The U.S. government is claiming that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is extremely ill and near death, reports Reuters:

Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer … months, not years,” Negroponte told The Washington Post.

As speculation swirls around what will happen when Castro actually does die, a Gallup poll shows that 47% of Cubans agree with Castro’s regime:

The Gallup poll released Thursday showed that 47 percent of the Cubans polled approved the job performance of their leaders and 40 percent disapproved.

The flip side of the poll is that the Cubans polled say they aren’t satisfied with the personal liberty they have under Castro’s rule:

Only one in four Cubans declared to be satisfied with their levels of personal freedom. By contrast, four out of every five Latin Americans said they were satisfied with their personal freedom.

Via / Reuters and Miami Herald