Cuba and allies rally to mourn passing of Fidel Castro

Cuba announced nine days of mourning after his death, including the mass rally on Tuesday evening in Revolution Square – the same massive space where Castro once held fiery, marathon speeches.

During the day lines stretched for hours outside the Plaza of the Revolution, the heart of government power and the place where Castro delivered fiery speeches to mammoth crowds after he seized power.

Post Castro, the Cuban American Friendship Society is continuing to push forward with Burlington’s “Kids on the Ball” and the Cuban National Tennis Federation to rebuild tennis courts in Havana. Schools and government offices were closed Tuesday for a.

So yes, Fidel Castro’s death is a good thing – but no cause for President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to alter their attitude toward Cuba.

“(Fidel Castro) wasn’t fully in agreement with Raul’s progressiveness”, he said, describing the elder Castro as a “hard-line revolutionary” and the younger Castro as “a more progressive thinker”.

(AP Photo/Fernando Medina). People wait in line to pay their last respects to the late Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016.

And entrepreneurs like Higueras hope the reform drive that has advanced at a painfully slow pace and with fits and starts will now accelerate more smoothly now that Fidel Castro has passed on.

On Wednesday, Castro’s ashes will begin a three-day procession east across Cuba, retracing the march of his bearded rebel army from the Sierra Maestra mountains to the capital. As Castro’s remains are prepared for the return to Santiago, the state is rekindling images of a younger Castro whose legacy they vow to keep alive.

Portes said it’s likely relations will continue trending toward normalization, an action he favors, but said the system likely won’t see major changes due to Castro’s death.

Obama did not meet with Castro during his landmark trip and the former Cuban leader later attacked him for his Cuba policy.

Allies praised Castro in nearly religious tones, with Bolivian President Evo Morales saying, ‘Fidel is not dead.Fidel is more alive than ever, more necessary than ever’.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez, 26, the owner of a private restaurant that serves traditional Cuban food in the central city of Santa Clara, said there was a greater sense of uncertainty without Fidel and he couldn’t say whether that was positive or negative.

Some of those who fled to Miami “had looted Cuba … and exploited the poor and the working class”, said Riddle, 70, who also teaches media at a Detroit community college.

“Even if I’m obligated to go, I’m not doing it”, he said.

The funerals were scheduled at 19.00 (00.00 GMT) in the Revolution Square, in downtown Cuba.

Sandra Calvo – a Cuban-Mexican resident – arrived with her sister Patricia, pushing her 11-month-old son who was holding a Cuba flag. “He believed in medical care and education for his people”. But many of those towns are also in a prolonged economic collapse, the country’s once dominant sugar industry decimated, the sugar mills and plantations gone.