BREAKING NEWS

Obama and family tour Cuba's historic Old Havana

President Barack Obama toured Old Havana on Sunday (March 20) on a historic visit that opens a new chapter in US engagement with the island's government after decades of animosity between the former Cold War foes.
Traveling with first lady Michelle Obama, her mother and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, the president played tourist on his first night on the Caribbean island, taking in the sights of Old Havana.
Accompanied by the city's official historian, Eusebio Leal, the Obamas had a walking tour of the city museum at the Plaza de Armas where they could be seen looking at a painting of former US President Abraham Lincoln, a hero to Fidel and Raul Castro.
The first family then visited the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales and walked through the Plaza de Armas where they looked at statues of historic figures Christopher Columbus and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
The tour opens his three-day trip, the first by a US president to Cuba in 88 years. The trip is the culmination of a diplomatic opening announced by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in December 2014, ending a Cold War-era estrangement that began when the Cuban revolution ousted a pro-American government in 1959.