The only two Central American countries that don’t recognize Cuba’s government say they plan to re-establish diplomatic ties with the communist nation.
Costa Rica said on Wednesday it would re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba, and El Salvador’s new president-elect, Mauricio Funes, promised to do the same after he takes office.
Costa Rica broke off ties with Havana in 1961, while El Salvador has not recognized Cuba’s government since 1959, when Fidel Castro came to power.
On Sunday, Funes became the first leftist president elected in El Salvador since the country’s brutal civil war ended in 1992. His party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, formed from five rebel armies in 1980, is the second former enemy of the US, along with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, to take power democratically in Latin America.
US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon brushed off a question about Cuba after he met with Funes on Wednesday and said the US was a partner willing to work with the new leader.
“In diplomacy, as in life, the honeymoon isn’t the important thing. What’s important is the marriage,” Shannon said.
“We are going to make sure this marriage is healthy and working,” he said. “We are going to establish a dialogue in a spirit of cooperation and the recognition that El Salvador is a sovereign country.”
Earlier on Wednesday, US President Barack Obama telephoned Funes to congratulate him and the people of El Salvador for their commitment to democratic elections.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said his country recognizes many governments that are politically different from his own, including China. Cuba should be treated the same, he said.
“I’m taking this step convinced that times change and Costa Rica must change, too,” he said, adding that Costa Rica and Cuba would both name ambassadors soon.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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