Word: embargo
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When the U.S. embargo on Cuba finally goes, no one will miss it as much as Fidel Castro. That much was clear Wednesday when the Cuban strongman led a reported 800,000 people in a protest march along Havana's oceanfront to denounce Washington's latest adjustments to the 38-year embargo. Now that little Elian Gonzalez is back at school, the embargo remains the most useful tool in Castro's ideological shed: It provides both an all-purpose excuse for the privations suffered by his people since the collapse of Cuban socialism's Soviet patron, and a nationalist rallying...
...have looked a little incongruous, perhaps, that the Cuban leader donned his sneakers and led the equivalent of half of Havana's population on a protest march the very day the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of legislation ostensibly relaxing the embargo. But a closer look at the measures contained in an agriculture spending bill makes clear that the easing of the embargo on imports of food and medicine is more symbolic than practical - Cuba would still be denied the credit facilities routinely used by countries trading with the U.S., rendering any new purchases extremely unlikely - and restrictions...
...truth, the "mistake" to which Clinton alludes probably has more to do with the election than with foreign policy. A neck-and-neck electoral race in Florida has seen both the White House and the Bush campaign dutifully endorsing the embargo to the hilt, but few administration officials speaking off the record are prepared to defend its soundness as a policy, while most of the wise men of Republican administrations past assembled as foreign policy advisers by Governor Bush have called for a review of the embargo. The Clinton administration's previous moves toward relaxing the embargo were torpedoed...
...depots, emptying nearly every filling station, propelling panicked buyers to strip milk and bread from market shelves, closing schools and businesses, provoking the Queen to grant Blair broad emergency powers. In the end, he didn't need them. The savvy protesters claimed "moral victory" and broke up their gas embargo before the nationwide disruption caused what Blair had predicted: "real damage to real people...
...supporting the international crackdown on blood diamonds, the cartel is also helping itself by preventing competitors from flooding the market with cheap gems. But while De Beers' cooperation with the embargo may spare the industry the sort of organized boycott that shook the fur trade in the 1980s, it probably won't stamp out trafficking. De Beers claims that only 3% of the global diamond supply comes from African conflict regions. London analysts believe the amount may be as high...