Washington, Dec. 12 : A Senate Armed Services Committee report has blamed Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the abuses committed by American troops during interrogations at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq; the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba; and other military detention centers.

Paris - The France-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday named jailed Cuban journalist Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso its 2008 Reporter of the Year.

The award was bestowed on the dissident Cuban "for helping an independent press to survive in Cuba," the group said on its web site.

Havana  - For the second time in little over a week, retired iconicCuban leader Fidel Castro met with a high-level dignitary visiting the Caribbean island, keeping is meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday under wraps.

Medvedev had already finished the official portion of his visit with Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother who took over as president earlier this year.

Medvedev's official visit of less than 24 hours was the first by a Russian president to Cuba in eight years. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Russia stopped pouring financial aid into Cuba.

Havana  - Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday described as "magnificent" the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who also met Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

"It has been a magnificent visit," Raul Castro told reporters, after he and Medvedev laid a wreath at the Mausoleum of the Soviet Internationalist Soldier, which honours 68 soldiers who died in Cuba in 1962-1966, either while taking part in disaster relief work or as a result of accidents.

Medvedev and Fidel had an hour-long meeting during which they discussed the future of Russian-Cuban cooperation and international political issues.

Medvedev's official visit of less than 24 hours, is the first by a Russian president to Cuba in eight years.

Havana - Russia and Cuba are to revive their historically close ties, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro said after talks in Havana late Thursday.

Medvedev and Castro met for several hours and, in a demonstration of friendship, Castro also joined the Russian president in visiting a recently opened Russian Orthodox church in the capital of the communist country.

Moscow plans to step up cooperation with Havana in the area of nuclear energy as well as oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, Medvedev announced.

Washington  - Cuban President Raul Castro has said he is open to meeting US president Barack Obama at a neutral location, and suggested Guantanamo Bay as a possible venue.

Castro, in an interview with actor Sean Penn published online Wednesday in the Nation, a leftist US weekly, said he would not be willing to go to Washington and understands a US president would not want to travel to Havana.