The news of Pope Francis’ role in bringing about a new chapter in relations between the United States and Cuba demonstrates compellingly what Holy See diplomacy is able to achieve.

Now that the decades-long trade embargo between the U.S. and Cuba looks to be a thing of the past, Americans may soon be partying with Cuban goods like it’s 1959. Culturally, however, Cuba’s influence has been here all along.

President Obama's move to normalize relations with Cuba will test a theory that has been popular for years in Democratic circles, and a few Republican ones too. The Castro government doesn't fear the embargo and interminable hostilities with the United States; it has thrived on them, so the thinking goes. What worries the island's control-minded leaders far more is change.

Cuba has exchanged American citizen Alan Gross for three Cubans jailed in the United States. The prisoner swap is set to be the first step in a major overhaul of US-Cuba relations.

People getting all bent out of shape by the idea of USAID funding Cuba’s underground hip-hop scene need to drink a rum and coke and relax, according to a figure at the center of the controversy.

This week, as the Nobel Peace Prize was formally handed to a teenage Pakistani activist and an Indian child-rights campaigner, a Chinese group issued an alternate award to the retired Cuban leader, long regarded by Western counterparts as a tyrant and Cold War nemesis.

Tweeting in Cuba isn’t like tweeting in most other places in the world. With no easy access to Wi-Fi or 3G and no broadband, it’s not simple to get online. Only about 5% of people in Cuba use the internet. I’m one of the lucky ones, because the British embassy provides me with internet via satellite so I can blog, tweet or post to my heart’s content.

Amid the worst Ebola outbreak of our time, it has been the small island nation of Cuba that has provided arguably the most impressive policy response. Cuba's government has a long history of providing universal healthcare as a human right, a belief that was enshrined in the 1976 constitution.