Fidel returns to prime time

Just days after new public photos of Cuban leader Fidel Castro surfaced on Saturday, the 83-year-old revolutionary will appear on Cuban TV and radio tonight at 6:30 p.m. Cuba Summer Time (for folks in the United States, that’s the same as EDT). Castro is set to air his views on the Middle East in a special edition of "Round Table," which will be broadcast on four networks, including Cubavisión Internacional.

Castro — who was succeeded as president by his 78-year-old brother Raúl in 2006 — spends much of his time these days penning op-eds for Cuban state media on his convictions that a nuclear war between Iran and the United States is imminent. But in his first known public outing in months, the founder of modern Cuba ventured last Wednesday to the national scientific research center in Havana, where employees "greeted him affectionately and spontaneously — greetings Fidel returned with words of affection."

Fidel’s latest public appearance comes on the heels of a deal, approved by Havana and brokered by the Catholic Church, to release 52 political dissidents from Cuban prison. The first of the prisoners are set to arrive in Spain on Tuesday.