Obama due in Cuba, ending half a century of conflict

March 20, 2016 20:38

US President Barack Obama is due in Cuba today to bury the hatchet in a more than half-century-long Cold War conflict that turned the communist island and its giant neighbour into bitter enemies.

Reversing generations of US attempts to cut Cuba from the outside world, Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters will arrive in Havana for a three-day trip.

It won't just be the first visit by a sitting US president since Fidel Castro's guerrillas overthrew the US- backed government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, but the first since President Calvin Coolidge came 88 years ago.

Obama, seeking to leave a historic foreign policy mark in his final year in office, was due to see old town Havana late today, hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro tomorrow, and attend a baseball game before leaving Tuesday.

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