US president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro have talked by telephone about restoring diplomatic ties and will meet informally at a summit this weekend as they seek to set aside decades of hostility between two Cold War enemies.

IT would have been unthinkable for Cold War warriors such as George W Bush and Fidel Castro to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. 

Venezuela’s vice president flew to Cuba to visit the ailing Hugo Chavez and his family, while the leaders of Argentina and Peru also travelled to Havana saying they hoped to ask about the Venezuelan president’s condition.

Pope Benedict XVI is to wrap up his visit to Cuba with an open-air Mass in the shrine of the Cuban revolution, and a meeting with Fidel Castro.

The Vatican's foreign minister arrived in Cuba to discuss the island's economic plight, and rights activists hope his visit may get more political prisoners freed or at least moved to jails closer to home.