French President Francois Hollande called Monday for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba during a historic visit to the island, the first by a Western leader since Washington and Havana moved to restore ties.

Speaking on the half-century embargo at the start of his Cuba trip, the first ever by a French leader, Hollande said France will do whatever possible to see that "the measures that have so badly harmed Cuba's development can finally be lifted, repealed."

The Catholic Church was key in helping to broker the historic reconciliation between the U.S. and Cuba, but its role in the communist island has not always been so easy.

On Sunday, Pope Francis will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Vatican ahead of a papal trip to the United States in September.

With a brand new Americas office in Mexico City, Amnesty International wants to tackle the "hidden crisis" afflicting human rights in the vast region, the organization's head said Tuesday.

In an interview with Agence France Presse, secretary general Salil Shetty said the first headquarters based inside the region, covering from North to South America and the Caribbean, will allow the rights groups to react faster to a slew of problems.

Colombian authorities said Tuesday they planned to investigate alleged sexual abuses of children by U.S. contractors and military staff.

The claims, published in February by historian Renan Vega in a report on talks between the government and leftist FARC guerrillas in Cuba, claimed that 53 minors were sexually abused by U.S. troops in the center of the South American country.

An appeals court delayed Tuesday the release of former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr from a Canadian jail in order to mull arguments that doing so would cause irreparable harm to Canada's diplomatic relations.

A final bail decision in the case has now been pushed to Thursday.

Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday praised Algeria's role in trying to resolve conflicts in neighboring Mali and Libya during a visit to the North African country.

Castro, who arrived Sunday in Algiers, told state television on the second day of a three-day visit that he held talks with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on "regional" issues.

Cuba's former president Fidel Castro has met with Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, local media reported.

Kishida, who on Sunday wrapped up the first visit to Cuba by a Japanese foreign minister, met the ailing revolutionary icon a day earlier at Castro's home east of the capital Havana, the Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro joined President Raul Castro at a huge May Day rally in Havana on Friday in a show of socialist unity minus the usual anti-imperialist rhetoric.

Amid a tropical rain shower, Castro saluted thousands of people as they passed the reviewing stand at the Plaza of the Revolution in the Cuban capital.

Two people have died as a result of torrential rains and high winds that damaged more than two dozen structures and flooded parts of Havana, local media reported Thursday.

The newspaper said the city was hit Wednesday afternoon by a line of severe thunderstorms packing winds of up to 98 kilometers (61 miles) per hour.

North Korea has increased its "material support" for terrorist organizations and should be placed back on America's list of nations that are state sponsors of terrorism, a report released Monday said.

The Pyongyang regime, at the time under the command of Kim Jong-il, was taken off the list in 2008 under the presidency of George W. Bush, who hoped to engage the reclusive nation in dialogue.