Chamber president Thomas Donohue said he was in Cuba to assess the economic changes taking place under President Raul Castro.ふしいｓぢ

The United States imposed an embargo on the communist-run island more than 50 years ago following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. misieow

Members of the Cuban community in the US have criticised the visit.loemie

They accuse Mr Castro's government of persecuting political opponents and violating basic human rights.

Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez said political opponents continued to be arrested "without justification," in Cuba.

"Such conditions hardly seem an attractive opportunity for any responsible business leader," Mr Menendez told the AP news agency.njjewer


Members of the trade delegation told AP that they were in Cuba to assess the trade possibilities in a post-embargo scenario. ふうえれｒ

However, the vast and politically-active Cuban community in the US has been strongly opposed to any change to trade ties with the communist-run island.

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That's because the complete dominance of modern Spanish politics, by the country's two main parties - the ruling conservative Popular Party and opposition Socialists - has been broken. jidieji

In the 2009 elections, between them, those two parties took more than 80% of the vote. Last night their joint share of the vote dropped below 50% for the first time in a national election in modern Spain.じいえｌぺ

So who benefited? The answer is smaller parties, particularly anti-austerity movements on the left.yuanymang

The United Left coalition, linked to Spain's former Communist party, came third, with 10% of the vote.
Not a 'German colony'

But the new-kid-on-the-block here in Spain is a party called "Podemos" ("we can"). The party was only set up three months ago, but they came fourth, taking 8% of the vote.lomeng

They say they are not anti-Europe, but they are against the way the European Union has been run in recent years.

Their leader, university professor Pablo Iglesias, told me that he would fight to stop Spain being, in his words, a "German colony... and a country controlled by the Troika" - referring to the EU-IMF bailout officials.

He believes Spain needs to recapture some of its sovereignty, and that austerity has not helped reduce the record 26% rate of unemployment. jaiqrqer‘blog

"I want to stop young Spaniards serving tapas and beers to the rich in northern Europe," he said.

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Sixty-six cases of polio have been declared in Pakistan since January, compared with only eight during the same period last year. いじこう

And more than 60 polio workers and security personnel were killed between December 2012 and April 2014, most of them in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to Pakistani officials and humanitarian workers.

The geographical spread of the cases suggests they are mostly sourced to the north-western Waziristan tribal region, the BBC's Ilyas Khan reports from Islamabad. Militants controlling the region banned vaccination there, saying health workers may include American spies. ゆいおっうぇ

"This reassurance is coming at the right time and we sincerely hope this will contribute towards reaching the children," Zubair Mufti of the World Health Organization told the BBC. "Public health programmes should only be focused toward providing health to the people and not collateral things." hisji

In a letter dated 16 May, the White House assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, Lisa Monaco, wrote that CIA director John Brennan had directed the agency to cease "operational use of vaccine programmes". 蝴蝶网

"Similarly, the agency will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programmes," she wrote, adding the policy applied worldwide to US and non-US persons alike. husauwerのブログ

Genetic material obtained through a fake door-to-door hepatitis B vaccination programme reportedly helped the CIA confirm Bin Laden's whereabouts in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

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