Word: havana
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John McCain's Florida campaign director, Arlene DiBenigno, just got an election-day boost from Havana. To win the nation's largest swing state, it's imperative that McCain hold on to South Florida's Cuban-American votes, which usually swing strongly Republican but which Democrats believe they can divide this year. Those voters may have gotten an added impetus to go for McCain a few hours ago when Fidel Castro, Cuba's ailing ex-President and scourge of the Miami exile community, voiced praise for (but didn't outright endorse) Obama: "Without a doubt," Castro wrote this morning...
...taking place fewer than 100 miles off U.S. shores. Despite the Bush Administration's hard line on Cuba, Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to exempt Big Oil from the embargo. That clamor is sure to rise - especially if Barack Obama, who is more open to dialogue with Havana, becomes the next President - now that Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, or Cupet, has announced a stunning new estimate of more than 20 billion bbl. bubbling off its shores. "This is not a game," Cupet's exploration manager, Rafael Tenreyro, assured reporters in Havana last week...
...secret communist government, hasn't offered much more evidence than that. Chris Schenk, who as USGS coordinator in the Caribbean led the 2004 survey, agrees that Cuban geologists "are very good." But he adds, "We would like to see more data." Still, Schenk notes, because of the embargo and Havana's insular information policies, "we can't converse with the Cubans...
...environmentalist complaints that both U.S. and Cuban offshore rigs will foul the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, embargo proponents on Capitol Hill have sponsored bills that would, among other sanctions, deny visas to the executives of foreign oil companies that drill oil in Cuba. Their reasoning: the more oil wealth Havana gains, the less incentive it has to pursue democratic reform...
That last part may well be true. But at the end of the day, U.S.-Cuba relations continue to exist in a Cold War time warp. As a result, in both Washington and Havana, 20 billion bbl. of oil might not be such a game changer after...