TEMPLATE BREAKING NEWS

Announcement follows the release of American Alan Gross who has spent five years in a Cuban prison.

Obama will announce from the White House at 12 (5pm GMT) that the US will open an embassy in Havana and that he will ask Congress to lift the long-standing embargo on Cuba.

Gross had been sentenced to 15 years whilst working for USAid which Cuba considers to be an illegal organisation that aims to undermine the Communist government.