Word: floridas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Cuba sure know how to hold a grudge. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, relations between the two countries quickly devolved into bitter arguments, political grandstanding and the occasional international crisis. And while Cuba lies less than 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Florida, the two nations have had no diplomatic relations since 1961 and use Switzerland as a mediator whenever they need to talk. But maybe - finally - things might change. On April 13 President Barack Obama announced that he would lift some longstanding restrictions, allowing Cuban Americans to visit and send remittances to their families...
...through its northwestern port, Mariel Harbor. Over the next six months 125,000 Cubans clambered onto boats and made their way to the U.S. in a mass flotilla. Castro also released criminals and mental-hospital patients, of whom as many as 22,000 landed on the shores of Florida; Cuba refused to take them back...
...knows that Cuba policy will be the marquee topic. "Any solution to the U.S.'s problems in Latin America has to go through Havana," says Larry Birns, head of the Council on Hemispheric Relations in Washington. Obama seems to acknowledge two conclusions staring at the U.S. from across the Florida Straits. The first is that the 47-year-old trade embargo, meant to dislodge the Castro regime, is a spectacular failure and should give way to commercial and diplomatic engagement with Cuba. The second is that Cuba still lacks freedom of expression and basic rights like opposition political parties. (What...
Experts like Erikson acknowledge that Obama has domestic political constraints, including the staunch opposition of Cuban-American pols like New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez and Florida Senator Mel Martinez to the bill that would end the travel ban. But even they know momentum is building inside the Beltway, as prominent Senators like Indiana's Richard Lugar now argue that the Cuban embargo has been a failure. Obama didn't need the once indispensable Cuban-American vote to win Florida's critical electoral votes in last year's presidential race, and the Cuban-American Foundation - a once hard-line exile group...
More important, getting Cuba right could resonate for Obama well beyond the Florida Straits. "Obama has made it very clear to the world that he cares about how U.S. foreign policy is perceived around the globe," says Erikson. "Given that the embargo is one of the most unpopular policies the U.S. practices in the world, with the United Nations voting 185 to 3 last year to condemn it, he risks making his Administration look a lot like the Bush Administration if he hangs on to it." That may not be the conclusion Obama comes to this week...