Some travel restrictions to Cuba to be lifted

[sabra]

Source: mcclatchy

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Monday will lift travel and gift restrictions for Cuban Americans, allowing them to travel more freely to the island and send additional financial help to family members.

The policy change is the most significant U.S. gesture to Cuba in decades and comes amid efforts in Congress to lift all travel restrictions to the island.

"This is an effort to reach out to the Cuban people in an effort to support the Cuban people's desire to freely determine their country's future," a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the White House has not yet made the official announcement, told McClatchy Newspapers. "The president has said this is the most direct means to open up the kind of space that is necessary to see democratic change in Cuba."

The changes also include opening up greater communication to the island and expanding the items that can be sent to Cuba, including clothing, personal hygiene items and fishing equipment.

Still prohibited: sending items to senior government officials and Communist Party members.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/997719.html

[TheMightyFavog]

1. Lift the embargo NOW.

All it ever accomplished was to keep Castro in power.

[Scurrilous]

2. Good news!

K & R :thumbsup:

[tosh]

3. About damn time.

[bikebloke]

4. Now how about letting the rest of us travel there.

Without flying that extra leg via Canada or Mexico.

[Dr.Phool]

6. Yeah, I'd like to visit Cuba.

I've heard they have some decent resorts there. Canadians can freely go.

This embargo has been bullshit from Day 1.

[iandhr]

7. The lesson

Progress happens slowly.

[goclark]

9. Yes!

[MrPerson]

5. Why don't we try selling them a few cars?

[Rebubula]

8. Those poor Cubans...

...once the embargo is fully rescinded (which it should have been years ago), the Cuban nation will be over run with overweight, pasty and loud Americans....of which I will be one :rofl:

[lumpy]

10. Glad Obama is making inroads in opening up relations with

Cuba. Might be of benefit to all of us. About friggen time.

[MADem]

11. More here--the announcement has been made.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cuba;_ylt=AgBZHtaJ_cRorMiMG_yTAJtH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJhOTlrNWI0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNDEzL3VzX2N1YmEEY3BvcwMyBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDb2JhbWFhbGxvd2lu

[Politicub]

12. The travel ban for all Americans should be lifted

Why do Cuban Americans get special treatment? Screw that. It's unamerican.

[robinlynne]

14. Thank-you! supporting the same old miami cubans......

[Judi Lynn]

15. The same ones who fled to Miami to avoid retribution from the revolution, who ran

the brutal, filthy, wildly corrupt Cuban government which Cubans fought against for years trying to overthrow, losing young men and women to torturers in Batista's secret police, etc., are also the ones who've been controling our national policy on Cuba all these long years, while making murderous raids back on the island, hiring people from Latin America to go in with bombs, and derailing ALL legislation in Congress attempting to alter this pathetic arrangement.

Just knowing what the little Miami "Godfather," Jorge Mas Canosa said to a newspaper from Spain, El País, should give anyone a clear sense of how well they have respected the host country which took them in, when they were afraid the Cuban people would want to punish them when they threw them out of office in Cuba:

Published Tuesday, November 25, 1997, in the Miami Herald
ROBERT STEINBACK

Mas Canosa's caricature had character, too

I had but one extended conversation with Jorge Mas Canosa, in the summer of 1994, shortly after the Cuban exile leader seemed to reveal a shocking contempt for native-born Americans in an article in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The reporter had asked if the Americans would ''take over'' Cuba after Fidel Castro's fall. Mas Canosa reportedly replied, ''That's bull----. They haven't even been able to take over Miami. If we kicked them out of here, how could they possibly take over our own country?''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald
http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/caricature112497.html

http://www.canf.org.nyud.net:8090/es/nosotros/jorge%20mas%20canosa%20y%20reagan-def.jpg http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu.nyud.net:8090/secciones/conclusiones/bushcanosa.jpg http://www.zpub.com.nyud.net:8090/un/jmc.jpg

The late "exile" self-appointed leader, Jorge Mas Canosa
(who believed the US would overthrow Cuba and make him the
next President) engaging in a little old fashioned arm-twisting
with three U.S. Presisidents.

[underpants]

13. "remittances" oh great!! more people wiring money while I am trying to get my milk bottle deposit

I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!!!!

[Scurrilous]

16. Judge rules Florida law on Cuba travel is unconstitutional

<snip>

"A federal judge Tuesday morning overturned a 2008 state law that increased registration fees and requirements for travel agencies specializing in trips to Cuba.

U.S. District Court Judge Alan S. Gold's decision comes just a day after the Obama administration announced lifting several travel restrictions to Cuba -- allowing Cuban exiles to visit the Island more than once a year, pushing for use of cellphones on the island and easing requirements for remittences to relatives.

In question was the 2008 Sellers of Travel Act approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Charlie Crist. The act required travel agencies in Florida selling trips to Cuba to post up to a $250,000 bond and pay up to $25,000 in registration fees.

Local travel agencies decried the measure as unfair because their financial requirements were nearly 10 times the amount of agencies not selling trips to Cuba or any of the countries listed as terrorist nations by the U.S. State Department.

Tuesday's decision was celebrated by the 13 local travel agencies that tried to stop the measure from going into effect by filing a federal law suit against the state in July."

http://www.miamiherald.com/1460/story/999046.html