Obama eases Cuba restrictions

Barack Obama, the US president, has lifted restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, the White House has said.
The president ordered the lifting of "all restrictions on the ability of individuals to visit family members in Cuba and to send them remittances," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said on Monday.
Previously, Cubans living in the US could travel to the isolated Caribbean nation only once a year and only send $1,200 per person in cash to family members there.
The White House also said Obama had asked officials to look at the possibility of direct flights between the US and Cuba, something also banned by previous US administrations.
The moves appear intended to signal a new attitude towards Cuba, which has endured a decades-long US economic embargo.
It also comes ahead of Obama travelling to Trinidad and Tobago for the summit of the Americas later this week, where the embargo is expected to be raised by some Latin American leaders
Easing restrictions
The new rules also expand the type of family members that remittances can be sent to from the US to include second cousins.
They also include expanding the type of items permitted in parcels being sent to Cuba by the approximate 1.5 million Americans who have relatives in Cuba, such as clothes, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing equipment and other personal necessities.
The administration will also begin issuing licenses to allow US companies to provide mobile phones and television services to people on the island, and permit relatives to pay for family members there to get the services, the official said.
In March last year Raul Castro, the president of Cuba, eased restrictions on the ownership of phones, DVD players and cars and permitted Cubans to stay in foreign-owned hotels.
The move sparked hopes for further freedoms for Cubans under Raul, who took over the presidency after Fidel Castro, his brother, resigned in February 2008.
Several Latin American nations have been pressing for the US to lift its embargo, which has left Cuba isolated for decades.
And last week a Democratic congressional delegation visited Cuba and issued a plea for both nations to normalise diplomatic relations and sort out their differences.
However, Obama said during his presidential campaign last year that he would keep the embargo in place, arguing that it provides political leverage to pressure the Cuban government over progress on human rights.
Conservative critics of Obama's new strategy on Cuba have said it could provide an increased cash flow to prop up Cuba's one-party government.
Under rules enacted in 2004 by the administration of George Bush, Obama's predecessor, Cuban-Americans could travel to the island just once every three years and could send only $300 every to their relatives.
The two nations have not had diplomatic ties since 1960, when the US severed ties following the revolution under Fidel Castro.
Embargo concerns