'Castro Dead' Rumours Send Miami Wild

According to the official line from Cuba, Fidel Castro is very much alive - but that has not stopped fevered speculation in Miami.

Rumours of the Cuban leader's premature death have been a staple in this city of exiles since it was announced that he would turn over power to his brother Raul because of an intestinal illness. Castro, who has ruled Cuba for nearly 48 years, has not been seen in public since.

The rumour mill intensified after his 81st birthday came and went on 13 August with no photographs, letters or recordings to mark the occasion. This weekend the airwaves and online blogs pitched into overdrive and the rumors began to feed off themselves.

Sandra Avila, an executive at a design firm in Miami's Coconut Grove, received calls all day. 'I've heard the rumours before, but there's a different feeling this time, like this time it's real,' she said. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, a Cuban-American who normally deals with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, leapt into the fray. His sources, he reported, were saying the Miami police were poised to announce Castro's death.

To borrow a title from Colombian author and Castro friend, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the past two weeks have been a nonstop 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'.

'For us it's not so much the waiting for the death of a person,' said Joanna Burgos, spokeswoman for a Miami-based youth group that campaigns for a democratic Cuba. 'It's much more the waiting for the opportunity for young people on the island to have a chance to live freely.'