A group of 24 Cuban migrants landed early Monday on a beach in Key West on the southern tip of Florida after crossing from Cuba in a makeshift boat, local authorities said.

Some were treated for exposure to diesel fuel fumes, but the migrants -- 23 men and a woman -- were smiling in photographs posted by the Key West police after their arrival at about 4:00 am.

Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels, now negotiating a peace deal in Havana, said Sunday they hope to meet with Pope Francis on his upcoming Cuba visit.

Pope Francis will visit Cuba September 19 to 22 as part of a tour that will later take him to the United States.

Cuba objected Wednesday to being placed on the U.S. human trafficking list, saying it distorted the overseas work of its doctors and its requirement that students work as part of their education.

The U.S. State Department on Monday removed Cuba from its bottom rank of countries with the poorest records on human trafficking, noting improvements in Havana's handling of sex trafficking. But it placed it on a second-tier watchlist instead.

Cuba marked the anniversary of Fidel Castro's first armed uprising 62 years ago Sunday with calls for an end to the U.S. embargo and the return of the US naval base at Guantanamo.

The ceremony -- attended by Cuban president Raul Castro and some 10,000 of the country's ruling elite and their guests but not by the frail 88-year-old Fidel -- was the first since the restoration of relations with the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday vowed the United States wanted to be "good neighbors" to Cuba, but cautioned the road to full relations remained "long and complex."

Speaking Spanish alongside his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez only hours after diplomatic ties were restored following a five-decade hiatus, Kerry said Washington "welcomes this new beginning in its relationship with the people and government of Cuba."

At the U.S. mission in Havana, there were few outward signs Monday of its new status as an American embassy and the epochal shift in relations with Cuba after a 54-year break.

The former US Interests Section became an embassy just after midnight, but no U.S.flag will fly over the building on Havana's waterfront Malecon until U.S.Secretary of State John Kerry visits August 14.

The Cuban flag was raised at the U.S. State Department Monday, in a historic gesture to mark renewed diplomatic ties between Havana and Washington as embassies were reestablished in their respective capitals.

Diplomatic relations officially resumed at the stroke of midnight and the Cuban banner was hoisted a few hours later, in a move toward burying decades of enmity between the Cold War foes seeking to normalize relations.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met in Havana on Friday with Cuba's President Raul Castro, on a visit meant to pave the way for better diplomatic and trade ties.

The daily Granma reported that the two leaders had a "cordial" meeting on the second and final day of the German diplomat's stay in Cuba -- the first visit by a German foreign minister to the communist-ruled island nation since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday kicked off an two-day visit to Cuba aimed at relaunching full ties with Havana, against the backdrop of the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations.

Steinmeier -- the first German foreign minister to visit the communist-ruled island nation since German reunification in 1990 -- signed a series of political and economic agreements on day one of his trip.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will visit Cuba for two days from Thursday, Berlin said, following the historic thaw between the communist island-nation and the United States.

Steinmeier will be the first foreign minister of reunified Germany to visit Havana. During the Cold War, the Caribbean nation only had contacts with the former communist East Germany, and no West German foreign minister ever visited.