While in Washington, Rodriguez was crystal clear about what Cuba’s priorities are in the evolving relationship: lifting the blockade – the Cuban term for the embargo, the return of the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, and reparations for economic and human damage caused by the embargo and terrorist acts against the island.
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Fidel’s birthday celebration comes the day before Secretary of State John Kerry and hundreds of guests and reporters converge on the newly opened US embassy to hoist the flag to begin a new era in US-Cuban relations.
Gone, too, are the signs that during Fidel Castro’s rule surrounded the U.S. mission, accusing the United States of financing terrorism and committing genocide in Cuba.
Obama also said he would be moving to empower the Cuban people by loosening the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba through a series of executive actions that make it easier for American citizens to travel to Cuba and trade with the island’s growing class of private business owners.
But as they’ve was employed to replace connections, the main target transported to entertaining a central authority that often encounters the dissidents as Simply.S. mercenaries. Some wore Obama masks, saying it was President Barack Obama’s fault that the Cuban government is growing bolder in moving against them.
President Obama announced on December 17, 2014, his intentions to normalize diplomatic ties with Cuba, and the two countries have been working to thaw their 54-year estrangement.
Relations with the US were broken in 1961 as he and fellow revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara led Cuba rapidly into a socialist model allied with the Soviet Union.
The three Marines didn’t realize that flag would be the last to fly over the U.S. Embassy in Havana for 54 years.
Just on Sunday, protests were held around the United States to mark the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
“It’s one step more for peace”, Tracy said.
A U.S. secretary of state has not visited Cuba since 1945. As NPR’s Lauren Leatherby reported in July, Republicans including Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee are all against restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba, despite public opinion favoring normalization. The Americans are also claiming compensation for US-owned property, such as real estate, that was confiscated when Castro took power.
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“That is a government-to-government moment, with very limited space, by the way, which is why we’re having the reception later in the day at which we can have a cross-section of civil society including some dissidents”, Kerry told the Telemundo network Wednesday evening. Chief among them are U.S. Sen. About 90 activists, including some who oppose the resumption of diplomatic relations, were held briefly over the weekend.
