Barack Obama on Sunday became the first US president in 88 years to visit Cuba, touching down in Havana for a landmark trip aimed at ending decades of Cold War animosity.
 “Que bola Cuba?” Obama tweeted on landing, using Cuban slang to ask what’s going on. “Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.”
Obama is not only the first sitting US president since Fidel Castro’s guerrillas overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, but the first since President Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
Obama hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday and attend a baseball game before leaving Tuesday.
Lawmakers including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were with Obama, while a delegation of political and business leaders was traveling separately.

But minutes before Obama took off for Cuba, police in Havana arrested dozens of people from a banned group demanding greater human rights, AFP reporters said.
The protesters were from the Ladies in White, formed by wives of former political prisoners. Police bundled them into vehicles outside a church where they attempt to hold protests almost every Sunday.
Republicans and some human rights activists have criticized Obama for dealing with Castro, given the lack of political, media and economic freedom in a country where the Communist Party retains tight control.
Dissidents called for “radical change” on the eve of the visit, but the Castro government warned that lectures on democracy would be “absolutely off the table.”
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes insists that the subject will be brought up. Obama will meet members of Cuba’s beleaguered opposition and on Tuesday will give a speech at the National Theater carried live on Cuban television.
Cuba’s regime, which for decades defined itself as the people’s bulwark against the Yankee enemy, has bowed to the fact that Cubans would rather do business than make war.
And as if Obama’s arrival were not enough to illustrate the sea change in Cuba, the Rolling Stones—a symbol of the cultural imperialism that communist leaders raged against—are playing a free concert in Havana on Friday.

 Source:  AFP, 21 March 2016