The US has turned off a Times Square-style news ticker – a source of irritation for the Castro government – at its diplomatic mission in Havana that since 2006 streamed propaganda and news into the night, western diplomatic sources said.

The measure is the latest in a series of initiatives by the Obama administration as it seeks to engage Cuba and to end 50 years of enmity viewed in Latin America and the Caribbean as a relic of the cold war.