Communist revolutionary Fidel Castro ( Our Red star ) dies aged 90: Cuba declares nine days of national mourning

Castro died at 10.29pm on Friday night, his brother Raul Castro announced on Cuban state TV The controversial leader led Cuba for nearly half a century as both prime minister and president Vladimir Putin has branded him the 'symbol of an era' and a 'distinguished statesman' French President Francois Hollande branded him a 'towering figure', but voiced concerns about human rights abuses in Cuba Castro made his last official appearance before the country's Communist party in April and predicted that his death was near He claimed in the past to have survived 634 assassination attempts Castro was 32 when he overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista's government in 1959, becoming Cuba's prime minister 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

As large crowds of Cuban exiles gathered in Miami to celebrate his death US Congress representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from Miami, described Castro as a 'tyrant' 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. With a shaking voice, 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', and Pope Francis has said Castro's death is 'sad news'. 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 island's Council of State says state radio and television 'will maintain informative, patriotic and historic programming'. Castro's ashes will be buried in the historic southeastern city of Santiago on December 4 after a four-day procession through the country. Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother in 2006, told Cubans in the television announcement: 'Today, November 25, at 10.29pm, the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, passed away. 'In compliance with the expressed will of Companion Fidel, his remains will be cremated.' He concluded his statement by saying: 'Onward to victory. Castro's death comes just months after the Communist revolutionary predicted that his time on earth was nearly up.

Among the first world figures to pay tribute to Castro was former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who praised him for 'strengthening' his island nation. Gorbachev said: 'Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American blockade, when there was colossal pressure on him and he still took his country out of this blockade to a path of independent development.' And current Russian President Vladimir Putin said: 'The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history. Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia.' Putin added that Castro has managed to build a 'free and independent Cuba' that 'became an influential member of the international community and served as an inspiration for many countries and peoples'. Pope Francis has said Castro's death was 'sad news', and in a message to Raul, said:'I express to you my sentiments of grief.'

The Kremlin strongman hailed Castro as a 'strong and wise person who always looked to the future with confidence'. 'He embodied the high ideals of a politician, a citizen and a patriot sincerely convinced of the rightness of the cause to which he dedicated his whole life,' Putin said. 'His memory will forever remain in the hearts of the citizens of Russia.' Putin also said that Castro had made a 'huge personal contribution' in the establishment and development of the countries' bilateral relations. Castro made his last official appearance before the country's Communist Party in April, asking party members to help keep his ideas alive long after he died. 'The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need,' he told them. Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party's highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command.

It was a resounding message that communism would retain its hold on Cuba, even as its leaders begin to die and age and icy relations with the US continue to thaw. Castro officially handed power to his brother Raul in 2008, two years after he required emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding. Raul Castro had been made acting president in 2006. As news of Castro's death broke, world leaders paid tribute to the revolutionary. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as 'one of the most iconic personalities of the 20th century', and said: 'India mourns the loss of a great friend. I extend my deepest condolences to the Government and people of Cuba on the sad demise of Fidel Castro. May his soul rest in peace.' Latin American leaders voiced their sorrow at Castro's death. In Bolivia, where Castro ally Ernesto 'Che' Guevara died in 1967 in a failed bid to export Cuba's revolution, President Evo Morales said in a statement: 'Fidel Castro left us a legacy of having fought for the integration of the world's peoples ... The departure of Comandante Fidel Castro really hurts And Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said: 'A great has left us. Fidel has died. Long live Cuba! Long live Latin America!' Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said: 'Fidel Castro was a friend of Mexico, promoter of a bilateral relationship based on respect, dialogue and solidarity.' And Salvador Sanchez Ceren, President of El Salvador, tweeted: 'With deep sorrow we received news of the death of my dear friend and eternal companion, Commander Fidel Castro Ruz.' In Venezuela, a long-time ally of Cuba and staunch opponent of the political stance of the United States, President Nicolas Maduro said Castro had inspired and would continue to inspire his country.

'We will keep on winning and keep fighting. Fidel Castro is an example of the fight for all the people of the world. We will go forward with his legacy,' Maduro told television station Telesur by telephone. South African President Jacob Zuma hailed Castro for his help supporting the battle against apartheid. 'President Castro identified with our struggle against apartheid. He inspired the Cuban people to join us in our own struggle against apartheid,' Zuma said in a statement. French President Francois Hollande mourned the loss of a major figure on the world stage and welcomed the rapprochement between Havana and Washington, but noted concerns over human rights under the Castro regime. 'Fidel Castro was a towering figure of the 20th century. He incarnated the Cuban revolution, in both its hopes and subsequent disillusionments,' Hollande said in a statement.

'France, which condemned human rights abuses in Cuba, had equally challenged the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and France was glad to see the two countries re-establish dialogue and open ties between themselves,' added the Socialist party leader. Hollande met Fidel Castro in May, 2015 during the first ever visit by a French head of state to Cuba since the Cuban revolution. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: 'Fidel Castro's death marks the end of an era for Cuba and the start of a new one for Cuba's people.' Irish president Michael D Higgins said Castro guided Cuba 'through a remarkable process of social and political change, advocating a development path that was unique and determinedly independent'. He added that Castro would be remembered as a 'giant'. In a statement released after the 90-year-old's death, he said: 'Fidel Castro will be remembered as a giant among global leaders whose view was not only one of freedom for his people but for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet.' On Saturday morning, U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump tweeted: 'Fidel Castro is dead!'

