Fidel Castro is dead

Fidel Castro, former president of Cuba, has died aged 90. State TV has announced his passing but did not provide details, according to the BBC.

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost half a century before handing over power to his brother Raul in 2008.

Castro timeline

1926: Born in the south-eastern Oriente Province of Cuba

1953: Imprisoned after leading an unsuccessful rising against Batista's regime

1955: Released from prison under an amnesty deal

1956: With Che Guevara, begins a guerrilla war against the government

1959: Defeats Batista, sworn in as prime minister of Cuba

1960: Fights off CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles

1962: Sparks Cuban missile crisis by agreeing that USSR can deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba

1976: Elected president by Cuba's National Assembly

1992: Reaches an agreement with US over Cuban refugees

2008: Stands down as president of Cuba due to health issues

In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country's Communist Party congress.

He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people "will be victorious".

"I'll soon be 90," the former president said, adding that this was "something I'd never imagined".

"Soon I'll be like all the others, "to all our turn must come," he said.

Castro and Jamaica

Fidel Castro was for many years a divisive figure for Jamaicans. Embraced by Prime Minister Michael Manley who opened full diplomatic relations with Cuba in the early 1970s, he was accused by his detractors of seeking to foment a communist revolution in Jamaica.

Jamaica benefited significantly from the relationship, with hundreds of doctors and other professionals receiving free or subsidised training in Cuba over the ensuing decades.

During the years that followed the divisive 1970s there has been a much broader embrace of Cuba by a wide cross-section of Jamaicans, including members of the Jamaica Labour Party, which had taken issue with the earlier Manley-Castro friendship, helping to cement the mutually beneficial relationship that the two countries currently enjoy.

SOURCE: BBC