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President Donald Trump declared Friday he was restoring some travel and economic restrictions on Cuba that were lifted as part of the Obama administration's historic easing. He challenged the communist government of Raul Castro to negotiate a better deal for Cubans and Cuban-Americans.
President Donald Trump appears set to walk back some aspects of the normalization of US-Cuba relations conducted by President Barack Obama during his final years in office. According to a draft of an eight-page directive Trump is expected to sign on Friday during an event at Miami's Manuel Artime Theater - named for a leader of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion - the US government will restrict the number of reasons Americans can travel to the island and prohibit financial dealings with companies controlled by the Cuban military.
President Trump announced a dramatic reversal Friday of the Obama administration's Cuba policy, restoring restrictions on U.S. travel to the island and new prohibitions on financial transactions that benefit the communist regime's military. "We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer," Mr. Trump said in Miami.
Stopping short of a complete turnabout, President Donald Trump is expected Friday to announce a revised Cuba policy aimed at stopping the flow of U.S. cash to the country's military and security services while maintaining diplomatic relations and allowing U.S. airlines and cruise ships to continue service to the island. In a speech Friday at a Miami theater associated with Cuban exiles, Trump will cast the policy moves as fulfillment of a promise he made during last year's presidential campaign to reverse then-President Barack Obama's diplomatic re-engagement with the island after decades of estrangement.
President Barack Obama's 2014 opening with Cuba helped funnel American travel dollars into military-linked tourism conglomerates even as state security agents waged a fierce crackdown on dissent. The rapprochement also poured hundreds of millions in U.S. spending into privately owned businesses on the island, supercharging the growth of an entrepreneurial middle-class independent of the communist state.
The Edlin School, a private elementary and middle school on Sunset Hills Road in Reston, took some of its students on a spring break excursion to Cuba. "Every spring break, Edlin School arranges a trip for the parents and kids who want to go to a foreign country, and typically we will pick one that speaks Spanish or French because we teach Spanish and French as our primary languages at the school," said Bert Schreibstein, director of operations for the school.
Soot covers the unpainted facades of buildings on Tenth of October Boulevard. Old American cars from the 1950s, rebuilt with modern diesel engines and now privately operated as taxis, transit across asphalt, leaving behind a trail of black smoke and the unpleasant odor of gasoline.
In this Friday, April 28, 2017 photo, a bartender pours Cuban Havana Club rum as he prepares daiquiris at the Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba. The agency that controls Pennsylvania's state-owned wine and liquor stores is working to lift the embargo on Cuban rum.
An article appearing in the Spanish newspaper El PaA s , entitled "EspaA a no puede perder Cuba dos veces" , analyzes the machinations of the latest Spanish Governments' policies towards Cuba, and observes that "Rajoy's government seems determined to make up for lost time with Havana."
Herbie Hancock has twice before visited Havana to perform intimate solo-duet concerts with his Cuban counterpart Chucho Valdes, but at the end of April the two renowned jazz pianists will be collaborating on a grander scale. Hancock and Valdes will be serving as artistic directors for the 6th International Jazz Day.
Crews with the United States Coast Guard and Cuban Search and Rescue authorities are searching for a 23-year-old Floral City, Florida man who fell off of the Carnival Victory cruise ship 33 miles northwest of Pinar Del Rio, Cuba. Coast Guard Air Station Miami HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane crew launched to search for Paul.
Don't they know that it would be impossible for Cubans to follow a vegan diet, due to the scarcity of certain food items? Don't they know that street dogs in Castrogonia need much more than "dog treats", or that these dogs could be someone's next meal? Why would they be any better informed than the rest of the American people as a whole, or less attracted to the thrill of slumming in a repressive hell-hole and gazing at the ill-fed primitive natives with utter contempt? Why, Mildred, just last night I heard a very highly-placed world-class American scholar talking about the great Porterhouse steak he ate at a "private" restaurant in Castrogonia. He had no clue that such a meal is totally inaccessible to Cubans.
In recent weeks the regime of General RaAol Castro has "spooked," and is now galloping in the wrong direction, in defiance of time and history. The economic crisis is compounded daily, and the dictator and his military junta, far from taking steps to unshackle Cuba's productive forces, are restricting and choking them more and more.
Tourists in a old American car pass by Russian Vishnya class warship CCB-175 Viktor Leonov, docked, on February 26, 2014, at Havana harbor. The Vishnya class ships are used for gathering intelligence.
Yes, some Castronoids gathered in the capital city of the U.S. to "pay tribute" to their idol, spout noxious nonsense, and congratulate each other for holding the concept of human rights in contempt. One must assume that there is always some meeting of this sort taking place somewhere on earth: fans of Hitler, fans of Stalin, fans of Mao, fans of Pol Pot, fans of Saddam Hussein, etc, getting together to pat each other on the back for their common love of evil.
Little Havana is a place where many of us grew up and for me, the source of the fondest memories of my life: Visiting the "Army/Navy" store on Calle Ocho and then having churros across the street; riding my bike to Shenandoah pool; eating pan de gloria from the bakery across the street from the Wing Ditsy ; playing basketball at Brian park; Kung Fu movie double features at the Tower Theater; riding my bike down 27th avenue all the way to the Grove; eating freshly baked Cuban bread from Ayesteran; bowling at the Coliseum; block vs. block street football games on 10th street; the marzipan from Perezsosa Bakery.
First, there was the post-presidential election, post-Fidel death letter to RaAol Castro in December asking the Cuban leader to "allow a new era of freedom and opportunity for Cuba" or continue "down a path of poverty." Rick Scott, Governor of Florida, comments on ports in Florida doing business with the "ruthless dictator" Raul Castro".
As some in the left cheer the commutation of Oscar Lopez-Rivera's sentence, their romantic choice of a political prisoner in the U.S., a real political prisoner was arrested in Cuba. We are talking about Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, the well known dissident who got in trouble with the Castro regime years ago when he refused to perform abortions.
Ever since U.S. relations with Cuba appear to have normalized in the past year - air travel has opened, trade restrictions were lifted, and President Barack Obama visited the island nation - The Monitor's editorial board has called for the lifting of a unique refugee policy that has been in place for Cubans, but not offered to other immigrants who are seeking asylum. Commonly referred to as "the wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who cross onto U.S. land have for the past 22 years been immediately put on a path to citizenship and eligible for U.S. assistance programs.
The Cuban government hailed President Barack Obama's decision ending automatic legal residency for any Cuban who touches U.S. soil, while ordinary citizens mourned the end of an easy pathway to a new life in the United States. Average Cubans and opponents of the island's communist leaders said they expected pressure for reform to increase with the elimination of a mechanism that siphoned off the island's most dissatisfied citizens and turned them into sources of remittances supporting relatives who remained on the island.