Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, to be released from a US prison in September, was due in court in Florida today for a hearing on an extradition request from France.

The CIA recruited a former FBI agent to approach two of America’s most-wanted mobsters and gave them poison pills meant for Fidel Castro during his first year in power, according to newly-declassified papers.

The older son of Cuban president Fidel Castro said his father was recovering and in good spirits.

DANIEL Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary and US Cold War enemy, headed toward a dramatic return to power in Nicaragua’s presidential election, early results showed yesterday.

Cuba, seeking to reassure its people after Fidel Castro temporarily stepped down from power for surgery, released a statement from the long-time leader saying his health was stable and the defence of the island guaranteed, even as it sent more police today into neighbourhoods that have seen civil disturbances in the past.

George Galloway told a Cuban TV audience today that US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were ”drowning in a wave of bloodshed” and should be sent to jail.

ELECTION fever is in the air, so our publicity-seeking independent TDs went into overdrive this week.

CUBA lay behind the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald and its agents provided the gunman with money and support, an award-winning German director has claimed in a new documentary film.

A former Cuban citizen who says she was tortured with drugs and electricity as a political dissident filed a £5m (€7.3m) lawsuit against Cuban President Fidel Castro and others in his government in Tampa, Florida.

Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque says US president George Bush should not attend the Summit of the Americas in Argentina this weekend, because he was neither liked nor respected in Latin America.

RESCUERS in inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles pulled nearly 250 people from flooded homes yesterday after huge waves churned by Hurricane Wilma flooded the capital’s coastal highway and adjacent neighbourhoods of old, crumbling buildings.

Diego Maradona headed a ball with fellow soccer legend Pele as his top guest, hobnobbed with movie stars and entertainers and made a splashy debut as a TV talk show host.

Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon has called on the US government to release five Cuban men serving long prison terms on espionage conspiracy charges after a US federal appeals court threw out their convictions and sentences.

Cuba began an island-wide ban on smoking in public places such as shops, theatres, and office buildings today.

Demonstrating he retains firm control over Cuba after fracturing his knee and arm in a fall, President Fidel Castro told of conducting government business by mobile phone during an ambulance ride and later refusing general anaesthesia.

CUBAN President Fidel Castro tripped and fell after leaving the stage at a graduation ceremony, fracturing a knee and arm but later returning to say that he was “all in one piece.”

Cuban President Fidel Castro tripped and fell after leaving the stage at a graduation ceremony, fracturing a knee and arm but later returning to say that he was “all in one piece”.

Fallen football legend Diego Maradona has returned to Cuba to resume treatment for cocaine addiction after a relapse confined him to a psychiatric hospital in his native Argentina and sparked unsuccessful attempts by his family to keep him at home.

Hurricane Ivan battered the Cayman Islands with ferocious 150mph winds today, threatening a direct hit as it flooded homes and ripped up roofs and trees.

Hurricane Ivan lost its catastrophic capabilities as it skirted Grand Cayman today, but it still uprooted trees, burst the banks of canals and flooded some homes with winds near 155mph.

Hurricane Ivan has weakened slightly as it left behind a trail of destruction in Jamaica and bore down on the Cayman Islands with winds close to 155 mph, according to the US National Hurricane Centre.

Hurricane Ivan’s deadly winds and monstrous waves bore down on Jamaica tonight as more than half a million people to flee from its path.

CUBA has broken off diplomatic ties with Panama after the outgoing Panamanian president pardoned four Cuban exiles the communist government accuses of trying to kill President Fidel Castro.

President Fidel Castro led a sea of Cuban demonstrators past the US diplomatic mission today to protest at new US measures aimed at squeezing the island’s economy and pushing out Castro.

Former Argentina captain Diego Maradona has left hospital and been moved to a specialist clinic in the Buenos Aires suburbs for further treatment after his recent illness.

PERU’S ambassador to Havana has been ordered back to Lima after Fidel Castro publicly criticised Peru for backing a United Nations resolution condemning Cuba’s human rights record.

President Fidel Castro called on Europe to stop mirroring the United States’ policies toward the communist-run island, continuing his attacks on EU nations in a televised speech.

AMERICAN troops yesterday made what could be a crucial intelligence discovery - thousands of microfilm cartridges and hundreds of files in a Ba’ath Party enclave in central Baghdad.

Sixteen Cubans who were travelling aboard a Cuban airliner that was hijacked over the island nation and diverted to Key West, Florida, have returned home.

President Fidel Castro, the world's longest ruling head of government, was today elected by parliament to a sixth term as Cuba's leader.

President Fidel Castro, the world’s longest ruling head of government, was today elected by parliament to a sixth term as Cuba’s leader.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has showed up for the presentation of a new book, making his first public appearance almost two weeks after a serious infection in his leg forced him to rest out of the spotlight.

CUBA’S President Fidel Castro has said on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis that Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev helped create the conflict

Cuba’s President Fidel Castro has said on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev helped create the conflict by misleading US president John F Kennedy – indicating that there were no nuclear weapons on the communist island.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has decided what he would like to do next after 43 years in power.

US President George W Bush has refused to lift his country’s trade embargo on Cuba unless President Fidel Castro releases political prisoners, holds independently monitored elections and accepts tough new US conditions.

Former US President Jimmy Carter has called on US to end its 40-year economic embargo against Cuba.

The former US president Jimmy Carter is arriving in Cuba today, for a six day visit aimed at creating closer ties between the two neighbours.

Oliver Stone is in Cuba to research a possible documentary about the island.

A Cuban spy who dug ditches and fixed vents for six years while counting planes at a US Navy base in the Florida Keys has received a life prison sentence.

Sinn Fein MPs should go into the House of Commons chamber instead of just using offices they will be allocated after a controversial vote at Westminster this week, Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid said today.

Former MP Bobby Sands and nine republican hunger strikers gave their lives 20 years ago because they believed in the right of the people of Ireland to shape their own destiny, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said today.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has been officially welcomed to Cuba by President Fidel Castro at an education rally in the capital Havana.

Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams, is defending plans to meet Cuban President Fidel Castro during his four-day visit to the country.