Hurricane Paloma strengthened over the Caribbean and was approaching the Cayman Islands and Cuba with sustained winds of more than 185 kilometres an hour on Friday.

Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said on the eve of elections in the United States that the world needs a US president who is rational and intelligent, rather than mad.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with the ailing former Cuban president Fidel Castro, whom he said he found "very lucid and active."

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.

Washington  - Two players from Cuba's national football team, in Washington for a World Cup 2010 qualifying match, have gone missing, a team official confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa late Friday.

Havana  - "The last chance" - that is how Cuba's national football coach, the German Reinhold Fanz, defines the historic game that the team is set to play Saturday in the United States, in the Concacaf qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Venezuela and Russia plan to deepen bilateral ties, expanding economic, technological and military cooperation, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said Tuesday.

The South American country was one of Russia's most trusted partners, Sechin said after a meeting with Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizales.

Even as Ike continued to wreak destruction across Texas on Saturday, its costs were still being tallied, as Cuba reported another three deaths from the storm.

The general staff of the Cuban military said the death toll had risen to seven, up from the four deaths reported earlier this week.