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| Obama speech to Cuban people will address Brussels attacks – live | Obama speech to Cuban people will address Brussels attacks – live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 2.18pm GMT | |
| 14:18 | |
| President Raúl Castro has entered the theater alongside other officials and Cuban notables, including the namesake for the theater itself: the 70-year-old former ballet star Alicia Alonzo. | |
| Cuban president Raul Castro receives sustained, coordinated applause as he enters theatre to hear Obama speech. pic.twitter.com/0vMFsyOi1A | |
| Famed Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonzo arrives at the Gran Teatro for Obama speech - the theater is named after her pic.twitter.com/HMone7349I | |
| 2.12pm GMT | |
| 14:12 | |
| Dissident: we need action from Obama, not words | |
| Jonathan Watts | |
| Barack Obama has just entered the theater, Cuban state TV shows, but some of the activists and dissidents he’s going to meet afterward are not included in the audience who’ll hear hims speak there. Latin America correspondent Jonathan Watts is with activists listening in from outside the hall. | |
| Ailer Gonzalez, a democracy activist and the wife of Antonio Rodiles, the founder of Citizen Demand for Another Cuba. She has a small purple mark by her left eye, bruising on her shoulder and broken glasses. | |
| “They beat us when we tried to get in line at the hotel yesterday,” she explained. | |
| Her husband is not here because he is among the civil rights activists who have been invited to the US embassy to meet the president after his speech this morning. This is because activists were blocked from meeting the pope in September. | |
| Gonzalez is very unhappy about Obama’s trip and has low expectations of the speech. “I saw his press conference with Raúl yesterday. It was naive. So far he has not clearly condemned human rights abuses in Cuba, despite brutal beatings and arrests of many of us at the demonstration on Sunday. | |
| “Following this insipid direction I expect in his speech he will talk only in general terms about freedom. It will be vague, maybe even poetic, but there will be nothing of significance. We need stronger action, not weak words.” | |
| Related: 'The oppression is high': Cuban police break up protest ahead of Obama's visit | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.15pm GMT | |
| 2.04pm GMT | |
| 14:04 | |
| Obama’s speech is intended for the Cuban people, and set to air on Cuban television (or at least carried by the YouTube channel of Foreign Ministry), but Cuban government officials are filing into their seats in the theater as well. | |
| Cuban Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel nervously eyes assembled guests & media ahead of Obama's big speech in Havana pic.twitter.com/oIkBcxcbiM | |
| 1.55pm GMT | |
| 13:55 | |
| Some shots of el Gran Teatro, where Barack Obama will soon address the Cuban people and where my colleague Dan Roberts is reporting for the Guardian. | |
| Theatre where Obama will "speak to the people" is beginning to fill up, but it feels more like a night at the opera pic.twitter.com/IHg7kTZtlS | |
| Eight senators and more than two dozen representatives joined Obama on the trip to Cuba, and most of them seem to be in the theater, Dan reports. Five of the members of Congress are Republicans, including two of the senators. | |
| This feels more like the State of the Union than Cuba. Senators Durbin, Klobuchar and Leahy just walked in by press. pic.twitter.com/FtNanjCnvm | |
| The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson is also in the hall: “The Grand Theater of Havana is looking splendid; there’s a lot of anticipation for Obama’s speech.” | |
| #El Gran Teatro de La Habana esta esplendido; aca hay mucha expectativa por el discurso de #Obama. #CubaVisit pic.twitter.com/fynCWhvtQZ | |
| 1.45pm GMT | |
| 13:45 | |
| Lisa O'Carroll | |
| My colleague Lisa O’Carroll is outside the theater meeting Cubans around Havana. They’ve told her that though Barack Obama’s visit is exciting, nobody knows much about how it’s actually going or whether they’ll even get to see him. | |
| Good morning from Havana where the Obama visit is, as far as the Cuban public are concerned, a virtually private visit, witnessed by the world’s media and the Cuban elite but not ordinary citizens of the capital. | |
| Because there is no internet in the city outside the luxury hotels and special “wifi parks”, few in Havana seem to know much of Obama’s schedule this morning other than their city centre is in complete lock down. | |
| An army of volunteers is operating a human barrier at a six block radius from Parque Centrale, site of another symbolic speech on this three day historic trip. | |
