Pope Francis, who played a key role in the diplomatic thaw between Washington and Havana, will visit Cuba in September after a scheduled visit to the U.S., the Vatican confirmed on Wednesday.

His visit to the communist-ruled island that has many Roman Catholics will be the third by a pope after Jean Paul II in 1998 and Benedict XVI in 2012.

A court ordered a Cuba-bound Chinese ship loaded with undeclared weapons to sail for Havana on Tuesday, saying the arms could not be unloaded and might pose a safety threat.

Da Dan Xia, which has been held since last month, was loaded with undeclared military equipment including about 100 tonnes of gunpowder, 99 projectile bases and 3,000 artillery cartridge cases, according to Colombian authorities.

Two Cuban opposition candidates failed Sunday to become the island's first non-Communist elected officials in decades.

Though they were defeated in local polls, Hildebrando Chaviano, a 65-year old lawyer and independent journalist, and Yuniel Lopez, a 26-year old computer scientist, had made history by surviving the first round of balloting and making it to the final vote.

President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday he had launched a probe into reports of Panama-based Venezuelans who may have illegally obtained wealth.

Maduro, whose socialist government is in economic crisis amid historically low oil prices, said on his television show "In Touch with Maduro" that he suspects many may have settled in Panama with laundered money or breaking his rules aimed at stemming currency flight.

President Barack Obama's move on Tuesday to drop Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism was "fair," the foreign ministry in Havana said.

"The government of Cuba acknowledges the fair decision of the president of the United States to take Cuba off a list on which it should never have been included," said a statement signed by Cuba's top official for relations with Washington.

U.S. President Barack Obama has agreed to take Cuba off a list of state sponsors of terrorism, the White House said Tuesday, a key step toward normalizing ties.

Obama submitted a report to Congress indicating his "intent to rescind" Cuba's inclusion on the list, which had been a major barrier to establishing embassies in Washington and Havana.

Cubans can still barely believe what they saw: A president named Castro sat down for talks with a "yankee" U.S. leader. But the islanders know the diplomatic thaw will take time.

The ice-breaking meeting between Cuban leader Raul Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Panama on Saturday was broadcast live on state-run television in the communist-ruled country.

U.S. President Barack Obama will decide in "the next days" whether to remove Cuba from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, top diplomat John Kerry said Sunday, refusing to divulge what he had recommended.

Obama held historic talks on Saturday with Cuban President Raul Castro, meeting for more than an hour on the sidelines of a Panama summit as the two countries seek to bury decades of Cold War-era hostility.

With a historic meeting with Cuba's president and a brief chat with Venezuela's leftist leader, President Barack Obama sought to turn the page on decades of rocky U.S. ties with Latin America.

The Summit of the Americas in Panama City became the stage for history-making diplomacy for Obama, who has intensified his engagement with the region in his second and final term in office.

U.S. President Barack Obama arrived home late Saturday, just hours after unprecedented face-to-face talks with Cuban President Raul Castro and a first meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Obama characterized his meeting with Castro -- the first sitdown between leaders of both nations since 1956 -- as "candid and fruitful," while the White House said the U.S. leader voiced support for a peaceful dialogue between Venezuela's government and the opposition during brief talks with Maduro.