{"id":12541,"date":"2014-02-15T04:33:20","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T04:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/cuba-suspends-us-consular-services\/"},"modified":"2014-02-15T04:41:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-15T04:41:59","slug":"cuba-suspends-us-consular-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/cuba-suspends-us-consular-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba Suspends US Consular Services"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{The Cuban government says it has suspended consular services in the United States after an American bank decided to withdraw its facilities.}}<\/p>\n

Cuba says it will not be able to renew passports and process visas unless it finds an alternative to the M&T bank.<\/p>\n

The bank said its decision was taken for business reasons.<\/p>\n

The move is likely to prevent tens of thousands of people travelling from the US to Cuba every month and could have a big impact on the economy there.<\/p>\n

The US broke off diplomatic relations with the communist-run island in 1961 and imposed an economic embargo a year later.<\/p>\n

In the absence of bilateral contacts, consular services have been handled by the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Cuban government blames the trade embargo for its failure to find a new bank “in spite of huge efforts made”.<\/p>\n

The M&T bank announced last year that it would stop accepting deposits from 17 February, which is a public holiday in the US.<\/p>\n

“The section regrets any inconvenience this situation may cause,” read the statement.<\/p>\n

It says it will only be able to handle “humanitarian cases”.<\/p>\n

{{‘Recent thaw’}}<\/p>\n

More than 40,000 people on average travel to Cuba from the US every month, most of them Cuban-Americans, according to the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group.<\/p>\n

Americans who do not have Cuban nationality are also allowed to travel if they are taking part in cultural exchange programmes.<\/p>\n

The suspension of consular services comes amid a recent slight thaw in relations.<\/p>\n

At Nelson Mandela’s funeral in December, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro shook hands for the first time.<\/p>\n

Cuba and the US also announced the resumption of official talks on immigration and postal services between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the European Union agreed to open negotiations aimed at restoring full relations with Cuba.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said President Obama should proceed with a similar gesture and follow the example of the EU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The Cuban government says it has suspended consular services in the United States after an American bank decided to withdraw its facilities.}} Cuba says it will not be able to renew passports and process visas unless it finds an alternative to the M&T bank. The bank said its decision was taken for business reasons. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050350,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12541.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12541"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12541"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}