Caribbean American Passport News Magazine - January 2017

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FREE Your Passport to the Caribbean American Community

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President Obama Commutes Oscar Lopez Rivera's Sentence By Maria Padilla

Cuba - USA

Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations on 20 July 2015, which had been severed in 1961 during the Cold War. U.S. diplomatic representation in Cuba is handled by the United States Embassy in Havana, and there is a similar Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C.. The United States, however, continues to maintain its commercial, economic, and financial embargo, which makes it illegal for U.S. corporations to do business with Cuba. Although the U.S. President, Barack Obama, has called for the ending of the embargo, U.S. law requires congressional approval to end the embargo. President Barack Obama recently ended the longstanding "wet foot, dry foot" policy that allows Cubans who arrive in the United States without a visa to become permanent residents, on Thursday January 12th, 2017.

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scar López Rivera will go free after 35 years in prison, thanks to President Barack Obama’s order granting clemency to the 74-year old imprisoned on charges related to violent activities in support of Puerto Rico independence.

Community activists in Florida, New York and Puerto Rico had stepped up

pressure on Obama – wrote, called, held marches – to draw attention to López Rivera. The president issued the order Tuesday as part of commuting the sentences or pardoning a total of 273 individuals; 209 commutations and 64 pardons, according to the White House...Continued on Page 6

Exxon Mobil finds more oil offshore Guyana ExxonMobil announcedThursday positive results from its Payara-1 well offshore Guyana. Payara is ExxonMobil’s second oil discovery on the Stabroek Block and was drilled in a new reservoir.

The move, which wasn't previously outlined and is likely one of the final foreign policy decisions of Obama's term, terminates a decades-long policy that many argued amounted to preferential treatment for a single group of migrants. "By taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries," Obama wrote in a statement Thursday. ...Continued on Page 6

ExxonMobil offshore in the waters of Guyana

...Continued on pg 6


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