Cold War melts

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. 

Yet much has changed since 2008 when Castro’s brother Raul took over as leader of Cuba and Barack Obama became US president. The countries yesterday set aside decades of tension at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City.

That symbolic encounter was preceded on Thursday by a meeting between US secretary of state John Kerry and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez. The last such meeting between the top Cuban and US diplomats was in September 1958. Both events mark a maturing in the US approach towards its southern Communist neighbour and could be one of the more enduring legacies of the Obama administration.