
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed that it had called off invitations sent to Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, for the inauguration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, local media reported.

With 3G technology available only a fortnight ago, Cubans took their anger over to social media to complain for the shortage of bread on the island.

Latin American leftwing governments which strongly oppose Washington's policies for the region gathered in Havanna at the XVI Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples and the Treaty of Commerce of the Peoples (ALBA - TCP) to renew their regional commitment.

The governments of Spain and Cuba Thursday signed a memorandum of political consultations in Havanna which clears the path to talks regarding human rights, it was reported.

Russia has agreed to assist Cuba purchase modern weaponry by means of a 38-million-euro credit line, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak explained Friday after talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez at the Kremlin.

Cuba said this week it was doubling the amount of land it granted would-be farmers and the lengths of their leases in an effort to increase stagnating agricultural output. The state owns 80% of the land and leases most of that to farmers and cooperatives. The remainder is owned by some 400,000 private family farmers and their cooperatives.

Cuba is planning a series of potentially far-reaching changes, with a new constitution set to recognise the free market and private property, while dividing political powers between a president and a prime minister.

A Boeing 737 passenger jet carrying 105 people on a domestic flight in Cuba crashed on Friday shortly after takeoff from Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, officials and news media reported.

Miguel Díaz-Canel has been ratified on Thursday by the National Assembly of Cuba as the new president of the Council of State, the country's first leader in practice. The parliament ratified the former vice president with 99.83% of the votes of the deputies present. Diaz-Canel replaces the General Raúl Castro, who retires from power after 12 years at the head of the country. However, the new president clarified that Raúl Castro “will lead the most important decisions” for the country.

An era will end in Communist-dynastic Cuba on Thursday when President Raul Castro retires, handing over the reins to his right hand man Miguel Diaz-Canel, born the year after brothers Fidel and Raul led their 1959 leftist revolution. However after nearly 60 years of Castro rule, the change is not expected to herald sweeping reforms to the island’s state-run economy and one-party system, one of the last in the world.