The US and Cuba have agreed to restore a direct mail service, suspended 52 years ago at the height of the Cold War.
A pilot postal service will be launched shortly, but it is not clear when a full service will be implemented.
The move is part of the rapprochement process that was announced by presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro on December 17, 2014.
The United States and Cuba have since restored diplomatic ties and reopened embassies.
The two countries began re-establishing postal links in 2013, before the change of policy was announced.
Mail and parcels between Cuba and the US have been re-routed through a third country, usually Mexico or Canada.
In March, direct phone connections with the US were restored after more than 15 years.
Previously, phone calls also needed to go through a third country.
While delays in the mail services have caused frustration for decades, their use in the 21st Century is becoming limited.
Couriers carry mail and small packages between Miami and Havana on a regular basis.
As Cuba gradually opens up to the internet, new generations of Cubans are writing fewer letters than their parents and grandparents used to.
Despite remarkable improvement in relations in recent years, Cuba says that relations will not be fully normalized until the US pulls out of Guantanamo Bay and lifts an economic embargo imposed on the communist-run island.
The US broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1959 after Fidel Castro and his brother Raul led a revolution toppling US-backed President Fulgencio Batista.
Cuba established a revolutionary socialist state with close ties to the Soviet Union.
The following year, the US imposed a trade embargo covering nearly all exports to Cuba.
This was expanded by President John F. Kennedy into a full economic embargo that included stringent travel restrictions.
The embargo is estimated to have cost the Cuban economy more than $1.1 trillion and the US economy $1.2 billion a year.
President Barack Obama has also called for the embargo to be lifted, saying it had “failed to improve the lives of the Cuban people”.
However, the change needs to be approved by the Congress, which is controlled by the Republican opposition.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has said that the world is on the brink of a new Cold War, and trust should be restored by dialogue with Russia.
At an event to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, Mikhail Gorbachev said the West had “succumbed to triumphalism”.
He expressed alarm about recent Middle Eastern and European conflicts.
Tensions have been raised between the West and Russia over Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union.
Mikhail Gorbachev, 83, was attending an event at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
The landmark was inaccessible during the Partition of Germany, and is seen as a symbol of the country’s reunification.
“Bloodshed in Europe and the Middle East against the backdrop of a breakdown in dialogue between the major powers is of enormous concern,” Mikhail Gorbachev said.
“The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s already begun.”
Mikhail Gorbachev is attending an event marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (photo Reuters)
The former Soviet leader said that the West, in particular the US, had succumbed to “triumphalism” after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
For this reason the global powers had been unable to cope with conflicts in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and now Ukraine, he added.
He urged the West to lift sanctions on Russian officials – imposed over the annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict – and restore trust through dialogue with the Kremlin.
Mikhail Gorbachev, as leader of the USSR in the late 1980s, is credited with rapprochement with the West and creating a more liberal atmosphere which led to the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989.
On November 9 1989 East Germany opened its borders including the Wall, which separated East and West Berlin.
Its collapse led to a mood of euphoria, as many East Germans got their first glimpses of the West.
Hundreds are now arriving in Berlin to celebrate anniversary on November 9.
Festivities will include a rock concert and fireworks at the Brandenburg Gate. Other participants include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Polish president Lech Walesa.
David Greenglass, an American spy who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in one of the most high-profile espionage scandals of the Cold War, has died at the age of 92.
David Greenglass stole atomic research data while working on the wartime Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
After being arrested he then lied on oath and gave evidence which sent his own sister to the electric chair.
David Greenglass’s death was in July but it has only now been reported.
A native New Yorker, David Greenglass secured a role on the Manhattan Project after being drafted into the army following the outbreak of World War Two.
Manhattan Project was America’s top secret attempt to develop the world’s first nuclear weapon.
David Greenglass was an American spy who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in one of the most high-profile espionage scandals of the Cold War (phoot Wikipedia)
David Greenglass, a young convert to Communism, began passing highly classified information to his brother-in-law, Julius Rosenberg – a Soviet spy who was married to his sister Ethel.
After being arrested in 1950, David Greenglass testified that during one meeting with Julius Rosenberg he had seen Ethel typing up notes.
Speaking to a reporter years later, David Greenglass admitted that he had lied in order to save the life of his own wife Ruth, who had also been arrested after attending the same meeting.
Over the following years serious doubts began to emerge about Ethel Rosenberg’s execution.
“As a spy who turned his family in… I don’t care. I sleep well,” David Greenglass told the journalist in 2001.
The Rosenbergs were both executed for treason. David Greenglass, meanwhile, served 10 years of a 15-year sentence for espionage and was released in 1960.
David Greenglass died in New York City on July 1, according to the Rosenbergs’ sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol.
Michael and Robert Meeropol were aware of the death earlier but did not seek media attention.
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