Cuba announced the elimination of its Ministry of Sugar on Thursday in a sign of how far the symbolic crop has fallen since its heyday when much of the population was mobilized to the countryside at harvest time to help cut cane.
The Roman Catholic Church denounced acts of abuse by pro-government crowds against a prominent Cuban opposition group, adding Monday that the government of President Raul Castro has assured it that officials were not behind the violence.
Dozens of opposition activists have been detained in Cuba in the past five weeks, an outlawed rights group said Tuesday, blaming President Raul Castro for the crackdown.
A C-130 military transport plane crashed into a Moroccan mountain Tuesday in bad weather, killing 78 people, the state news agency said. It reported three survivors.
In a Marxist country, where virtually all economic activity is regulated, and where supermarkets and ration shops run out of such basics as sugar, eggs and toilet paper, you can get nearly anything on Cuba's thriving black market — if you have a "friend," or the right telephone number.
When Raul Castro acknowledged recently that it was time to hand over power to younger leaders, few were expecting the 80-year-old president to name somebody even older than himself as his No. 2.
Cuba has published revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara's journal from the guerrilla campaign he fought with Fidel Castro.
Raul Castro has begged patience from those seeking a generational change in Cuba, saying the country still lacks young leaders with the experience to take the revolution forward 52 years after he and his brother came to power.
Embracing a recent invitation by the Castro brothers, Jimmy Carter visited Cuba last week. "We greeted each other as old friends," gushed the former president after his meeting with Fidel Castro.
