French President Francois Hollande called Monday for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba during a historic visit to the island, the first by a Western leader since Washington and Havana moved to restore ties.

Speaking on the half-century embargo at the start of his Cuba trip, the first ever by a French leader, Hollande said France will do whatever possible to see that "the measures that have so badly harmed Cuba's development can finally be lifted, repealed."

Cuba's former president Fidel Castro has met with Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, local media reported.

Kishida, who on Sunday wrapped up the first visit to Cuba by a Japanese foreign minister, met the ailing revolutionary icon a day earlier at Castro's home east of the capital Havana, the Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported.

Two people have died as a result of torrential rains and high winds that damaged more than two dozen structures and flooded parts of Havana, local media reported Thursday.

The newspaper said the city was hit Wednesday afternoon by a line of severe thunderstorms packing winds of up to 98 kilometers (61 miles) per hour.

The United States and Cuba will hold talks on human rights, one of the most delicate issues pending in their historic rapprochement, on Tuesday in Washington, Havana said.

The "bilateral dialogue on human rights... demonstrates Cuba's readiness to address any issue despite our differences," the deputy director of the Cuban foreign ministry, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, told journalists Thursday.

Russia and Cuba worked on their joint strategy against the U.S. economic embargo on the communist island Tuesday, during a visit by Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov, the first Russian cabinet member to visit Cuba since Washington and Havana announced they would set aside their Cold War enmity and renew diplomatic ties, met President Raul Castro at the start of a four-country Latin American tour.

Venezuela alleged Tuesday that Spain's former socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez had joined a plot of ultraconservatives to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro's embattled government.

Leftist Maduro, whose country is in economic freefall after adopting a government-run economy while oil prices slide, said the leftist Spanish statesman had signed up with a group of far-right plotters in Spain, Colombia and the United States.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived in Cuba on Monday for crucial talks aimed at normalizing ties between the European Union and the communist island state.

The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington in the last few months.

The European Union and Cuba held a third round of "frank" talks Wednesday aimed at normalizing relations, as Havana and Washington work through their own historic rapprochement.

The two-day session in Havana, part of a dialogue that began 11 months ago, is aimed at tackling sensitive human rights issues and finalizing an agreement "on political dialogue and cooperation," meant to turn the page on a decade of estrangement.

American socialite Paris Hilton is visiting Cuba, an island on which her family lost a hotel half a century ago after Fidel Castro came to power.

The hotel heiress posted a photograph of herself in Havana with the caption "Cuba baby!"

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled his ambitious plan to build a major Ottoman-style mosque in Cuba, saying it should be similar to a nineteenth century one on the Bosphorus in Istanbul, the presidency said Thursday.

Erdogan acknowledged after holding talks with Cuban President Raul Castro in Havana that Cuban officials had appeared to have already made an agreement with Saudi Arabia for the construction of a mosque in Havana.