Cubans applauded the passage of a bill by the US Congress that would ease some travel and trade restrictions against the communist island, but said they hope for more changes under President Barack Obama.
The bill, which appropriates $410 billion to fund the US government, includes provisions allowing Cuban-Americans to visit their families in Cuba more frequently and makes it easier to sell agricultural and medical goods to Cuba.
It undoes some Bush administration rules that toughened the 47-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba, a Cold War policy which Havana blames for the perennial economic woes afflicting the island just 90 miles from Florida.
In Miami, there were mixed reactions from the Cuban exile community, which is split between those who favor greater contact and opening between Washington and Havana and some anti-communist hard-liners who oppose any easing of US sanctions on Cuba under the rule of Fidel and Raul Castro.
The bill, which Mr Obama still must sign into law, would allow Cuban-Americans to visit the island annually instead of once every three years as the Bush government mandated. They could also stay longer than the current two weeks.
The bill also would permit marketers and sellers of agricultural and medical products, which are exempted from the embargo, to travel more easily to Cuba.
Reuters