HAVANA - Fidel Castro, appearing on Cuban state-controlled TV for the first time since handing power to his younger brother Raul in April of 2011, said that those candidates competing in a primary to run against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will never beat him.

Castro, who has been both a mentor and a dependent to Chavez, who sends subsidized oil to Cuba to help keep the 50 year old Castro dictatorship afloat, called the opposition primary "a conspiracy supported by the Yankees (Americans)." The ailing dictator also added that "no one ever did more for the Venezuelan people than the Bolivarian Movement." 

Castro, who for 50 years gave televised speeches on a daily basis that would last for hours, has stayed away from television since handing over the reigns of the dictatorship to Raul. But he has since dedicated his time to managing the politics of the "ALBA" countries, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, whose presidents all defer to the aging despot as a more experienced mentor in statecraft and subversion.  

During the TV appearance, Castro also opined on the nuclear ambitions of Iran, and other events of the Arab Spring: "What will happen in Iran? ... What is going to happen in Syria? It is not going to be the same thing as in Libya", he said.

Castro, who came closest to any other figure in history to causing a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, stated that there are "more than 20,000" nuclear warheads in the world, and stated that they were "in the hands of fools."