CUBA POLITICS SECTION - Havana Journal > US Embargo
Sunday Herald, Scotland
Joanna Blythman on US interference
IT SEEMS that our banks are doing the United States’s dirty work these days. Lloyds TSB and Barclays have been telling British customers who have financial dealings with Cuba to take their business elsewhere. Why? Because they’re scared. Not of the British government - which nominally encourages trade with Cuba and has a policy of positive engagement with the island - but of the US.
Blinded by rabid anti-socialist, anti-Castro sentiment, for 48 years the US has conducted a vendetta against this peaceful Caribbean island by…
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By DEB RIECHMANN | Associated Press
President Bush said Thursday he will lift key trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime that Bush once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”
The announcement came after North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process. Bush said the move was “a step closer in the right direction” although he made clear the United States remains suspicious…
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Email received from LAWG.org
Dear Cuba Policy Advocates,
It’s time for us - and you - to get to work! A House subcommittee (Financial Services) yesterday added language to the appropriations bill that would ease travel restrictions for Cuban Americans wishing to visit family and would facilitate agricultural sales to Cuba. The result of yesterday’s subcommittee meeting is an appropriations bill that allows for Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba once per year and expands the definition of family to include cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. Get more details from this Reuters article http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1738649220080617…
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Guardian.co.uk (original title: Bank ditches UK firms trading with Cuba)
A Somerset health shop selling Cuban sugar and a London tobacconist dealing in Habanos cigars are among British businesses told by Lloyds TSB to cut their ties with the island or move their bank accounts.
Lloyds TSB has written to customers who have dealings with Cuba saying they will have to take their accounts elsewhere, apparently in the wake of threats by the US government, which operates an embargo against Cuba.
The US has said it will prosecute any businesses that have any dealings…
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By Ingrid Melander | Reuters
European Union states are nearing agreement on ending sanctions on Cuba in defiance of U.S. calls for continued pressure for democratic reform on the communist island, diplomats said on Tuesday.
Closed-door talks on the move are continuing as EU leaders host U.S. President George W. Bush for a farewell summit in Slovenia. EU foreign ministers could endorse the step at a meeting in Luxembourg next Monday, the envoys said.
The measures were imposed after a crackdown on dissent in 2003 and include a freeze on visits by high-level…
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By BETH REINHARD | Miami Herald
Democrat Barack Obama is slated to address the prominent Cuban American National Foundation on May 23, setting up a near-collision over foreign policy with Republican John McCain, who is delivering a major speech on Cuba three days earlier.
Their back-to-back appearances in Miami will offer one of the sharpest contrasts of the fledgling general election campaign: Obama favors pursuing democratic reforms by talking to the Cuban government and allowing Cuban Americans to freely travel and send money to the island. McCain defends the Bush administration’s hard-line stance aimed at debilitating…
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By JUAN O. TAMAYO | Miami Herald
The top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, Michael Parmly, will leave his post this summer and will be replaced by a top official at the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the Department confirmed Thursday.
Jonathan D. Farrar, now principal deputy assistant secretary at the bureau, has broad experience in Latin America, with previous postings at the U.S. embassies in Mexico, Belize, Paraguay and Uruguay.
State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke confirmed Farrar will succeed Parmly this summer. There was no immediate word on Parmly’s next…
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By PABLO BACHELET | Miami Herald
Sen. Christopher Dodd, one of the most influential Democratic lawmakers on Latin American issues, Wednesday proposed a new strategic partnership with the region that he said should be kicked off with a new policy on Cuba.
The partnership idea is not new—Sen. John Kerry proposed something similar when he ran for president in 2004—but Dodd’s speech before the U.S. Naval Academy’s Foreign Affairs Conference in Annapolis, Md., is significant because Dodd, a fluent Spanish speaker and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is considered a heavyweight among Democrats.…
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Pablo Bachelet | Cuban Colada
Robert Muse, a lawyer who advises corporations on doing business in Cuba, believes the next U.S. president can quickly overturn most sanctions against the island without consulting Congress.
Conventional wisdom says the executive branch surrendered to Congress the ability to lift the embargo in 1996, when the Helms-Burton Act was passed. The legislation says Cuba must meet stern standards like holding free and fair elections and not being ruled by Fidel or Raul Castro before being rewarded with a lifting of sanctions. This came to be known as “codifying” the…
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By Andrew Ross Sorkin | International Herald Tribune
The French liquor group Pernod Ricard is buying Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut vodka, for 55 billion kronor, or $9.24 billion, the Swedish government announced Monday.
The deal for Vin & Sprit, which was put up for sale by the Swedish government, ends one of the most hotly contested auctions for a liquor brand in years. Among the original bidders were Diageo, Bacardi and Fortune Brands.
Absolut, which started in 1979 and is best known for its advertising campaign depicting its distinctive bottle, is…
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