Obama embarks on historic Cuba visit
US president arrives in Havana on a three-day trip a year after diplomatic ties were restored.
US President Barack Obama embarked on a historic trip to Cuba on Sunday more than a year after Washington reset its foreign policy towards the island following decades of Cold War animosity that almost led to a nuclear war.
The three-day trip - the first by a US president in 88 years - was unthinkable until Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed in December 2014 to re-establish diplomatic ties.
The US broke off ties with the communist nation of 11 million when Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro ousted a pro-American government in 1959.
On Sunday evening, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met Obama at the Jose Marti Airport after Air Force One touched down in Havana, 145km from the southern US state of Florida.
Cuban police, meanwhile, broke up the regular march of a leading dissident group, the Ladies in White, detaining about 50 people hours before Obama arrived. About 200 protesters have been briefly arrested in the past few days.
Obama will meet government critics on Tuesday. The leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, has been invited. She was among those detained on Sunday.
The Cuban government dismisses dissidents as mercenaries seeking to destabilise the country.
Plainclothes police blanketed the capital, Havana, with security while public works crews laid down asphalt to fill potholes, as the island nation prepared a red-carpet welcome for Obama and his family.
