Castro believed to have terminal cancer

WASHINGTON - The government believes Fidel Castro's health is deteriorating and that the Cuban dictator is unlikely to live through 2007.

That dire view was reinforced last week when Cuba's foreign minister backed away from his prediction that the ailing Castro would return to power by early December. “It's a subject on which I don't want to speculate,” Felipe Perez Roque told The Associated Press in Havana.

U.S. government officials say there is still some mystery about Castro's diagnosis, his treatment and how he is responding. But these officials believe that the 80-year-old has terminal cancer of the stomach, colon or pancreas.