Chronicle on Cuba - February 2006

US-Cuba Relations

February 2: US oil executives and government representatives met with Cuban officials to get a firsthand idea of the oil and gas potential of that country's offshore, in spite of a 45-year-old US embargo. The three-day meeting in Mexico City is aimed at building awareness in the US of the energy potential of Cuba, in case of an eventual softening of the embargo. "For the first time Cuba has something the US needs (…) We can do without rum and cigars but the US needs new sources of oil," said Kirby Jones, president of consulting firm Alamar Associates, which is organizing the meeting. (International Oil Daily, 2/2/06)

February 2: Assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs, Thomas Shannon, said in Paris that “no one can impose a political model in Cuba”, but he was confident that democracy will eventually emerge on the island. Shannon discussed the issue of a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba with European Union officials in Brussels, prior his departure for Paris, where he met high-ranking French officials as part of a tour of European capitals. (EFE, 2/2/06)

February 3: Several scholars at the University of Miami role-played a possible scenario in Cuba following Fidel Castro's eventual death, one in which Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, was seen as taking over and there was no instant, dramatic change on the island. "There will be a succession and not a transition in Cuba. This is one of the possible scenarios, not the only one, but it's the one we think is most probable," Jaime Suchlicki, the director of UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, told the press. Suchlicki played the role of the head of the general staff of the Cuban armed forces, General Julio Casas Regueiro, in the simulation performed at the campus in Miami. (EFE, 4/2/06)

February 3: United States government officials said that they had asked the owner of a hotel in Mexico, which is part of an American corporation, to expel a Cuban delegation that was meeting with American oil executives. The request was made by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which told Starwood Hotels, the owner of the Sheraton Maria Isabel in Mexico City, that American law prohibited it from supplying services to Cuban individuals or companies. The move is the latest in what seems be a hardening by the Bush administration of the trade embargo against Cuba. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, Molly Millerwise, said, ''The hotel acted in accordance with US sanctions.'' A spokeswoman for Starwood Hotels, Nadeen Ayala, confirmed that the Treasury Department had asked the hotel ''to have the Cuban nationals leave.'' (The New York Times, 4/2/06)

February 4: The eight Cuban migrants found alive on Elbow Key on February 2 had been afloat for seven days in the Florida Straits, their food and water supply gone. Then the sea turned on them, slamming their makeshift vessel against a jagged reef, and sending them all tumbling into the water, said Manuel Felipe Prieto, who lives in Miami and is the uncle of one of the victims, Yuley Parra, 22. Prieto's account comes from his conversation with Raidel Martinez Chavez, the migrant taken to a hospital in Marathon to treat an infected thumb and lacerated arm. Prieto said Martinez lost part of his finger as he swam toward land through the razor-sharp reef, and that many of the other migrants were injured. The survivors told Coast Guard officials that six others had died while attempting to reach shore after their homemade vessel broke apart. This group of Cubans was not the group of 15 that the Coast Guard had searched for last week. ''The two had no correlation,'' said Coast Guard spokeswoman Gretchen Eddy. "That other group is still missing.'' (The Miami Herald, 4/2/06)

February 4: A meeting between Cuban officials and US energy executives was moved to another hotel after the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, under pressure from the US government, asked the Cubans to leave, the event's organizer said. Kirby Jones, president of the US-Cuba Trade Association, said the US government called Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., and pressured the chain to ask the Cubans to leave, arguing that the US company was violating a 45-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba. Sheraton Hotel officials in Mexico City declined to comment. The meeting was the first private-sector oil summit between the two countries. It resumed at the Colon Mission Reforma Hotel. (AP, 5/2/06)

February 5: A leading Cuban newspaper lambasted Washington for allegedly pressuring a US-owned hotel in Mexico to kick out Cuban energy officials who were meeting with US oil executives. "It's obvious that the Bush administration has taken a further step with this new provocation against Cuba," said an editorial in Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the Communist Youth Union. The article -- which was not an official statement but likely reflected the Cuban government's stance -- was published after a Mexico City meeting between Cuban oil officials and US business executives was briefly disrupted, allegedly by pressure from Washington. Juventud Rebelde asked rhetorically whether the incident was the result of "arrogance or impotence," and suggested that US President George W. Bush's administration was tightening sanctions because it feared the island's strengthened alliances with leftist governments in the hemisphere. "Those from the North are not only -- and with good reason -- worried," the paper said. "They are also ornery." (AP, 5/2/06)

