Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards says Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cu­ba should move to­wards es­tab­lish­ing clos­er ties in the fields of cul­ture, tourism, sport and acad­e­mia.Richards said that as he ad­dressed guests at a State ban­quet in ho­n­our of vis­it­ing Cuban Pres­i­dent Raul Cas­tro at Knowsley, Queen's Park West, on Wednes­day.

Richards al­so sug­gest­ed di­rect flights be­tween T&T and Cu­ba.He said: "It was no small thing that Cu­ba has achieved world recog­ni­tion for re­search and de­vel­op­ment in med­i­cine."Cas­tro was in T&T for the fourth Cu­ba-Cari­com Sum­mit yes­ter­day at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Queen's Park West, Port-of-Spain.