In the streets of Havana, the announcement was met with surprise. Mariela Alonso, a 45-year-old doctor, described the retired Cuban leader 'the guide for our people'. She said: 'There will be no one else like him. We will feel his physical absence.' Mechanic Celestino Acosta was sitting on a porch in the capital's central neighborhood of Vedado. He called the news of Castro's death 'a painful blow for everyone'.

Castro survived a number of US-backed assassination plots, as well as numerous media reports throughout the years that falsely claimed he was dead or nearly there. But Castro, who four years ago bragged he didn't 'even remember what a headache is', remained active in his final months even as his public appearances became increasingly rare. This summer he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and in August celebrated his 90th birthday. Castro thanked fellow Cubans for their well wishes and lambasted his old foe the United States in a column carried by state-run media. Cuba went into overdrive to honor the retired 'El Comandante', who built a Communist-run state on the doorstep of the United States. Even in his old age, Castro remained as critical as ever of President Obama and frequently spoke out against him in his published opinion pieces. Castro blasted Obama's visit to Hiroshima in May, saying the president 'lacked the words to ask for forgiveness for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people'.

In his last opinion piece, in March, Castro accused Obama of sweet-talking the Cuban people during his visit to the island - the first by a US leader in 88 years - and of ignoring the accomplishments of Communist rule. Castro survived long enough to see Raul negotiate an opening with Obama on December 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. Fidel cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence. 'I don't trust the policy of the United States, nor have I exchanged a word with them, but this does not mean I reject a pacific solution to the conflicts,' he wrote. Considered more pragmatic, the younger Castro also introduced market-style reforms to the state-dominated economy and increased personal freedoms, such as the right to travel abroad that many Cubans celebrated. Yet others still revered Fidel for freeing the country from US domination and introducing universal, free healthcare and education. Castro's reign over the island-nation 90 miles from Florida was marked by the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, which nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. He overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa. 'Socialism or death' remained Castro's rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism

While his brother Raul was his closest confidant and successor as president, his sister Juana, exiled in south Florida, called Fidel a 'monster' to whom she had not spoken in more than four decades. His eldest son Fidelito, long Castro's only officially-recognised child, was a nuclear scientist in Cuba. His eldest daughter Alina Fernandez, born from an affair with a married socialite who remained on the island decades later, attacked her father on exile radio from Miami. Before he was El Comandante, Castro - born August 13, 1926 - was the son of a Spanish immigrant father who recruited labor for US sugar companies before building up a prosperous plantation of his own. Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and Raul went to prison. Fidel turned his trial defense into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, 'History will absolve me.' Freed under a pardon, Castro fled to Mexico and organized a rebel band that returned in 1956, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba on a yacht named Granma.

After losing most of his group in a bungled landing Castro, with the help of brother Raul and legendary guerrilla fighter Ernesto 'Che' Guevarra, rallied support in Cuba's eastern Sierra Maestra mountains. Three years later, tens of thousands spilled into the streets of Havana to celebrate Batista's downfall and catch a glimpse of Castro as his rebel caravan arrived in the capital on January 8, 1959. The US was among the first to formally recognize his government, cautiously trusting Castro's early assurances he merely wanted to restore democracy - not install socialism. But Castro was quick to silence his critics, closing independent newspapers and ordering the deaths of at least 582 members of the old government, who were gunned down by firing squads, over the course of two years. Homosexuals in the country were herded into camps for 're-education' and HIV-positive citizens were quarantined. In 1964, Castro acknowledged holding 15,000 political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro's daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta and his younger sister Juana. Still, the revolution thrilled millions in Cuba and across Latin America who saw it as an example of how the seemingly arrogant Yankees could be defied.

And many on the island were happy to see the seizure of property of the landed class, the expulsion of American gangsters and the closure of their casinos. Castro's speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the UN General Assembly in 1960 set the world body's record for length that still stands more than five decades later. As Castro moved into the Soviet bloc, Washington began working to oust him, cutting US purchases of sugar, the island's economic mainstay. Castro, in turn, confiscated $1billion in US assets. The American government imposed a trade embargo, banning virtually all US exports to the island except for food and medicine, and severed diplomatic ties in 1961. On April 16 of that year, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. The very next day the CIA sent 1,400 Cuban exiles to take down Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, an international embarrassment for then-president John F Kennedy. The debacle forced the US to give up on the idea of invading Cuba, but that didn't stop Washington and Castro's exiled enemies from trying to get rid of its leader. By Cuban count, Castro was the target of more than 630 assassination plots by militant Cuban exiles or the US government. Tensions between the two countries only increased when Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. He imposed a naval blockade of the island and, after a tense 13-day standoff, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them. The Cuban Missile Crisis, as it became known, put the world at the brink of nuclear war - and hurt relations between Cuba and the US even more.