February 6: Cuba complained about the expulsion of a group of Cuban officials from a Sheraton hotel in Mexico City, calling the move a "mean action" against Cuba and a "trampling" of the sovereignty of the Mexican people. "The tentacles of the blockade and the criminal economic war of the government of the United States against Cuba are ready to extend to any corner of the planet, to the detriment of the sovereignty and legislation of other states," the official daily Granma said in an editorial. [Editorial de Granma] (EFE, 6/2/06)

February 6: Cuba hoisted 138 huge black flags bearing a white star in front of the US diplomatic mission in Havana, blocking an electronic sign streaming news and political messages. After the flags were raised, Cubans began a 24-hour vigil in front of the mission, during which they vowed to hold huge posters with the faces of victims of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, a string of Havana hotel blasts in the late 1990s, and other events they blame on the United States. “The flags represent the nation’s mourning for over 3,400 Cubans killed by US-sponsored violence since the 1959 revolution,” said Carlos Alberto Cremata, son of the co-pilot of a Cuban airliner downed by a bomb blast, killing all 73 aboard. “They are white stars over a black background, representing the light of a people that are in pain and mourning for their children and families,” Cremata said at the flag-raising ceremony, attended by Castro, other leaders, relatives of the dead and selected young people. (Reuters, 6/2/06)

February 7: Florida's two US senators, Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson, have radically different views about the increasingly controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy for Cubans coming in the US by boat. Martinez says he favours going back to policy from more than a decade ago, when virtually all Cuban migrants were rescued by the Coast Guard and brought ashore. Nelson supports keeping the 1994 policy that usually returns Cubans caught at sea but wants it more ''fairly'' enforced so Cubans who reach any portion of the United States, even an unconnected bridge, are allowed to stay. Martinez, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hopes to persuade colleagues to hold hearings on the US-Cuba migration accords, which stopped a rafter exodus and led to the wet-foot, dry-foot policy. (The Miami Herald, 7/2/06)

February 7: A group of American Catholic activists, who staged a protest outside the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in December, said they had been warned by a government agency that they might face penalties for breaking the US travel ban to Cuba. The group of 24 activists from Witness Against Torture, included a priest and a 79-year-old nun who marched 50 miles (82 km) to the Guantanamo base to protest against the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects held there. They prayed and fasted for four days outside the base while trying, unsuccessfully, to visit detainees. (Reuters, 7/2/06)

February 8: In his recent State of the Union address, US President George Bush cited his concerns about threats by such outlaw nations as North Korea, Syria and Iran, but never mentioned a longtime nemesis - Cuba. This omission bothered a former Bush cabinet member and one of the president’s most ardent supporters in the Senate - US Senator Mel Martinez (Republican—Florida) – who expressed his dismay in letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the president’s national security advisor, Stephen Hadley. Moreover, the President never even mentioned the Western Hemisphere in the address, wrote a surprised Martinez, a Cuban-born refugee from Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. With constant anti-US squawking from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales – both of whom are closely aligned with Castro – Martinez hopes to prevent Latin America’s socialist-communist influence from encroaching upon American interests, while our collective attentions are drawn to other regions of the world. (NewsMax.Com, 8/2/06)

February 9: Two men accused of smuggling 14 Cuban migrants into the United States have been charged in federal court, authorities said. Umberto G. Gonzalez and Larry A. Mitchell are charged with illegally bringing aliens to the United States, the US Attorney's Office said. A 38-foot boat driven by Gonzalez ran on Little Duck Key, an uninhabited island accessible only by watercraft, authorities said. Fourteen people on board claimed to be Cuban nationals, and were taken into US custody on the island. The boat was heading to the United States from Cuba, and refused to stop when approached by US authorities, the US Attorney's Office said. (AP, 9/2/06)

February 10: Cuba criticized the United States for exerting its "arrogant imperial power" in pressuring a US-owned hotel in Mexico to expel Cuban officials meeting with American oil executives. "We feel terribly bad for all that has happened, which has shown just how far the United States will go to assume the right to ignore the Mexican government and people," said an official note taking up most of the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma. [Un suceso verdaderamente penoso ] (AP, 10/2/06)

