Havana - Cuban President Raul Castro is set to visit Brazil in December for a summit between Latin America and the Caribbean in the north-eastern Brazilian city of Salvador.

"(Castro) is finally going to Brazil," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in confirming the upcoming visit in Havana, where Lula and Raul Castro presided over bilateral agreements Friday.

This is to be Raul Castro's first trip abroad since he took over power from his brother Fidel Castro over two years ago, before he formally became Cuban president in February.

New York - The UN General Assembly voted 185-3 on Wednesday to renew its annual demand that the United States end its trade embargo against Cuba.

The United States, Israel and Palau voted against the resolution adopted by the 192-nation assembly. Resolutions passed in previous years have not swayed Washington, which considers those decisions non-binding despite the overwhelming support by UN members.

Brussels/Havana - After a five-year cold spell, the European Union and Cuba have started warming up relations again, with the pledge of a 25-million-euro 
(32-million-dollar) EU contribution from its fund for environment, technology, trade, culture and catastrophic protections.

EU Commissioner Louis Michel made the announcement as part of a declaration signed Thursday in Havana.

Cordoba, Spain - Cuba is confident that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will become the first Spanish prime minister to make an official visit to the island since 1986, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Wednesday.

Zapatero would also be the first Western European leader to visit the island since 1999, when his predecessor Jose Maria Aznar and then Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio attended an Ibero-American summit in Havana.

Perez Roque spoke in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba, which he visited after meeting his counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos in Madrid on Tuesday.

Havana - Cuba is not at risk of "famine" after hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated its agriculture and infrastructure, Cuban Finance Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Garcia stressed Monday.

"There is no reason to speculate or raise expectations about a famine situation. None of those issues have any justification in our case," he told Cuban media.

"The population's food is guaranteed," Rodriguez Garcia noted.

New York, Sept 18 : Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has slept with 35,000 women in his 82 years of life, according to an upcoming documentary.

"He slept with at least two women a day for more than four decades - one for lunch and one for supper,” the New York Post quoted an ex-Castro official named "Ramon" as telling filmmaker Ian Halperin.

“Sometimes he even ordered one for breakfast," the official said.

"I don''t think he would have stayed on as long as he did if not for all the incredible women he had access to as president,” the official added.