'Castro is not just another Latin American dictator, a petty tyrant bent merely on personal power and gain,' Kennedy said at the time. 'His ambitions extend far beyond his own shores.' President Jimmy Carter would try to improve relations with Cuba after he took office in 1977, even re-establishing diplomatic missions and negotiating the release of thousands of prisoners. But conflicts over Cuba's military mission in Africa, tension caused by a flood of Cuban refugees in 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan end the rapprochement. As the end of the Cold War eased global tensions, many Latin American and European countries re-established relations with Cuba. The Obama administration officially removed Cuba from a US terrorism blacklist and relations between the two countries were fully restored on July 20, 2015. John Kerry flew to Havana a month later, becoming the first US Secretary of State to visit the country since 1945. He attended a ceremonial flag-raising outside the newly reopened embassy. Cuba's flag now lies in Washington too. As flamboyant as he was in public, Castro tried to lead a discreet private life. He and his first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart, had one son before divorcing in 1956. Then, for more than four decades, Castro had a relationship with Dalia Soto del Valle. They had five sons together and were said to have married quietly in 1980. Castro was rumored to have hundreds of lovers, and once said in a Vanity Fair interview that the number of children he fathered was 'almost a tribe'. By the time Castro resigned 49 years after his triumphant arrival in Havana, he was the world's longest ruling head of government, aside from monarchs. In retirement, Castro voiced unwavering support as Raul slowly but deliberately enacted sweeping changes to the Marxist system he had built. Castro would even recognize some of his government's brutal human rights abuses, saying it's treatment of gays was an 'injustice'. In 2010 Castro said during an interview that the 'Cuban model [of communism] doesn't even work for us anymore', although he later claimed the comment was taken out of context. But Castro's longevity allowed the younger brother to consolidate control, perhaps lengthening the revolution well past both men's lives. In February 2013, Raul announced that he would retire as president in 2018 and named newly minted Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel as his successor. As the tributes began to pour in from world leaders early Saturday morning, hundreds of Cuban-Americans took to the streets of Little Havana in Miami to celebrate his death. The revelers banged pots and pans to express their joy at the demise of the man who had driven them or their relatives to flee their homeland. Car horns filled the air and the crowd grew as people continued to cheer and sing in Spanish and wave Cuban flags. Castro's death was also celebrated by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, who said it marked a 'new chapter in the history of Cuba'.

'The day that the people, both inside the island and out, have waited for has arrived: A tyrant is dead and a new beginning can dawn on the last remaining communist bastion of the Western hemisphere,' she said. 'Those who still rule Cuba with an iron grip may attempt to delay the island’s liberation, but they cannot stop it.' Historic figure of the 20th century To some, Castro became a romantic figure and a legendary survivor despite what Cuban officials say were more than 600 attempts to kill him. During a rare public appearance in April, Castro marveled that he had lived to his ninth decade. "Soon I will turn 90 years old, never would such a thing have occurred to me, and it's not the outcome of any effort; it was fate's whim," Castro said, discussing his health, usually a taboo subject on the island. "Soon I will be like everyone else. To all of us comes our turn." Castro had many admirers, who saw him as a stalwart with his ubiquitous military fatigues and fiery oratory. He clung to a socialist economic model and one-party Communist rule, even after the Soviet Union disintegrated and most of the rest of the world concluded that state socialism was an idea whose time had come and gone. The Cuban Communist Party mourned for "the commander of the Cuban Revolution" with the hashtag . Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed Castro as a "great leader" for the Cuban people and said China had lost "an intimate and sincere friend," according to a statement read out on Chinese state TV. "He achieved immortal historical achievements for the development of world socialism. He was the great person of our era, and people and history will remember him," Xi said. "Great Castro will live forever. " Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called Castro a friend of Mexico, who had promoted bilateral relationships based on "respect, dialogue and solidarity." In an official Kremlin statement sending condolences to the Cuban people, Russian President Vladimir Putin remembered him as a "symbol of an era in recent world history" and "a sincere and reliable friend of Russia." Putin saluted Castro for building a "free and independent Cuba" and described him as "an influential member of the international community." Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said he and Castro had become "very good friends," in comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass, and that the Cuban "was an outstanding personality, unique." Pakistani politician Imran Khan hailed Castro as "an iconic revolutionary leader" who stood against the United States. Many viewed Castro as an enemy of human rights, who suppressed and imprisoned dissidents. "I am shedding tears tonight, but they're tears of joy," said Armando Salguero, a Miami Herald columnist. "Hell has a special place for Fidel Castro and there's one less vacancy in hell tonight." He said many Cubans were cheering, because they had been forced to come to the United States when they couldn't have the freedom to make a life in their homeland. Repressive laws allow the government to jail and punish its critics, such as dissidents and journalists with long prison sentences, according to Human Rights Watch. The government also uses beatings and public acts of shaming, the organization reported. US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who represents a district in South Florida, tweeted, "Tyrant + thug Fidel Castro is dead," saying his death was an opportunity to have a free and democratic Cuba.