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eridani

(51,907 posts) Sat Mar 19, 2016, 04:28 AM Mar 2016

Obama Set to Make First Visit to Cuba by Sitting US President in Almost 90 Years

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35816-obama-set-to-make-first-visit-to-cuba-by-sitting-us-president-in-almost-90-years

Whatever you think about President Barack Obama’s Sunday through Tuesday trip to Cuba, it clearly provokes strong emotions.

It’s the culmination of a process that began in mid-2013 with secret talks about freeing U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross, who was imprisoned in Cuba, and a group of Cuban spies jailed in the United States and then morphed into a rapprochement between the countries. They broke off relations on Jan. 3, 1961, after a year in which Cuba had seized U.S.-owned properties and become increasingly cozy with the Soviet Union.

There have been many historic moments since Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro announced on Dec. 17, 2014, not only that Gross and the spies would be going home but also that the United States and Cuba had agreed to normalize relations.

Embassies in both countries have reopened, there have been five sets of new trade and travel regulations by the United States that chip away at the embargo, commercial airlines are vying to offer 110 flights daily to Cuba and a direct flight carrying mail and parcels landed in Havana on Wednesday for the first time in decades. The two sides also meet regularly to discuss topics such as migration and environmental protection.

There have even been meetings on contentious issues such as human rights and U.S. claims for confiscated property, but the former adversaries have a long way to go on both. Although the United States has eliminated many barriers to doing business – about as much as it can with the embargo still in place – Cuba has moved much more slowly.