The Obama administration has caved to demands from Fidel and Raul Castro's government to shut down a U.S.-sponsored electronic billboard in Havana. This is a symbolic step backward in America's mission to promote freedom
American and Cuban diplomats took the first small steps toward improving relations between our two countries with talks in New York this week on migration issues. The discussions revived a regular dialogue between Washington and Havana on migration issues for the first time in 6 years, and followed a pledge by President Barack Obama to reach out to all of America's neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.
A few weeks ago, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez got the kind of news that usually prompts cheers and emotion-filled toasts. The Cuban journalist and poet had been awarded the annual Freedom of Expression award by the Norwegian Writers’ Union. A delegation traveled from Oslo to the island nation to present the award, which included a prize of 100,000 kroner (about $15,775).
Why doesn't President Obama have time for Cuba's pro-democracy opposition?
Latin America's leaders are right to condemn the coup in Honduras -- but wrong to give Havana a pass on democracy.
Most Latin American leaders slammed the 47-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba at the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. Fidel Castro hadn’t been invited, so he ranted about the “blockade”—and President Obama—from Havana. This all sounds familiar, but there is an important new twist today. The Obama team, and shifts in Cuban American opinion, give hope that we may finally move toward eliminating the embargo—if we can jettison unrealistic demands and expectations.
After nearly 50 years, America's cold war embargo against Cuba appears to be thawing at last. Earlier this spring, the Obama administration relaxed controls on travel and remittances to the communist island by Cuban Americans, and last week it agreed to open the door for Cuba's re-entry to the Organisation of American States.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush recently had a face-to-face debate in Canada to discuss current affairs. The only Latin American nation mentioned in their conversation? Cuba.
The Obama administration has made an excellent first step to eliminate some restrictions on travel to Cuba, to loosen constraints on remittances, and to re-engage in migration talks. Positive, multiple lines of engagement are clearly the way forward. Broader contact and leverage with Cuba through additional commercial and people-to-people contacts will in time help promote a more pluralistic, less impoverished, and more open society.
If the United States lifted all restrictions on tourist travel to Cuba, what corporations would net the biggest gains? Two: Orbitz Worldwide of Chicago, Ill., and GAESA, S.A. of Havana.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush recently had a face-to-face debate in Canada to discuss current affairs. The only Latin American nation mentioned in their conversation? Cuba.
As the Obama administration slowly inches towards normalizing its relations with Cuba, pressure is mounting on the new president to lift the decades-old, and universally acknowledged, anachronistic embargo
In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
THE INVITATION to membership extended to Cuba Wednesday by the Organization of American States was long overdue. The United States' effort to continue Cuba's exclusion from the OAS was at best a historical anomaly, at worst a blunder that isolated not Cuba but the United States.
For 50 years, the Cuban people have suffered under Fidel Castro’s, and now Raúl Castro’s, repressive rule. But Washington’s embargo — a cold war anachronism kept alive by Florida politics — has not lessened that suffering and has given the Castros a far-too-convenient excuse to maintain their iron grip on power.
The diplomatic battle over Cuba's possible return to the O.A.S. is a labyrinth of paradoxes. Venezuela and its allies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras) want the island to return to that institution, from which it was expelled in 1962 because of its ties to Marxism-Leninism.
It’s past time for Cuba to rejoin the Organization of American States. But the U.S., and surprisingly Cuba itself, remain against the move.
Many Americans favor ending the trade embargo on Cuba, saying sanctions don't work and Cubans' lives will improve. But a recent AP report unwittingly proves that trade only props up the oppressive regime.
The now-famous photograph of Barack Obama sharing a handshake and mile-wide smile with happy Hugo Chávez recalled to mind a visit years ago of Philippine strong man Ferdinand Marcos to The Wall Street Journal's offices in lower Manhattan
OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza wants the group to legitimize the Cuban military dictatorship by making it a member.
The Obama team, and shifts in Cuban American opinion, give hope that we may finally move toward eliminating the embargo—if we can finally jettison unrealistic demands and expectations.
Sen. Arlen Specter has visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro three times in the past 9 years, and seems quite proud of the record. His second visit was shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack, where Specter made a big show of presenting an FDNY cap to Castro, who was responsible for the Hemisphere's first plane hijackings in 1958.
Despite a growing sense of anticipation coming out of the Trinidad Summit of the Americas last weekend regarding the possibility of a historic breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations, specialists here remain uncertain about how and even if that breakthrough will be achieved.
Geopolitics makes for strange bedfellows indeed. After President Barack Obama's performance at last weekend's Summit of the Americas (and before that, on a quick visit to Mexico City) nearly everyone in Latin America and the United States was applauding the new president and fawning over his impressive performance. Everyone, that is, except for American conservatives, such as Newt Gingrich, and ... Fidel Castro
Since Fidel Castro gave up power last year, the long standoff between Cuba and the United States has taken on the measured rhythms of a minuet, delicate steps from Havana met with restrained advances from Washington, each side hiding behind a pose of purpose that may mask their true intentions.
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