This weekend, Cuban President Raul Castro will preside over the island's Communist Party conference. The meeting comes a week after Cuban dissident Wilmar Villar died following a hunger strike. Host Scott Simon talks with reporter Nick Miroff about the ongoing economic restructuring in Cuba and the new ways the country has been dealing with dissidents.

In Mexico, where criminals are armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons, it may come as a surprise that the country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world. One community has begun to ask if it's time to make guns easier to obtain legally so they can defend themselves.

Cuban food has evolved very little since Fidel Castro came into power — the U.S. embargo has made it hard to import ingredients from abroad and few citizens have been permitted to travel. But a handful of Cuban chefs, including one who recently visited Washington, D.C., is determined to modernize the cuisine.

The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been prevented from leaving the country. He and others who work for foreign groups are under suspicion of supporting anti-government protesters — a charge he says is "patently false."

Just two months after the International Atomic Energy Agency released a detailed report on Iran's nuclear program, the agency is headed back to Tehran. It plans to look into the highly sensitive question of whether Iran is doing nuclear weapons work.

An epic, nine-hour film about the Holocaust has begun airing in Turkey. It's the first time such a film has aired on public stations in a Muslim country.