One of Cuba's best-known dissidents, Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, has died in a car crash, government and opposition sources said.
The 60-year-old was traveling in eastern Granma province at the time of the accident.
Oswaldo Paya died in a car crash on Sunday. Credit: Reuters
In 2002, Paya spearheaded a petition campaign calling for a referendum on one-party rule and submitted more than 30,000 signatures.
The petition drive was rejected by the government, but Paya emerged as the leading advocate of peaceful democratic change in Communist-run Cuba.
Hugo Chavez calls state TV after rumours he had died
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez telephoned state TV after rumours he had died Credit: Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has telephoned state TV, ending a virtual silence of nine days that triggered rumours that he had died while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba.
In the phone call from Havana where he is undergoing radiation therapy, the 57-year-old socialist leader said: "It seems we will have to become accustomed to live with these rumors, because it is part of the laboratories of psychological war, of dirty war."
Pope Benedict XVI has criticised the trade embargo imposed by the US on Cuba Credit: REUTERS/Max Rossi
Pope Benedict XVI criticised the 50-year-old US trade embargo on Cuba as he wrapped up a three-day visit to the island, urging reconciliation and greater freedoms.
He said: "May no one feel excluded ... from taking up this exciting search for his or her basic freedoms, or excused from this by indolence or lack of material resources, a situation which is worsened when restrictive economic measures, imposed from outside the country, unfairly burden its people."
The Pope did not cite the government by name, but in his address in Havana, he urged Cuban authorities to let the church more freely preach its message and educate its young in the faith in schools and universities.
600,000 people turned out to see the Pope in Havana. Credit: Press Association
The remarks came before Benedict's eagerly anticipated meeting with Fidel Castro.
Crowds at Revolution Square in Havana ahead of the Pope's mass. Credit: Press Association
In his remarks to the 600,000-strong crowd, the pope issued his strongest denunciation of religious intolerance yet in Cuba.
Crowds great the Pope in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Press Association
He referred to the biblical account of how people persecuted by the Babylonian king "preferred to face death by fire rather than betray their conscience and their faith."
He said people find freedom when they seek the truth that Christianity offers.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered for mass in Cuba. Credit: Press Association
The pope demanded greater freedom for the Catholic Church in Cuba during an unusually politicised Mass before hundreds of thousands of people today in the shrine of the island's communist revolution.
He also denounced "fanaticism" that tries to impose its truth on others.
Pope Benedict has met with Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro after saying mass in Havana, the Vatican has said.
The meeting comes towards the close of the pope's three-day visit to the Communist-run island, during which the pontiff has called for greater freedoms, and a bigger role for the Roman Catholic Church in Cuban society.
Pope Benedict XVI and Cuban president Raul Castro walk outside the Revolution palace at the end of their meeting in Havana Credit: AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
Pope Benedict XVI and Cuban president Raul Castro met for talks in the Palace of the Revolution, Havana, in a bid to improve relations between the government and the Roman Catholic Church.
A Vatican spokesman said former leader Fidel Castro, who may or may not meet with Benedict, did not attend the talks.
