President Raul Castro

Communist Cuba has lifted a ban on some farmers buying supplies, the latest sign that new President Raul Castro is looking to individual initiative to stimulate food production. Agricultural sources said Monday that Cuba will soon open stores for farmers to buy tools, herbicides, boots and other supplies for the first time since the state took over all the country's shops in the 1960s.

Two former top Cuban political figures who were fired from the Cabinet by President Raul Castro said they had made "errors" and resigned from their other official posts, completing a stunning fall from grace. Former Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and former Cabinet chief Carlos Lage, both of whom had been seen as emerging leaders, were dismissed by Castro on Monday in a shake-up that brought eight new ministers and merged four ministries into two.

Vilma Espin Guillois, the wife of acting Cuban President Raul Castro and one of the communist nation's most politically powerful women, died Monday, the government announced. She was 77. Cuban state television said that Espin died Monday afternoon after a long, undisclosed illness. An official mourning period was declared from 8 p.m. Monday until 10 tonight.

Cuban President Raul Castro made the rare gesture Wednesday of "lamenting" the death of a political prisoner who succumbed after an 85-day hunger strike, according to international news agencies reporting from Havana. Castro spoke during a tour of Cuba's Mariel port with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and a statement containing his remarks was sent to Havana-based journalists. He was commenting on the death Tuesday of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year-old plumber imprisoned in 2003 who was serving a 36-year sentence for disobedience of the government, among other charges.

For 50 years, Cubans have been prevented from leaving their country by an anachronistic and repressive travel policy that has aptly been compared to a paper version of the Berlin Wall. The government's announcement Tuesday that it plans to end this inhumane system was long overdue and more than welcome. Since shortly after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Cubans who wanted to leave the island (which is slightly smaller than Pennsylvania) have been required to obtain an exit visa that is not only too expensive for the average citizen but often denied for arbitrary or political reasons.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited old Cold War ally Cuba on Thursday on the last stop of a Latin American tour aimed at reviving relationships that have frayed since the Soviet Union's collapse. Medvedev arrived in Havana from Venezuela, where he met with socialist President Hugo Chavez and agreed to help the oil-rich country start a nuclear energy program. Russian officials deny that Medvedev's trip to Latin America -- traditionally considered in the U.S.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro looks healthy, and he praised U.S. President Obama, visiting Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said Wednesday. Her comments came after recent speculation that the 82-year-old former president was near death. He hasn't appeared publicly since he had major intestinal surgery in July 2006, and rumors intensified after he suspended his newspaper columns last month.

A Russian anti-submarine destroyer and two logistical warships docked in Cuba in a nonmilitary visit Friday, the first of its kind since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The arrival was an extension of a tour that has included stops in Venezuela and Panama and shows Moscow's desire to flex some muscle in the United States' backyard after Washington supported the former Soviet republic of Georgia in its recent battle with Russia.

Bricklayer Orlando Zapata Tamayo didn't commit murder. He didn't plot an assassination or the violent overthrow of the government. He was arrested on March 20, 2003, in Cuba, while taking part in a hunger strike to demand the release of political prisoners, and was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of showing contempt for Fidel Castro as well as public disorder and disobedience, according to Amnesty International. Over the next six years, he is believed to have had eight more hearings and was convicted at least three more times, bringing his total sentence to about 36 years -- a figure his friends say may be inexact because the proceedings were secret.

Juan Almeida Bosque, a comrade of Fidel Castro since the start of his guerrilla struggle more than half a century ago, died of a heart attack Friday in Havana, government media announced. He was 82. One of three surviving rebel leaders who still bore the title "Commander of the Revolution," Almeida was a major figure in the battle to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and through the early years after the Jan. 1, 1959, triumph of the revolution. His death "is a reminder of what everyone knows, which is that the original generation is in its final laps," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Washington-area think tank the Lexington Institute.