February 10: A woman who tried to visit detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba last year has received a questionnaire from the US federal government about the trip. Sheila Stumph of Raleigh was one of 10 protesters who got the letter in January from the US Treasury Department. She and her husband, Scott Langley, were among 24 protesters who flew to Cuba in December and tried to visit the detainees. They were stopped at the gate of the base, but stayed there, fasting and camping for four days. The protesters could be charged with violating the travel ban to Cuba, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and $250,000 (euro208,850) fine. (AP, 10/2/06)

February 13: Defense lawyers and prosecutors are opening a new phase in the battle over five Cuban intelligence agents whose convictions were thrown out by a federal appeals court that found Miami was too anti-Castro to allow for a fair trial there. "There was too much going on the heels of the Elian Gonzalez saga. There was too much pressure on jurors to return a fair verdict," said defense attorney Paul McKenna, referring to the young Cuban castaway who sparked a high-profile custody battle in 2000 between his relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba. In a brief filed with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which was to rehear the case on February 14, prosecutors argue that there wasn't enough pretrial publicity to justify moving the trial out of Miami. They also write that the jury -- which did not include Cuban-Americans -- was approved by the defense. The defense has argued that any juror living in a community so saturated with strong feelings couldn't be impartial, regardless of their background. McKenna had originally asked the trial be moved 23 miles north to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (AP, 13/2/06)

February 13: An organization of US businesses said the administration should rethink how it enforces the Cuban trade embargo following a recent incident in which a Mexico City hotel expelled a Cuban delegation attending an oil conference. William A. Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents hundreds of US businesses, said the threatened use of US sanctions "undermines government-to-government cooperation on important security and economic issues and damages the goodwill of the United States among the people of Mexico." "Given the wholly negative backlash from the extraterritorial application of US sanctions, I hope that OFAC will refrain from applying such measures in the future," Reinsch said in a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow. (AP, 13/2/06)

February 13: US Treasury Secretary John Snow has no plans to reconsider a decision by an office under his control to force a US hotel chain to oust Cuban diplomats from a hotel in Mexico City, his spokesman said. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers US economic sanctions against other countries, required a Sheraton hotel in the Mexican capital to evict 16 Cubans who were staying there for a conference with US energy companies earlier this month. Sheraton is owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. "The law is the law, and OFAC is an enforcement agency that is statutorily required to enforce the law," spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters at a briefing. "It's not a question for the secretary of the Treasury to rethink how the law is enforced -- that's not his role with respect to the activities of OFAC," he said. (Reuters, 13/2/06)

February 14: Government and defense lawyers sparred over whether five Cuban intelligence agents could have gotten a fair trial in Miami at the same time that the politically charged Elián González custody case was topping the headlines. The government argued that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta should deny the agents' request for a new trial because there was no evidence the jurors had any prejudice about the guilt or innocence of the defendants. "Nothing indicates that any member of the jury was influenced by anything going on outside," said David Buckner, assistant US attorney for the Southern District of Florida. But two defense lawyers said the events surrounding the González case inflamed the community, making it impossible to be impartial about any case dealing with Cuban Americans. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit of Atlanta threw out all the convictions in August, ruling that pretrial publicity combined with pervasive anti-Castro feeling in Miami didn't allow for a fair trial. The government asked the full appeals court to reconsider. The five men have acknowledged being Cuban agents, but said they were spying not on the United States but on US-based exile groups planning terrorist actions against the Castro government. (Sun Sentinel, AP, 15/2/06)

February 15: Fifteen Cubans sent home after they landed on a former Florida Keys bridge should be returned to the US, their attorneys told a federal judge while dropping a request that he clarify the government's wet-foot, dry-foot policy. Relatives of the Cubans filed suit last month, calling the removal unlawful. They initially asked that the judge clarify the definition of US soil under wet-foot, dry-foot. Under that policy, Cubans who reach US soil are generally allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are sent back. During the hearing, attorney Kendall Coffey urged US District Judge Federico Moreno simply to rule on whether the 15 migrants should be allowed to return to the United States. "I might as a lawyer, and as someone committed to these issues, prefer a broader ruling," said Coffey, a former US attorney. But sensing that Moreno was loathe to step into the political minefield of whether the US government's Cuban immigration policy should be revised, he urged the judge "to avoid the constitutional questions" and simply rule on whether the abandoned bridge counted as land. (AP, 15/2/06)

