 "Barack Obama to end half century conflict with Cuba trip")
US President Barack Obama flew to Cuba Monday to bury the hatchet in a more than half-century-long Cold War conflict, but the arrest of dozens of dissidents just as his plane took off underlined the delicacy of the mission.
Obama's whirlwind trip is a crowning moment in his and Cuban President Raul Castro's ambitious effort to restore normal relations between their countries. While deep differences persist, the economic and political relationship has changed rapidly in the 15 months since the leaders vowed a new beginning.
Abandoning generations of US attempts to cut Cuba from the outside world, the US president, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters left Andrews Air Force Base for the short flight to Havana where they were spending three days.
Accompanying them was the first lady's mother, Marian Robinson.
It was not only the first visit by a sitting US president since Fidel Castro's guerrillas overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, but the first since President Calvin Coolidge came 88 years ago.
Seeking to leave a historic foreign policy mark in his final year in office, Obama was due to see old town Havana late Sunday, hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday and attend a baseball game before leaving Tuesday.
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For Cubans dreaming of escaping isolation and reinvigorating their threadbare economy, the visit has created huge excitement.
"A president of the United States in Cuba arriving in Havana on his Air Force One," wrote popular Cuban writer Leonardo Padura on the Cafefuerte blog.
"Never in my dreams or nightmares could we have imagined that we'd see such a thing."
For days, Havana's old town has been crawling with painters sprucing up the picturesque neighborhood and the Stars and Stripes -- so long the enemy flag -- has appeared over numerous buildings.
"This is an incredible thing," said Carlos Maza, a 48-year-old refrigerator repairman from Havana. He called it "a big step forward."
Obama's visit was highly anticipated in Cuba, where workers furiously cleaned up the streets in Old Havana and gave buildings a fresh coat of paint.
American flags were raised alongside the Cuban colours in parts of the capital, an improbable image for those who have lived through a half-century of bitterness between the two countries.
Many Cubans were staying home in order to avoid extensive closures of main boulevards. By early afternoon the Cuban government didn't appear to be calling out crowds of supporters to welcome Obama, as it has with other visiting dignitaries.
The city's seaside Malecon promenade was largely deserted this morning except for a few cars, joggers, fishermen and pelicans.
The president's schedule in Cuba is jam-packed, including official meetings with Raul Castro and an event with US and Cuban entrepreneurs. But much of Obama's visit was about appealing directly to the Cuban people and celebrating the island's vibrant culture.
Early Sunday cleaners swept the narrow, cobbled streets where Obama was due to stroll later and police, especially plainclothes, were out in large numbers.
But minutes before Obama took off for Cuba, police in Havana arrested dozens of people from a banned group demanding greater human rights, AFP reporters said.
The protesters were from the Ladies in White, formed by wives of former political prisoners. Police bundled them into vehicles outside a church where they attempt to hold protests almost every Sunday.
Stepping into history, President Barack Obama opened an extraordinary visit to Cuba today, eager to push decades of acrimony deeper into the past and forge irreversible ties with America's former adversary.