwent abdominal surgery in 2006.

The Cuban leader ceded the presidency to his younger brother, Raul, last year, but has retained leadership of the Communist Party, the only legal political party in Cuba.

CNN's David Ariosto contributed to this report.

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