Cubans Mark First Anniversary of Fidel Castro's Death

Cubans mark the first anniversary of the death of their revolutionary leader. Fidel Castro built the communist state on America's doorstep half a century ago. And in three months, his brother and successor, Raul, steps down. Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports from Havana.

Revealed: Liberals' Damage Control after Trudeau's Castro Statement

Christopher Wilson of TheRebel.media investigates what was really happening inside the Liberal government after PM Trudeau's controversial remarks following Fidel Castro's death.

Cuba: French Minister Ségolène Royal Under Fire over Views on Castro's Records

Cubans Look Ahead to Life after Fidel Castro

The funeral cortege carrying the ashes of Cuba's former president Fidel Castro has begun a four-day journey across Cuba. Many argue that Castro's death clears the way for a more open Cuba, with greater political and economic freedom.

'Like Moses Coming Down from the Mountain': Interviewing a Young Fidel Castro - BBC Newsnight

In 1958 journalist Erik Durschmied went to the Sierra Maestra Mountains and conducted one of the first interviews with Fidel Castro before the revolution. Here he talks about his memories with Castro himself.

Trudeau Makes Canada a “Global Farce” with Glowing Tribute to Castro

Andrew Lawton compares and contrasts Justin Trudeau's effusive praise of communist dictator Fidel Castro versus his faint praise for the Ottawa Redblack's Grey Cup Victory.

Marco Rubio On Fidel Castro's Death

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has been a harsh critic of the Fidel Castro régime and President Obama's decision to normalize relations with the island nation. He spoke to CBSN anchor Reena Ninan about the dictator's passing.

Castro Death Controversy: Mourning in Havana, Celebrations in Florida

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has died at age 90. The world is reacting to the passing of the monumental historical figure.

‘Castro Will Stay in the History of Mankind’ - Head of Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has died at age 90. The world is reacting to the passing of the monumental historical figure.

Fidel Castro's Life and Legacy

Al Jazeera's Latin America Editor Lucia Newman recounts Fidel Castro's life and legacy.

A Revolutionary Icon: Fidel Castro Dies Aged 90 – Video Obituary

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90, state television in the country has announced. Castro was known as one of the most iconic revolutionary leaders in recent history after he led a communist guerrilla army to replace Fulgencio Batista’s corrupt dictatorship, and went on to survive countless CIA-backed attempts on his life

Read the Guardian article here

Revolutionsführer Fidel Castro wird 90

Fidel Castro wird 90 Jahre alt. Er hat längst die Zügel an seinen Bruder Raul übergeben, ist aber immer noch präsent. Die meisten Kubaner kennen kein Leben ohne Fidel.

As Hugo Chavez Fights for His Life, Cuba Fears for Its Future
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Venezuela is not the only Latin American nation that is monitoring every moment of president Hugo Chavez's illness. His ally Cuba has relied on him for economic help, and that could soon come to an end.

Away from the constitutional wrangles and impassioned crowds of Caracas, the future of Venezuela after Hugo Chavez is being plotted this weekend in an elegant pre-revolutionary mansion in Havana's old playboy quarter.

The firebrand Venezuelan president is fighting for his life in a nearby hospital, stricken by severe respiratory problems and a lung infection after his latest round of surgery for cancer.

His illness left him unable to be sworn in for his fourth term as president last Thursday, having won a close-fought election in October.

But for his Cuban hosts, much more is at risk than simply the loss of a fellow left-wing Latin American radical who has long venerated Fidel Castro. His death would also put at risk the remarkable oil-fuelled largesse that has allowed Cuba to cling to its experiment in tropical communism.

Thanks to the close personal relationship between Mr Chavez and Mr Castro, energy-rich Venezuela supplies more than 100,000 barrels of dirt-cheap oil a day to Cuba - an estimated 50 per cent of the island's petroleum needs.

Venezuela also hires tens of thousands of Cuban doctors and teachers to work in its barrio slums, propping up the Cuban economy to the tune of some $6 billion a year in total. Without that subsidy, Havana would have long ago been forced to introduce market reforms to its communist regime. » | Philip Sherwell, and Andrew Hamilton in Havana | Saturday, January 12, 2013

L'absence de Castro alimente les rumeurs sur sa santé
LE FIGARO: Des blogueurs installés à Miami assurent que Fidel Castro est mort ou, à tout le moins, serait dans un état critique. Le régime rétorque qu'il n'en est rien. Au-delà de la rumeur, El Comandante n'a jamais été aussi longtemps absent de la scène publique.

«Fidel Castro est mort», assurent plusieurs blogueurs de Miami. «El Comandante va bien», réplique l'un de ses fils, le photographe Alex Castro Soto del Valle. «Il mène ses activités quotidiennes, lit et fait de l'exercice», a ajouté son fils, à Guantanamo, lors d'une exposition photographique dédié au leader historique de la Révolution cubaine. Le blogueur américano-cubain Alberto Muller, de qui est parti la rumeur vendredi, a assuré que Fidel Castro, qui a eu 86 ans en août dernier, ne pouvait plus se déplacer par ses propres moyens et avait été placé sous respirateur artificiel. D'autres opposants le donnent déjà pour mort. Alberto Muller jure que ses sources émanent de proches de la famille Castro. «Tous les deux ou trois mois, Twitter tue Fidel Castro», conteste le blogueur officiel Yohandry Fontana, qui souligne qu'à chaque fois, les rumeurs partent de Miami. » | Par Hector Lemieux | samedi 13 octobre 2012

Pope Meets Fidel Castro after Celebrating Mass in Front of Hundreds of Thousands
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Pope ended a historic visit to Cuba with a meeting with its ailing former leader Fidel Castro on Wednesday after celebrating Mass in front of hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in Havana's Revolution Plaza.


Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed that the pair had met, for about 30 minutes at the Papal Nuncio's residence in Havana, but he did not detail what they discussed.

The 84-year-old Pontiff used his sermon to gently prod Communist authorities to embrace change and for Cubans to search for "authentic freedom" as he ended a three day visit to the Caribbean nation.

Crowds had filled Havana's main square overnight, the sprawling plaza surrounded by ten-storey high images of revolutionary heroes Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos where Fidel Castro used to deliver hours long speeches of fiery rhetoric.

The Pope, who began his six-day tour of Mexico and Cuba with an attack on Marxism, asserting that the "ideology as it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality", had made it a theme of his visit to urge increased cooperation between church and state.

With President Raul Castro, who took over from his older brother four years ago, seated in the front row, the pontiff urged the nation to open up to reforms and denounced "irrationality and fanaticism" that many will see as a thinly veiled attack on Cuba's leadership. » | Fiona Govan | Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Related »

Riz Khan: A Cuban Evolution
Cuba's legendary leader Fidel Castro has taken his last bow as leader of the party he founded more than 50 years ago. Joining us on the Riz Khan Show to discuss Cuba's future are Richard Gott, British journalist and historian and Eric Hershberg, Director at the Centre for Latin American and Latino Studies at the American University in Washington DC.

'Mubarak Must Return Money,' Says Castro
THE GUARDIAN: Hosni Mubarak is suspected of squirrelling away a fortune running into hundreds of millions abroad. Former Cuban president Fidel Castro has backed Egyptians' demand that the cash be clawed back to help alleviate poverty in Egypt

Watch video here | Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Pour Fidel Castro, Sarkozy devient «fou»
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: FRANCE | L'ancien président cubain affirme que les expulsions de Roms de France montrent que le président français est en train de devenir "fou", et s'inquiète de sa puissance nucléaire.

L'ancien président cubain Fidel Castro affirme dans un article publié lundi que les expulsions de Roms de France montrent que le président français Nicolas Sarkozy est en train de devenir "fou", et s'inquiète de sa puissance nucléaire.

Fidel Castro rappelle "que la France est la troisième puissance nucléaire de la planète" et affirme que "Sarkozy a aussi une mallette avec les codes pour lancer une des plus de 300 bombes qu'il possède".

"Supposons que Sarkozy devienne soudain fou, comme il semble que cela est en train de se passer. Que ferait dans ce cas le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, avec Sarkozy et sa mallette?", se demande le leader de la révolution cubaine dans l'île communiste. >>> AFP | Lundi 13 Septembre 2010

Fidel Castro Says Communism Doesn't Work
THE GUARDIAN: Former Cuban president says Marxist model 'doesn't even work for us' in offhand remark to US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg

It was a casual remark over a lunch of salad, fish and red wine but future historians are likely to parse and ponder every word: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us any more."

Fidel Castro's nine-word confession, dropped into conversation with a visiting US journalist and policy analyst, undercuts half a century of thundering revolutionary certitude about Cuban socialism.

That the island's economy is a disaster is hardly news but that the micro-managing "maximum leader" would so breezily acknowledge it has astonished observers.

Towards the end of a long, relaxed lunch in Havana, Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting. The reply left him dumbfounded. "Did the leader of the revolution just say, in essence, 'Never mind'?" Goldberg wrote on his blog.

The 84-year-old retired president did not elaborate but the implication, according to Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert from the Council on Foreign Relations who also attended the lunch, was that the state had too big a role in the economy.

Raúl Castro has been saying the same thing in public and private since succeeding his older brother two years ago. With infrastructure crumbling, food shortages acute and an average monthly salary of just $25 (£16), it has become apparent that near-total state control of the economy does not work.

But for Fidel to acknowledge the fact could be compared to Napoleon musing that the march on Moscow was not, on reflection, a great success.

"Frankly, I have been somewhat amazed by Fidel's new frankness," said Stephen Wilkinson, a Cuba expert at the London Metropolitan University. "This is the latest of a series of recent utterances that strike me as being indicative of a change in the old man's character." >>> Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent | Thursday, September 09, 2010

Castro 'Criticises Ahmadinejad for Anti-Semitic Attitude'
THE TELEGRAPH: Fidel Castro has reportedly criticised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, for what he called his anti-semitic [sic] attitudes.

Castro, who has been a fierce critic of Israel, reportedly chided Mr Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust, according to a blog on The Atlantic magazine.

The former Cuban leader said Iran could further the cause of peace by "acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence."

"I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds," Castro reportedly said. Castro later added, "This is how ignorant the entire population was."

Castro reportedly said: "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims." >>> | Tuesday, September 07, 2010