February 16: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Venezuela and Cuba ''sidekicks'' of Iran and dangers to Latin American democracies. Rice said there was a need to present ''a united front against some of the things that Venezuela gets involved in,'' and hinted that Venezuela was linked to a recent political crisis in Nicaragua. ''Frankly, one of the problems that we face is that you have a bit of a relationship, or quite a relationship, between Cuba and Venezuela (…) which I think is a particular danger to the region,'' Rice told the House International Relations Committee, where she testified on the State Department's 2007 fiscal budget. (The Miami Herald, 17/2/06)

February 16: Cuba brought to the UN General Assembly the eviction of Cuban businessmen, under the United States´ Helms-Burton Act, from a hotel in Mexico. The issue is part of Item 18 of the Assembly’s agenda titled, "The need to end the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba." The document includes the February 8 letter by Cuban Permanent Ambassador to the UN Rodrigo Malmierca exposing the embarrassing incident as an example of the extraterritorial nature of the US blockade of Cuba. (Prensa Latina, 16/2/06)

February 17: Cuba submitted a provisional 60-player roster for the World Baseball Classic, making its participation in next month's international tournament official. The final 30-man roster must be submitted by March 3, five days before its first game, against Panama in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The provisional rosters for the other 15 teams were submitted on January 18. (AP, 17/2/06)

February 17: The Bush administration is reviewing the way it implements economic sanctions against Cuba after a US-owned hotel in Mexico ejected a Cuban delegation from its premises and triggered a diplomatic row, officials confirmed. Representatives from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the State Department and the Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide met to discuss Cuban sanctions. The meeting came a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a House panel that "dislocations" caused by the sanctions would be looked at. She said the administration is seeking to enforce policies more effectively to ensure that the communist government of Fidel Castro is "not capable of replicating itself later on." "Where there are dysfunctions or dislocations, of course, we have to go and we have to look to see what some of the actual impact is," she said, noting that she had discussed the incident during a meeting with the Mexican foreign minister. (Knight Ridder Newspapers, 17/2/06)

February 18: Cuba has agreed to import more US corn as part of a memorandum of understanding signed recently with the US Grains Council (USGC) and has expressed interest in continued imports of distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Under the agreement, Cuba will buy 700,000 metric tons (27.5 million bushels) of US corn in 2006. The value of the agreement is estimated at nearly $100 million based on recent corn prices. “This agreement represents a significant increase in the amount of US corn Cuba intends to import this year over previous years,” said Davis Anderson, USGC chairman. (Western Farm Press, 18/2/06)

February 19: The Cuban government cooperates with backdoor travelers; customs officials generally do not stamp the passports of Americans when they enter. "All travelers are legal as far as we're concerned," said Miguel Alejandro Figueras, a Cuban tourism official. US sanctions limiting travel to Cuba have waxed and waned in the last four decades. Travel loosened during the Clinton administration; it has tightened during the Bush administration. US backdoor travelers risk penalties ranging from a warning letter to $65,000 fines. (Los Angeles Times, 19/2/06)

February 21: Cuba said that a woman died in an attempt by people smugglers to get a group of emigrants into the United States and accused Washington of encouraging illegal immigration. The incident occurred on February 20 when Cuban authorities learned of an attempt to leave the island, organized with the help of people in the United States, from a point on the coast of La Habana province, the official daily Granma reported. Authorities found the body of a woman on the shore that was left behind by a group of 14 emigrants, among them women and children, aboard a Scorpion inflatable boat. Granma did not say what the woman died from, but it did report that a man and another woman who were unable to get on the boat were arrested. Cuban patrol boats were not able to catch the boat, which was intercepted several hours later by a US Coast Guard vessel some 35 miles north of the port of Mariel, which is 45 kilometers (about 28 miles) west of Havana. [Granma Editorial] (EFE, 21/2/06)

February 21: The US intelligence community has added Cuba to its classified list of nations at risk of instability in about two to five years because of growing concerns over the health of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, US officials have confirmed. The National Intelligence Council, the community's main centre for middle and long range analysis, based at the CIA in Langley, Virginia, added Cuba to the three-part list during its last biannual update in October, the officials added. Cuba's inclusion in the classified list is the latest evidence that the US intelligence community is growing increasingly concerned over the consequences of Castro's advancing age and apparently deteriorating health after more than four decades of communist rule over the island. For more than a year, the CIA has been telling US policymakers that the 79-year-old Castro suffers from Parkinson's, a debilitating neurological ailment that could make it harder for him to govern. His brother and designated successor, Raúl, is only five years younger and is widely reported to be a lifelong heavy drinker. (The Miami Herald, 21/2/06)

