The wheels of Air Force One touched down at Jose Marti International Airport for the first time ever at 4:19 p.m. Sunday, kicking off a history-making presidential visit and breaking decades of tense relations with communist Cuba.
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Pres. Obama is the first USA president to visit Cuba in 88 years. “It is wonderful to be here”, he said.
The upgrade of Google’s Internet services to Cuba was revealed by President Obama during an interview with ABC News, in which he highlighted the opening up of business deals between the two countries as a sign of improving relations. While deep differences persist, the economic and political relationship has changed rapidly in the 15 months since the leaders vowed a new beginning.
The Miami Herald looks forward to today’s meeting between Barack Obama and Raul Castro.
As Air Force One landed in Havana, Obama cheerfully began the landmark trip by tweeting in local slang: “Que bola Cuba?” – or “What’s up?”
As Mr Castro and Mr Obama stood shoulder to shoulder before their talks, a military band played the Cuban anthem and then the United States anthem.
President Barack Obama, center, and first lady Michelle Obama, visit la Catedral de La Habana in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, March 20, 2016. “I mean, we are amateur hour, folks – amateur hour!” he said, according to CNS News. The first flight left the USA just before Obama’s trip as part of a pilot project.
Later in the day, Obama toured the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, greeting Cardinal Jaime Ortega. More than 50 years after Fidel Castro’s communist revolution ended relations between the two countries.
Paz’s family, including her mother, still lives in Cuba. “Let God will that this is good for all Cubans”. “I want to see a dialogue between these two countries”, he said. “More has to happen on the Cuban side”, Klobuchar said. The city’s seaside Malecon promenade was largely deserted Sunday morning except for a few cars, joggers, fishermen and pelicans.
The president’s schedule in Cuba is jam-packed, including official meetings with Raul Castro and an event with US and Cuban entrepreneurs.
But Obama will also have time to celebrate the diversity of culture on the island just 90 miles off American shores.
None of that has dissuaded Obama, who insists that any intransigence by Cuba’s government only proves why Cubans will be better off when they’re intimately exposed to American values. Officials have described said the Internet as a potential tool for the United States to exert influence over the island’s culture and politics.
Obama’s trip may also be particularly poignant for Afro-Cubans.
Since succeeding his brother Fidel in 2008, Mr Castro has orchestrated economic and social reforms with broad-based impact.
Yet Mr Castro has given little ground when it comes to changing Cuba’s single-party system or easing strict limits on media, assembly and political dissent.
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For Obama – who is scheduled to meet Tuesday with dissidents including the leader of Ladies in White, Berta Soler – the detentions threw a spotlight on the core challenge of the visit: how to work with the Castro government while expressing concern for its handling of human rights and free expression.
