THE US Congress has voted to ease US trade and travel restrictions against Cuba, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit the island once a year rather than every three years and making it easier to export food and medicine to the country.
The measure, which does not lift the trade embargo imposed on Cuba in 1961, was included in a $410 billion spending Bill US president Barack Obama signed last night.
Travelling to Cuba will still be illegal for US citizens but the administration has made clear that it will not make resources available to enforce the ban.
Mr Obama yesterday welcomed passage of the budget Bill but promised to address concerns about “earmarks”, spending plans targeted to specific projects in congressional districts.
The president said many earmarks are legitimate and addressed real needs at a local level but that the practice had led to corruption on the part of some members of Congress.
“Projects have been inserted at the 11th hour, without review, and sometimes without merit, in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest. There are times where earmarks may be good on their own, but in the context of a tight budget might not be our highest priority,” he said.
Mr Obama said earmarks should be open to public scrutiny and that funds should not be earmarked for private companies without going through the same competitive bidding process as other federal spending.
“The awarding of earmarks to private companies is the single most corrupting element of this practice, as witnessed by some of the indictments and convictions that we’ve already seen. Private companies differ from the public entities that Americans rely on every day – schools, and police stations, and fire departments,” he said.
Meanwhile, former ambassador Chas Freeman withdrew as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
Mr Freeman said “libellous distortions of my record” would impede his performance in the role after conservatives accused him of being anti-Israeli and of being too close to China and Saudi Arabia .
“The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth,” he said.
“I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbours in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States .”