Cubans currently have to go through a lengthy and expensive process to obtain a permit and dissidents are often denied one, correspondents say.
Over a 130, 000 Cubans have arrived here since 2000, more than during the entire Mariel Boatlift.
The Cubans have come in only when invited by a government and have remained only at their request....The American public needs to understand that Soviet conduct in Africa violates no Soviet-American agreements nor any accepted principles of international behavior.
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"We understand we may have a lot to learn from the Cubans in terms of disaster preparedness and how they have dealt with hurricanes, " spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett said.
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But the last meeting was held in December in Havana, and despite U.S. demands for a new set of talks, the Cubans have refused.
Meanwhile, remittances from abroad, self-employment, tourism, foreign investment and the informal economy have lifted the incomes of a large group of Cubans.
After half a century of life under the Castros, many Cubans have convinced themselves that nothing will ever change.
Since 1981, the Soviets, East Europeans, and Cubans have shipped prodigious quantities of weapons to the Sandinistas, turning Nicaragua into a gigantic military warehouse.
But far more in number are the legal immigrants who have come here under a visa lottery system that allows at least 20, 000 Cubans a year to immigrate to the United States.
In a society that was to have closed the gap between rich and poor, ordinary Cubans who have waited for years for, say, cataract surgery are often bumped aside so that patients flown in from other countries, presumably with cash, may be treated instead.
When the economy briefly recovered, he cracked down: only 200, 000 Cubans now have licences allowing them to run micro-businesses, such as restaurants or hairdressers, down from a peak of 350, 000.
At least 300, 000 Cubans have come to the United States since 1994, when an accord was signed granting 20, 000 American visas a year.
Although economic conditions have improved somewhat for average Cubans since the dreariest days of the 1990s, doctor shortages and clinical privations remain a way of life.
"Since he does not have charisma, he does not have the experience, he does not have military roots, I think that the Cubans and other friends of Chavez are looking at this election with a bit of nervousness, " said Lino Gutierrez, a former U.S. ambassador in Argentina and Nicaragua who now runs an international consulting firm.
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