Trudeau defends warm Castro remarks after backlash

Castro ruled Cuba from 1959 until he handed power to Raul Castro in 2006 due to poor health. “I have parents (and) friends that have been dying in Cuba”.

After the stunned commotion triggered by word that Castro, 90, had died, Sunday was a day of preparations ahead of a flurry of events marking his death.

“You’ll have to ask each of these individual leaders”.

State radio and television were filled with non-stop tributes to Castro, playing hours of footage of his time in power and interviews with prominent Cubans affectionately remembering him.

In Miami and other American cities, a powerful emigre community emerged that was bitterly opposed to any improvement in US relations with Castro’s government.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau clarified his comments on the death of Cuban president Fidel Castro after being harshly criticized for them.

“The fact is Fidel Castro had a deep and lasting impact on the Cuban people”, Mr Trudeau told reporters in a televised news conference at a Madagascar Francophonie summit. However, while all of this built up Castro’s stature as that of a great revolutionary leader it wasn’t without significant costs.

Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, Mr Flanagan said Castro was a complex figure with a mixed legacy and was “the last of the big strong men” of the Cold War era.

“But now that they know they can’t go back, they at least don’t want [Fidel Castro] living anymore”, Pascual said.

President Higgins has faced criticism for his statement marking the death of the former Cuban leader yesterday. Castro, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot – all evil, torturing murderers.

During his campaign, Trump criticized Obama for striking a “very weak agreement” and threatened to reverse Obama’s executive orders “unless the Castro regime meets our demands”.

Rubio told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the USA focus must be its own security and other interests and encouraging a Cuban democracy.

A Cuban-American automobile dealer in Miami is celebrating former Cuban President Fidel Castro’s death with a bounty of capitalism, offering buyers discounts of up to $15,000 on Sunday. Supporters of the next USA president Donald Trump want him to use the former Cuban leader’s death as an opportunity to push the Communist island to embrace democracy.

“It’s perfectly right and proper that our President gives condolences to the Cuban people on the passing of Fidel Castro”, he said.

OBAMA: And then I was able to say, obviously it runs in the family.

Shortly after Obama’s statement was released, Rubio came back with scathing opposition on Twitter, stating, “President Obama issued a pathetic statement on death of dictator #FidelCastro with no mention of thousands he killed & imprisoned”.

But Castro’s socialist Cuba was anything but an idyll, and the United States quickly became his fiercest opponent.

But, I will say there was something poignant, to me, about Castro’s death in these final eight weeks of the Obama presidency.

Obama, who embarked on a historic rapprochement with Cuba in 2014, said the USA extended a “hand of friendship” to the Cuban people.

The Peruvian author is a longtime critic of Castro and contends the loss of the longtime revolutionary leader will weaken Cuba’s government, even though Castro’s younger brother Raul has been president for a decade.

One of them was in 1994 after a string of boat hijackings, unprecedented rioting and the killing of a Cuban navy lieutenant prompted Castro to suggest that those Cubans wanting to leave could do so.