World Leaders 'Normalize' Fidel Castro

Several world leaders on both sides of the Atlantic praised Fidel Castro after the Cuban president’s death was announced after midnight Saturday. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama’s comments summarized his White House’s Cuba policy and predicted “history” would judge Castro’s effect on Cuba and its people.

“We know that this moment fills Cubans—in Cuba and in the United States—with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation,” Obama said in a statement released Saturday morning. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”