
Pope Benedict urged Cubans to search for authentic freedom and met with revolutionary icon Fidel Castro as he wrapped up a visit in which he said Cuba must change.

Pope Benedict urged Cubans to build a better, renewed and open society on Monday and pressed the Castro brothers regime to give the Catholic Church more liberties to help the country as it faced an uncertain future.

Cuba said it was unacceptable that it will not be invited to an upcoming hemispheric summit in Colombia and blamed the United States for insisting that Cuba be excluded.

The Cuban government has expressed its interest in attending the coming Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April in Cartagena, revealed Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Angela Holguin following a visit to Havana.

The 50th anniversary of the US trade embargo against Cuba on Tuesday was met with little fanfare on the island, where Cubans said it was a failed policy that had succeeded only in making their lives more difficult.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro presented a two-volume memoir at a public ceremony in Havana, where he referred to the mistake of believing that with socialism all economic problems are solved, official media said Saturday.

Cuban president Raul Castro arrived on Friday to Caracas for the XI summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of America, ALBA, and to participate in the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the frustrated military coup by then a young Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez, currently Venezuelan president.

Cuba’s best-known pro-democracy blogger said she was denied permission to leave her country after Brazil granted her a visa ahead of President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit to the Castro brothers’ island last week.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff met with Fidel Castro, the revolutionary hero of her youth, and held talks with his younger brother, President Raul Castro, on Tuesday in a visit to strengthen financial and economic ties with Cuba. On Wednesday Rousseff left for Haiti.

Visiting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff refused to criticize Cuba’s human rights record on Tuesday, saying the issue should not be used to score ideological points.