February 21: The Republican Senator from Florida Mel Martínez, who took over last year as president of the US-Spain Council, was in Spain ahead of the Council's April meeting in Tampa, Florida to discuss ways to "increase the size and scope" of the organization. During a press conference, he was asked if it was time for a change of thinking on the US embargo against Cuba. “I think we are reaching a decisive moment in Cuba, given the age of the dictator Castro”, Martinez said. “The Spanish model of the transition to democracy could be usefully applied to Cuba. I am an optimist, so I think that cooperation between Spain and the United States in this regard is very important”, he added. “This is no longer about whether to maintain the embargo or not. We are almost in a post-Cuban embargo world.” (El País, 21/2/06)

February 21: Chicken has become the top US product exported to Cuba. That's according to the US Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York. And that trade in chicken benefits companies like Arkansas' Tyson, which sells some of its goods to traders who resell it to Cuba. Chicken sales to Cuba were worth 60 (m) million dollars in 2005. Meanwhile, US rice sales to Cuba declined 39 percent from the year before. The trade group says that's probably because Cuba can receive better financing from China and Vietnam, which are both communist countries. (AP, 21/2/06)

February 21: An award in the field of health, given by the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, was presented to the Hib Vaccine Team at a ceremony held at the University of Havana. The awards are presented annually to educators, scientists and social entrepreneurs who use technology to benefit humankind. The team developed the first vaccine containing an antigen produced by chemical synthesis, states the award. The members of the Hib Vaccine Team are Dr. Vicente Verez-Bencomo and Dr. Violeta Fernandez Santana from the University of Havana, Professor Rene Roy from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Dr. Eugenio Hardy from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, and Dr. Maria Eugenia Toledo from the Institute for Tropical Medicine Pedro Kouri. Roy, a Canadian professor from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was the only member of the research team who could assist the gala at the museum headquarters in San Jose last November 9. The group of Cuban scientists that developed the vaccine was denied visas by the US government. The Canadian scientist handed the trophy to Dr. Vicente Verez, the project’s leading researcher and director of the Center of Synthetic Antigens at the University of Havana. (Granma, AFP, 22/2/06)

February 21: A group of 25 lawmakers sent a letter to the Treasury Department criticizing an order to evict a Cuban delegation from a US-owned hotel in Mexico as a potential "overreaching application of US law that could have significant worldwide implications.'' The bipartisan congressional letter was the latest fallout from a February 3 decision by the Sheraton María Isabel hotel in Mexico City to evict 16 Cubans attending an energy conference with US executives, following a warning by the Treasury Department that it might be violating US laws. The congressional letter said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control may be setting a dangerous new precedent. ''Is OFAC setting a new standard that no American-owned hotel or other commercial enterprise can ever provide services to a Cuban national?'' the letter said. The letter was signed by members of Congress usually critical of US policy toward Cuba, including Representatives Howard Berman (Democrat-California); Jeff Flake (Republican-Arizona); Jim Kolbe (Republican-Arizona); Jo Ann Emerson (Republican-Missouri), and William Delahunt (Democrat-Massachusetts). (The Miami Herald, 22/2/06)

February 21: US Senator John McCain joined the growing debate over the government's wet-foot, dry-foot policy for Cuban immigrants, saying it’s time the policy was re-examined. ``I've been talking to many in the Cuban-American community and others, including Governor Bush, who are more knowledgeable than I,'' the senator told reporters during a conference call. "I think it needs to be reviewed.'' McCain (Republican-Arizona), spoke in advance of a town meeting he will hold at Miami-Dade College's Wolfson Campus to promote his immigration reform bill. The proposal, co-sponsored by US Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat-Massachusetts), would permit illegal immigrants to obtain work visas for up to six years, with the opportunity to apply for permanent residency. It does not include any reference to the wet-foot, dry-foot policy. (AP, 21/2/06)

