Opponents of a travel ban to Cuba reacted furiously on Thursday to a decision by US lawmakers to dump provisions that would have allowed Americans to travel freely to the island for the first time in decades.
In Havana, President Fidel Castro's communist-run government accused the Republican leadership of resorting to "undemocratic" tactics to overrule a substantial majority in Congress.
Under threat of a White House veto, negotiators in a House of Representatives and Senate conference committee late on Wed-nesday removed from pending legislation language that would have barred President George W. Bush from spending any money to enforce the travel ban.
Both chambers had voted in favor of identical amendments to lift the ban by wide margins, the closest the anti-travel ban camp ever came to repealing the 42-year-old prohibition. The camp is made up of a coalition that includes most Democrats, farm-state Republicans, human rights groups and the business community.
Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and an active proponent of lifting the Cuba embargo, said negotiators acted in an undemocratic way.
"For a few individuals in backroom negotiations to override the will of a majority of Congress sets a dangerous, undemocratic prece-dent," he said.
Bush argues the travel ban is needed to stop Castro from getting US tourist dollars and has vowed to veto any bill that contains language affecting the ban.
But pro-travel legislators said the president is pandering to the powerful Cuban American community in Florida, a key swing state in next year's presidential elections.
"Politics have triumphed again over principle," said Arizona Republican Representative Jeff Flake, a sponsor of the initiative to drop the ban and a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee.
"For the same reason we will never have a rational farm policy as long as presidential campaigns begin in Iowa, we will never have a rational Cuba policy as long as presidential campaigns are perceived to end in Florida," Flake said.
Business groups also voiced their dismay. They back the measure because it will allow cash-strapped Cuba to buy more food from the US.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all