Fidel Castro, who led his native Cuba for nearly half a century and
claimed to have survived more than 600 assassination attempts, has died
at the age of 90.His younger brother, Raul Castro, announced on state
television that the Communist revolutionary died on Friday night. World
leaders have paid tribute to the revolutionary, who came to power in
1959, with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev praising him for
'strengthening' his island nation. Russian President Vladimir Putin
described him as a 'symbol of an era', and said he was a 'distinguished
statesman'. Nine days of public mourning for the deceased Cuban leader
have been announced, when 'public activities and shows' will cease, and
flags will fly at half mast. The news was met with shock in Cuban
capital Havana, but Castro's death was celebrated by exiles in the US
(inset), where a Cuban-American US Congress representative branded the
late leader 'a tyrant'. The controversial leader made his last official
appearance before the country's Communist party in April and predicted
that his death was near. Castro (pictured right with revolutionary icon
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in the early 1960s) was 32 when he overthrew
dictator Fulgencio Batista's government in 1959. The US severed
diplomatic ties in 1961, banning all exports to Cuba except for food and
medicine. Castro's brother Raul and President Obama moved to restore
diplomatic ties in December 2014.