| It means nobody, apart from those who live in the old city, will get to see anything other than his lengthy convoy speeding down the ocean hugging boulevard, the Malecon. | |
| His speech, scheduled for just after 10am, is at the Gran Teatro de la Habana will be made in front of an audience of 1,000 invitees. | |
| 1.29pm GMT | 1.29pm GMT |
| 13:29 | 13:29 |
| Welcome to our rolling coverage of Barack Obama’s second day in Cuba, a historic trip that was cast into shadow Tuesday morning by a series of explosions in Brussels that have left more than two dozen people confirmed dead. | Welcome to our rolling coverage of Barack Obama’s second day in Cuba, a historic trip that was cast into shadow Tuesday morning by a series of explosions in Brussels that have left more than two dozen people confirmed dead. |
| The president will speak on the explosions, at least one caused by a suicide bomber, at about 10am ET, White House officials said. | The president will speak on the explosions, at least one caused by a suicide bomber, at about 10am ET, White House officials said. |
| His remarks will be part of a longer, previously planned speech to the Cuban people at el Gran Teatro, a colonial-era theater that stands by the capitol building. Obama will then meet dissidents and local leaders at the new US embassy. | His remarks will be part of a longer, previously planned speech to the Cuban people at el Gran Teatro, a colonial-era theater that stands by the capitol building. Obama will then meet dissidents and local leaders at the new US embassy. |
| This afternoon, Obama and Cuban president Raúl Castro will attend an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team. On Monday Castro and Obama held the first bilateral talks between an American and Cuban president since revolutionaries took over the island in 1959, and at a press conference afterward Obama vowed an end to the US trade embargo. | This afternoon, Obama and Cuban president Raúl Castro will attend an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team. On Monday Castro and Obama held the first bilateral talks between an American and Cuban president since revolutionaries took over the island in 1959, and at a press conference afterward Obama vowed an end to the US trade embargo. |
| At the same conference, Castro demanded the return of Guantánamo Bay and angrily defended Cuba’s record on human rights, denying the existence of political prisoners and criticizing the US for its lack of healthcare, education and equal pay. Obama was pressed by reporters – and by Cuban activists – to criticize the Castro regime for its repression of speech and other freedoms. | At the same conference, Castro demanded the return of Guantánamo Bay and angrily defended Cuba’s record on human rights, denying the existence of political prisoners and criticizing the US for its lack of healthcare, education and equal pay. Obama was pressed by reporters – and by Cuban activists – to criticize the Castro regime for its repression of speech and other freedoms. |
| A bit of baseball diplomacy is expected at Tuesday’s game: not only will secretary of state John Kerry and American and Cuban diplomats attend, but Colombian and Farc negotiators are expected in the stands. The US and Cuba have been working to broker a peace between Bogotá and the Farc rebels, who have waged a 50-year war in Colombia and are on the US list of terror groups. | A bit of baseball diplomacy is expected at Tuesday’s game: not only will secretary of state John Kerry and American and Cuban diplomats attend, but Colombian and Farc negotiators are expected in the stands. The US and Cuba have been working to broker a peace between Bogotá and the Farc rebels, who have waged a 50-year war in Colombia and are on the US list of terror groups. |
| Finally, Obama will depart Cuba at about 4pm ET, ending the first visit by a US president to the island since Calvin Coolidge sailed there by battleship in 1928 and hailed the young country: “Today Cuba is her own sovereign. Her people are independent, free, and prosperous, peaceful, and enjoying the advantages of self-government.” | Finally, Obama will depart Cuba at about 4pm ET, ending the first visit by a US president to the island since Calvin Coolidge sailed there by battleship in 1928 and hailed the young country: “Today Cuba is her own sovereign. Her people are independent, free, and prosperous, peaceful, and enjoying the advantages of self-government.” |
| Related: 'Born to play': Cuba sees exodus of baseball talent as MLB comes knocking | Related: 'Born to play': Cuba sees exodus of baseball talent as MLB comes knocking |