Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s condition remains “delicate” three weeks after his cancer surgery, the country’s vice-president said.

A 49-year-old grandmother and veteran endurance swimmer had to give up on her quest yesterday to become the first woman to swim unaided from Cuba to the Florida Keys, unable to close the gap on the last 26 miles of a more than 100-mile ocean odyssey.

A weakening Tropical Storm Paula dumped heavy rain on Cuba’s capital, Havana, turning some of the streets into shallow rivers and knocking out power before sliding along the island’s northern coast.

President Barack Obama is today expected to detail plans to shut the Guantanamo Bay camp and transfer detainees to US soil, a day after the US Senate blocked the move.

The US and Cuba, trading their warmest words in half a century, built momentum towards renewed ties, with President Barack Obama declaring he “seeks a new beginning” – including direct talks – with the island’s communist regime.

Hurricane Ike roared across Cuba today, blowing buildings to rubble and sending waves surging over homes.

THE US Supreme Court has ruled detainees held in the US military base at Guantanamo Bay have the right to appeal to federal courts in a fresh blow to the Bush administration.

Three ground zero workers who accompanied filmmaker Michael Moore on a trip to Cuba for medical treatment featured in his new movie 'Sicko' said today they were targeted by the US government because of their participation.

The United States has stopped press access to Guantanamo Bay as the prison comes under renewed criticism for the apparent suicides of three detainees last weekend.

Guantanamo Bay detainee Feroz Abbasi claimed American military police had sex in front of him while he was praying at the Cuban base, according to US Defence Department documents.

The US Government is in negotiations which could see almost 70% of detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to three countries in the Middle East.

US military officials will investigate charges of abuse against terrorist suspects being interrogated at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, authorities announced.

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.”

Osama bin Laden’s alleged bodyguard and chauffeur today becomes Guantanamo Bay’s first terror suspect brought before a US military commission that allows for secret evidence and no government appeals.

Around a million residents and tourists have been warned to leave parts of Florida over fears that Tampa and other parts of the west coast could be submerged by the massive storm surge when Hurricane Charley strikes the state’s central gulf coast today.

For the first time since the September 11 2001 attacks, a terror suspect held nearly incommunicado at a US prison in Cuba got his chance to convince his jailers that he should go free.

BRITAIN’S bizarre policy of charging released prisoners for bed and breakfast is bemusing, to put it mildly.

A DOCTOR working as a translator at the US prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested yesterday.

A CUBAN plane carrying 35 passengers and crew was hijacked on Wednesday night and forced to fly to Florida, where it landed in Key West under escort of US military jets, US and Cuban authorities said.

More than six British Muslims suspected of fighting for the al-Qaida terrorist network or the Taliban are to be sent to the United States military prison in Cuba, according to a report.

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.