The Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was due to arrive in Havana on Thursday at the start of a six-day visit that he said he hoped would include a meeting with Raul Castro, who is likely to succeed his brother Fidel as Cuban president, writes Robert Mickens. Fidel Castro stepped down this week.

Cardinal Bertone planned his trip to the Caribbean island nation some months ago in order to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Pope John Paul II's historic January 1998 visit to Cuba. Vatican Radio reported that a meeting between the cardinal and the country's foreign minister was already planned for Monday, but with Cuba's National Assembly poised to appoint the younger Castro as president on Sunday, there were hopes that the Vatican's highest-ranking official after the Pope would be able to meet the new Cuban leader. 

"History will say if it is a good day," said leading dissident and lay Catholic Oswaldo Paya of Castro's departure. Raul Castro should first "free all political prisoners and establish freedom of expression, press and assembly".

(See Clare Dixon, page 16.)