Embargoes

A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said. A Senate news conference Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect new attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the U.S.

Cuban Americans' travel to the communist island nation just got easier under guidelines issued last week by the Obama administration. The Treasury Department confirmed that Cuban Americans may visit extended relatives as well as close family members once a year and spend as much as $179 a day without fear of prosecution, effective immediately. The guidelines signal a trend toward looser enforcement of the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

West African leaders said Saturday that they are imposing an arms embargo on Guinea over the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators by soldiers and will try to stop Guinea's military ruler from running in January's presidential election. Regional leaders attended an emergency meeting Saturday of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, and said at a news conference afterward that they would step up pressure on members of the military government, which took power in a coup in December, not to seek office.

It is an annual ritual: The United Nations today will vote to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba, much as the world organization has done for nearly two decades. This will be the first time, however, that the call to end the policy will come with Barack Obama as president, giving rise to spirited debate on how his administration, having promised a "new beginning" in Latin America, is handling one of Washington's most problematic foreign policies. In recent months the Obama administration has taken steps to ease some of the sanctions that successive U.S. governments employed against Cuba.

Sanctions weren't supposed to hurt Majid Taleghani. But the Iranian book publisher says they have forced him to increase prices and scale back the number of titles he issues. "In the past few weeks, the price of South Korean paper has soared at least 25%," Taleghani complained, chain-smoking nervously. "Why? South Korean banks refuse to open letters of credit. They won't work with Iranian banks anymore." President Bush's recent tour through the Middle East was meant in part to rally U.S.

Masked gunmen used explosives to blow holes in the Gaza Strip's border fence early today, enabling thousands of Palestinians to pour into Egypt to buy food, fuel and other supplies that had been cut off because of an Israeli blockade, witnesses said. Egyptian and Palestinian border guards did not resist the mass crossing at the Rafah terminal.

In a bid to ratchet up pressure on Iran to end its uranium enrichment program, six leading world powers agreed Tuesday to introduce a new United Nations resolution likely to tighten sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Ending months of impasse with Russia and China, the agreement clears the way for the United States, Germany, France and Britain to submit a new resolution to the Security Council to increase political and economic constraints on Tehran.

The Egyptian government Saturday abandoned its sporadic efforts to seal off the Gaza Strip but tightened a cordon around this border city, restricting the availability of goods in order to dissuade Palestinians from flocking here to shop. Police used armored personnel carriers to block roads leading deeper into Egypt from Rafah and turned back hundreds of Palestinians. Authorities instructed hoteliers in El Arish, 25 miles southwest of here, not to lodge Palestinian travelers.

The U.S. joined calls Thursday for an arms embargo against Zimbabwe as the Chinese weapons shipment that sparked a scandal turned for home, shunned by ports in southern Africa. Young militiamen known as "green bombers" and war veterans have been attacking opposition activists and supporters in rural areas of Zimbabwe, according to human rights organizations and the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change. Britain has urged an international arms embargo against Zimbabwe because of the violence, and South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and the top U.S. diplomat on Africa, Jendayi E. Frazer, joined the call Thursday.

European Union nations approved new sanctions against Iran on Monday, including an assets freeze on the country's biggest bank. Bank Melli is suspected of providing services to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and was blacklisted by the United States last year. The EU said it would announce additional financial and travel sanctions today -- effective immediately -- on several Iranian companies and "senior experts" linked to Tehran's nuclear program.