First commercial US-Havana flight lands in ramped-up travel

Thousands of Cubans on Monday paid heartfelt tribute to the legendary revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in a solemn and tearful ceremony at Havana’s Revolution Square.

Cubans have also come forward to sign condolence books and pledges of loyalty to Castro’s socialist ideology at 1,060 tribute sites in the country.

It is the first public commemorative event during the nine days of mourning declared after his death.

Rhodes, who was already scheduled to visit Cuba for meetings, was a key participant in the negotiations between the two countries over the thawing of relations and the reopening of embassies in Washington and Havana.

Government-run newspapers were printed in black ink to mourn Fidel, instead of the usual red of the official Communist Party daily Granma, and the blue of Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), the paper of the Communist youth.

Later in the campaign, he toughened his rhetoric, seeking to reassure Cuban-American voters in Florida that he opposed Castro and his brother, Raul, to whom he turned over power in 2008.

“We respect the mourning of others and will not celebrate the death of any human being”, Berta Soler, the Ladies in White leader, said in a statement.

The future of USA relations with Cuba is unclear – but maybe more because of the incoming Trump Administration than because of the death of the former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro over the weekend. I’ve learned a lot from him.

The Prime Minister’s father was a friend of Castro, and Castro even attended Pierre Trudeau’s funeral 16 years ago.

Many of those in line held pictures of Castro, while others brought flowers or simply a Cuban flag as a way to show their affection for the late leader. He told the Miami Herald in August that he wasn’t prepared to weigh in on policies such as “wet-foot, dry-foot”, which allows Cubans who reach us land to stay.

Castro’s funeral will take place on December 4 at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second largest city and site of the beginning of the Cuban Revolution in 1953.

Streit says life soon became harder on the remaining family; businesses, land, and homes were ceased by the Cuban government.

President Obama’s opening to Cuba was carried out largely by executive orders that could be reversed when Donald Trump enters the White House.