Two US officials to attend Fidel Castro’s funeral

Leftist Latin American leaders vowed to carry the torch of Castro’s revolution as they addressed the rally on Tuesday night and the crowd chanted “I am Fidel!”

Others filmed the procession with cell phones, a luxury prohibited in Cuba until an ailing Castro left power in 2006 and his younger brother Raul began a series of slow reforms.

The president recalled his brother’s life, saying Fidel had devoted his life to the solidarity of the country, and his socialist revolution was “of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble”. “I met with him and we talked about the struggles in Africa; that will endure forever between us”.

Encouraged by the Government, grieving islanders lined up again at the central monument of Havana’s Revolution Square to view a memorial to the man who ruled the island for almost half a century.

In this image, hundreds of young Cubans gather on Saturday at Havana University to remember Cuban leader Castro, who died late Friday. “Mission accomplished, comandante Fidel Castro”, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose late mentor, Hugo Chavez, had a special bond with Castro.

South American leaders joined thousands of ordinary Cubans at a huge rally in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution to honour Fidel Castro. The Kremlin said he held a different view on his legacy to that of Trump, who has called the Cuban leader “a brutal dictator”.

Newly-appointed Cuban Ambassador to China, Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos, expressed honest thanks for President Xi’s condolences on behalf of the Cuban party, government and Raul Castro, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

“It would be a different experience (if Castro had not died) but it’s still a life-changing event”, said Amanda Lecuyer, a 29-year-old esthetician from Toronto who went to the usually bustling La Bodeguita del Medio, only to find the bar closed behind a wooden gate. “There are many aspects of the US Cuba relationship that were characterized by a lot of turmoil, not just during the Castro regime”, Earnest said.

“The Malaysian Ambassador signed the book of condolences on the passing of the Cuban Revolutionary Leader at the Jose Marti Memorial”.

“I can’t celebrate the death of any human being”.

“So I took him over to the United Nations”.

The government has also back-tracked on some reforms after they had led to more visible inequality and grumbling among the poor who are reliant on state wages and pensions. In Cuba specifically, he acted as Fidel’s arms and legs, ordering the imprisonment of thousands of political dissidents (and eventually, anyone who was guilty of “social dangerousness”) and death by firing squad to anyone who stood in Castro’s way.