BBC News with Kathy Clugston

Cuba has announced plans to

lay off

huge numbers of state employees in the biggest shift to the private sector since the revolution in 1959. The Cuban labour federation said half a million jobs would go by March, and the total

redundancies

could exceed a million, one in five of all Cuban workers. James Read reports.

President Raul Castro had already signaled that he wanted to reduce the role of the state to tackle a deep crisis in Cuba's socialist economy, but the scale and speed of the job cuts are much greater than had been expected. A minority of Cubans already work for themselves, and there is a

thriving

black economy. But the private sector will have to expand hugely to create enough new jobs. In a country famous for its revolution, this is a dramatic change of course.

Reports from Washington say the US administration is expected to announce an arms deal with Saudi Arabia worth $60 billion. The deal, which would be the largest-ever US arms sale, would include advanced fighter jets and military helicopters. Paul Adams reports from Washington.

The United States and Saudi Arabia had been in negotiations for months, and it seems the fruits of those discussions will be announced in the coming days. Off the record, officials say the deal will include 84 new F-15 fighter jets and around 140 Apache and Black Hawk helicopters.

The administration is unlikely to