More than 300 people paraded in a conga line in central Havana Saturday to the beat of drums and trumpets in a government-sponsored protest against homophobia.

"We must change consciousness," said Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro, who convened the parade as the head of a national center for sex education.

Cuban leader Raul Castro's daughter, a sexologist and supporter of gay rights, has urged Cubans to join a traditional "conga" dance against homophobia taking place in Havana on Saturday.

"We are the heirs of a strongly patriarchal Spanish culture, very homophobic and very discriminating," said Mariela Castro, whose father succeeded her uncle and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro as the island's president in 2006.

The United States does not foresee taking Cuba off its blacklist of countries accused of supporting terrorism, which also includes Syria, Iran and Sudan, an official said Wednesday.

"There are no changes in our list of state sponsors of terrorism," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in an email.

Cuba's foreign minister demanded Wednesday that Washington shut its controversial jail at Guantanamo Bay and return the long-held military base to Havana.

The comments by Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva came a day after U.S. President Barack Obama vowed again to shut the military prison, saying it was damaging U.S. interests.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with former Cuban President Fidel Castro on Saturday during a visit to strengthen the "strategic alliance" between the two leftist nations.

The two men spent much of their five-hour visit reminiscing about Maduro's predecessor and mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, who died last month after a long battle with cancer.

It's a wonder they move at all -- the big old Chevrolets and other American jalopies from the 1950s and 60s that ply the potholed streets of Cuba.

Now, ingenious Cubans have rigged them to run on propane and Cuban police are cracking down, out of fear there are "rolling bombs" on the country's roads, the official newspaper Granma reported Tuesday.

The Taliban on Thursday pledged to take revenge on U.S. troops in Afghanistan after guards at Guantanamo prison fired non-lethal rounds at inmates to quell unrest.

Guards at the U.S.-run prison in Cuba fired the rounds last Saturday to halt unrest as they relocated inmates into individual cells, U.S. military officials said.

FIFA chief Sepp Blatter on Wednesday condemned the deadly attacks at the Boston marathon, urging authorities to pull out all the stops in preventing such tragedies.

"What happened in Boston is a drama, a tragedy," the head of world football's governing body said in Spanish, speaking to reporters as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Cuba.

President Barack Obama did not personally approve Beyonce and Jay-Z's trip to Cuba, the White House said Thursday, after the U.S. rapper released a single online slamming criticism of their travels.

In "Open Letter," Jay-Z -- who with Beyonce worked to raise funds for Obama's re-election campaign last year -- boasts: "I done turned Havana into Atlanta... Boy from the hood, I got White House clearance."

Pop diva Beyonce and hip-hop star Jay-Z's controversial trip to Cuba was part of a cultural exchange and did not violate the economic embargo imposed on the island by the United States, a senior U.S. Treasury official said Tuesday.

Alastair Fitzpayne, the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, said in a letter to Republican lawmakers who had questioned the trip that the couple's high-profile visit had not broken any laws.