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As President Obama made his way onto the stage to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela - he extended
his hand to Cuba's communist leader Raul Castro - who shook it and smiled back.
The handshake is a rare gesture between the leaders that reflects Nelson Mandela's spirit
of reconciliation.
The only previous known handshake between U.S. and Cuban presidents since the island's
1959 revolution was at the United Nations in 2000, when Raul's brother Fidel shook the
hand of then-U.S. president Bill Clinton in a chance encounter.
But Obama's gesture of friendship did not prevent him delivering tough words to leaders
who, he said, invoked Mandela's struggle against oppression while quashing opposition and dissent
at home.