LatinWeek

Cuba: On March 8 the US treasury department announced changes to allow general licenses to export personal internet communications services. The move will permit US technology companies to export services such as instant messaging, e-mail and web browsing to Cuba, Iran and Sudan. “Consistent with the administration's deep commitment to the universal rights of all the world's citizens, the issuance of these general licenses will make it easier for individuals in Iran, Sudan and Cuba to use the internet to communicate with each other and with the outside world," the deputy treasury secretary Neal Wolin stated. On 15 March Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, the director of the Cuban foreign ministry's office for North American affairs, accused the US government of trying to destabilize Cuba."The government of the United States has said clearly that its objective is to use these services as a tool of subversion and destabilization," she said in a written statement. Vidal Ferreiro noted that the new measures would apply to individuals only, not businesses or institutions, and would do nothing to loosen the grip of the US economic embargo. In December 2009, a US contractor, Alan P. Gross, was arrested in Havana for allegedly handing out communications equipment to dissidents. Cuba accused him of spying. He remains in jail in Havana.