Historic leader Fidel Castro turns 90 in new Cuba

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made a rare public appearance as he turned 90 on Saturday in an island transformed from the one he led for half a century.
Dressed in a white track jacket, Castro sat between his brother and successor, Raul, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at a gala organised by a children's theater company, a live broadcast on local television showed.
The outing to Havana's Karl Marx Theater, the island nation's largest, marked his first public appearance since April 19, when he was seen at the close of the Cuban Communist Party Congress.
Both loved as a hero and hated as a dictator, Castro is one of the giant figures of modern history.
He defied 10 US presidents during his 48 years in power, but in the decade since he stepped aside Cuba has become a different world. His sworn foe, the United States, is no longer officially Cuba's enemy.
Warrior 
Now white-bearded and frail, Castro was a strapping 32-year-old in green fatigues when he led a rebel force that drove out dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
His image as a revolutionary warrior storming down from the mountains, rifle in hand, stirred his admirers' imagination. His communist policies and iron-fisted treatment of rivals drew the hostility of the United States and other Western powers.
Although his voice used to boom out over Havana in speeches that lasted hours, the former president now spends his days out of sight at home.
And although he is rarely heard from, his face still smiles out from countless billboards across the Caribbean island.
In an article published by official media late Friday, Castro showed that he had lost little of his old fire, particularly when it comes to his longtime enemy the United States.
Assassination plots
He criticised US President Barack Obama for failing to explicitly apologise during his historic visit to Japan in May for Washington's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He condemned as "equally criminal" the bombing of Nagasaki three days later.
Referring to the scores of US assassination plots against him -- Cuban intelligence services numbered them at more than 600, some reportedly involving poisoned or explosive cigars -- he said, "I almost laughed at the Machiavellian plans of US presidents."
Although mostly out of sight, Castro has not been out of the minds of ordinary Cubans. State newspapers on the communist island have for days printed pictures and articles about him to mark his 90th year. Concerts have been played in his honour.
Fidel Castro retired from public life in 2006 due to ill health. He formally transferred the presidency to his brother Raul in 2008.