It was 8.10pm before I finally took to the track for the final of the triple jump at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. For the entire day, I'd been trying to kill time – speaking to people at home, having a snooze... anything I could do, really. I'd never have thought that training as a youngster at West Buckland School, in Devon, would have led to this moment. But here I was.

Two actors from a prize-winning film about Cuban defectors have emerged from hiding to confirm that they themselves are seeking political asylum in the US.

Hope of political reforms dismissed as Benedict XVI meets Raul Castro on tour of the island

The best way to discover more about the Caribbean's largest island is by bicycle, as a colourful circular tour from Havana reveals.

Johnny Depp plays a hedonistic journalist in Bruce Robinson's adaptation of Hunter S Thompson's debut novel.

It may be his first solo mission overseas on behalf of his grandmother but for the people of Jamaica there is only one question surrounding the visit of Prince Harry next week: where will he party?

Oil, foreign investment, free enterprise, and golf courses are on their way

The trouble for Usain Bolt in 2011 was getting out of his starting blocks too quickly – prompting his disqualification from the World Championship 100 metres final in Daegu, South Korea. In one sense at least, the world's fastest man does not intend to play a waiting game in 2012. His first race of London Olympic year will come next month.

Stephen Lawrence was ambitious, loved art and excelled at sport – but had a rebellious streak. He wanted to become an architect and was steadfastly working towards that goal. The tragedy for his family is that he was not able to realise his dreams, but has instead become a byword for racial intolerance and violence in Britain.

The opposition People's National Party secured a landslide election win after a campaign dominated by the economy, preliminary results showed.

Cuba says 38 Haitian migrants have died after a boat they were in sank off the island's eastern coast.

On Saturday the people of Haiti will mark a new chapter in their country’s history as Michael Martelly becomes the island nation’s 56th President.

One woman's tragic tale, beautifully told

Cuba is holding its first Communist Party Congress for 14 years. But it is a measure of the frenetic pace of developments elsewhere in the world and the low expectations that attach to set-piece gatherings in one-party states that it was not more keenly awaited. In the event, Raoul Castro produced a potentially epoch-making surprise. On the 50th anniversary of the speech by Fidel Castro that set Cuba on its communist course, his younger brother effectively declared it over.