February 22: Lawyers in the United States are turning their thoughts to a new type of Cuba: one without Fidel Castro. While it's impossible to predict what system of government or economy will form in a post-Castro Cuba, US firms are getting ready. "[Castro's death] is an inevitability," said Pedro Freyre, a partner at Akerman Senterfitt and the co-chairman of the Florida-based firm's international practice group. "It will happen, and it will happen much sooner than much later. But that having been said, the what-ifs and the scenarios are complex." Among US lawyers, there are at least two sources of interest in Cuba. Some, mostly Cuban-American attorneys with sentimental ties, want a hand in shaping the country's legal system when the communist regime falls. Others view the island as a lucrative source of business, from tourism and infrastructure to oil and other industries. Legal work in Cuba will include "everything under the sun," said Jose Sirven, a partner in Holland & Knight's Miami office and a member of the firm's Cuba action team. "That country's been in limbo since 1959, so you have roadwork, water and sewer, refurbishing of buildings, basic needs of consumers, from toilet paper to soap. Everything's in short supply (…) US companies are going to want to enter the market immediately." ( Miami Daily Business Review , 22/2/06)

February 24: Two groups of Cuban immigrants landed on Mona Island in Puerto Rico, reported officer Jonathan Matías. According to Matías among the detainees there were three minors, including a five-month old baby. (EFE, 24/2/06)

February 24: Fidel Castro saluted solemnly as cannon fire reverberated across Havana Bay and a forest of huge Cuban flags were raised outside the American mission to remember Cuba's 1895 War of Independence. The commemoration of the 111th anniversary of the start of the battle led by independence hero Jose Marti was the latest in a series of gatherings the communist government has organized outside the US Interests Section amid worsening Cuba-US relations. But rather than Castro, it was Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon who addressed the hundreds of high-ranking Cuban officials assembled in the Anti-Imperialist Plaza built several years ago to host protests outside the mission. Alarcon said the flags symbolized the "struggle and sacrifice, but also the dreams and victories" of the Cuban people in their ongoing battle for independence from foreign control. He went on to praise the island's socialist system in a message that seemed aimed largely at US officials, whose blueprint for aiding a post-Castro government assumes that Cuba will become a US-style democracy with a free market economy. (AP, 24/2/06)

February 25: American food sales to Cuba fell by 11 percent in 2005, the first drop since renewed agricultural commerce was approved by Congress in 2000, relaxing trade sanctions against the island that had been in place for more than 40 years. The private US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council released Cuba-US trade figures for 2005 this week showing US agribusiness exported $350 million, down from $392 million the year before. The cause of the decline was in dispute. The Cuban government blamed the Bush administration for increased red tape in obtaining export licenses. Others said the government of Fidel Castro had turned to other friendlier sources, including China and Venezuela, for food shipments. John S. Kavulich, senior policy advisor at the Council, predicted 2006 food sales could also fall as Cuba increases its reliance on allies for food and aid. ''The government of Cuba is focusing all commercial, political and economic activity toward Venezuela and China due to the largess of those countries,'' Kavulich said. ''If it can be purchased from those countries, they will purchase it from [them] because they are likely to not have to pay for it,'' Kavulich said. (The Miami Herald, 25/2/06)

February 27: The state of Nebraska will send a third trade delegation to Cuba to sell agricultural commodities to the communist nation. Governor Dave Heineman said that Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy and Nebraska Agriculture Director Greg Ibach will lead a delegation on the April 17-20 trip. The trip follows two visits in August and November, when nearly $30 million in Nebraska dry edible beans, wheat and soybean meal were sold to communist-run island's food import company, Alimport. (AP, 27/2/06)

February 27: The presiding bishop and primate of the US Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, issued a forceful criticism of Washington's trade embargo against Cuba, calling it "inhumane". Griswold, who is visiting Cuba, said he was saddened to see the "suffering caused by the policies of my country's government". "The US embargo has helped fuel inhumane poverty among your people," Griswold said during an address at Havana's Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, according to a text of the speech released by the Episcopal Church. "The Episcopal Church in the United States strongly opposes the blockade against Cuba." The senior American bishop also said the embargo had "brought large parts of your magnificent cities and infrastructure to ruins, and cut off Cuban families from the support, financial and otherwise, of their loved ones in the United States". (AFP, 27/2/06)

February 28: A South Florida legislator's proposal would restrict state-run universities from travel to Cuba and other 'terrorist states,' but some academics have dismissed it as a grab for political attention. State Representative David Rivera wants to make it impossible for state-run colleges and universities to sponsor or promote trips to Cuba, even for legitimate research -- a move slammed by several professors as an attack on academic freedom. Rivera said the recent arrests of Florida International University professor Carlos M. Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, an FIU counselor -- both accused of being agents for Cuba for more than two decades -- compelled the Cuban-American legislator to draft the bill. (The Miami Herald, 28/2/06)