An outbreak of cholera in eastern Cuba has killed at least three people, 130 years after the last known case of the disease was reported on the island.

Health workers have identified 53 people infected with the illness in the coastal town of Manzanillo.

One of the "Cuban Five" spies convicted on espionage charges has asked a U.S. court to modify the conditions of his release so he can return to live in Cuba, his lawyer told Agence France Presse.

Rene Gonzales, one of five Cuban spies convicted in 2001, was released on probation last October under orders to routinely report to the court.

Firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez now has more than three million followers on Twitter, making him the most popular Latin American politician on the site -- a milestone he celebrated on Monday.

"To the three million followers, I sent a special thank you! We will use this platform to pursue our battle of ideas!" Chavez wrote early Monday, shortly after the number of followers topped the three million mark.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home from Havana late Friday, declaring success in his fight against cancer after a week in which he received what was supposed to be his last session of radiation therapy.

"I have to tell you that in recent days we have successfully concluded this course of radiation therapy," the Venezuelan leader told local television upon his arrival at Maiquetia Airport.

The opposition Syrian National Council has signed a partnership deal with Miami-based opponents of Cuba's communist regime, which both sides said was aimed at fighting dictatorship in their countries.

The agreement was signed on Tuesday at a Miami hotel, officials said, noting that it constituted the creation of a united front and an exchange of ideas to boost democracy and respect for individual freedoms in Syria and Cuba.

A Cuban government delegation has arrived in South Korea for the first time in more than half a century, officials said Tuesday, as the communist island moves towards a market economy.

The four-member group were the first Cuban government representatives to visit the capitalist South since Seoul cut ties with Havana after the 1959 Cuban revolution, said Seoul's foreign ministry.

Two Cuban amateur actors -- cast members of an award-winning film -- disappeared en route to New York for a film festival and have emerged in Miami, saying they will apply for political asylum in the United States.

"In Cuba, we were talking about it, to stay," actor Javier Nunez Florian told the Miami-based, Spanish-language channel America TeVe in an interview that aired late Friday, appearing alongside actress Anailin de la Rua.

Two Cuban actors due to attend a New York premiere of their movie about defecting to America have failed to show up, organizers said Monday, in a bizarre case of life imitating art.

The two young actors were to have attended a screening of the movie "Una Noche" at New York's Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday night.

President Hugo Chavez announced in a Twitter message late Wednesday that he was flying home to Venezuela after his latest round of radiation treatment for cancer in Cuba.

"Hello my dear countrymen. I'm boarding the plane at Jose Marti Airport (in Havana). I've completed the second round of radiation therapy," Chavez wrote.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left for Cuba late Saturday to undergo a second round of radiation therapy as part of his back-and-forth cancer treatment in Havana.

State-controlled television showed the president boarding a plane at Maiquetia Airport accompanied by his daughter Maria Virginia and one of his grandchildren.