United States

• Wednesday, April 15th 2009 - 10:47 UTC

  Summit of the Americas, “test of intelligence and shame” says Fidel Castro

  

  Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday Cuba had no desire to rejoin the “infamous” and “vile” decadent Organization of American States, and said the coming Summit of the Americas next week end in Trinidad Tobago will be “a test of intelligence and shame”.

• Wednesday, April 15th 2009 - 08:48 UTC

  Obama leaves for Mexico and prepares for regional summit test

  

  United States President Barack Obama heads to Mexico Thursday and then continues on to Trinidad and Tobago for the fifth Summit of the Americas. Security concerns along the US-Mexico border are expected to top Mr. Obama's discussions with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, while the summit provides an opportunity to reinvigorate the US hemispheric ties and forge a regional response to the global economic downturn, according to a Voice of America report.

• Tuesday, April 14th 2009 - 11:48 UTC

  Obama’s Cuba policy triggers strong hopes from cruise operators

  

  Shares of Miami-based cruise operator Royal Caribbean jumped on Monday on news that the administration of President Barack Obama was allowing Cuban Americans to travel more freely to the Castro-family ruled island.

• Tuesday, April 14th 2009 - 02:11 UTC

  Obama loosens restriction on travel and remittances to Cuba

  

  President Barack Obama has decided to loosen restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba for Cuban-Americans, senior US administration officials said Monday. A formal announcement was expected later in the day, reports CNN.

• Sunday, April 12th 2009 - 06:22 UTC

  Summit of the Americas: President Obama haunted by ghost of Cuba

  

  Mr Obama will announce that Washington is lifting the toughest restrictions on travel to the island for Cuban-Americans and the dollar remittances they can send back to impoverished relatives.

• Saturday, April 11th 2009 - 18:38 UTC

  Google uncloaks once-secret server

  

  Google is tight-lipped about its computing operations, but the company for the first time on Wednesday revealed the hardware at the core of its Internet might at a conference here about the increasingly prominent issue of data center efficiency.

• Saturday, April 11th 2009 - 08:27 UTC

  CNN opinion poll in US shows 71% support relations with Cuba

  

  A new poll from CNN shows that two-thirds of US citizens surveyed think the US should lift its travel ban on Cuba, and three-quarters think the US should end its five-decade estrangement with the country.

• Saturday, April 11th 2009 - 08:15 UTC

  Federal Reserve expects US recovery, but jobs market prospect dismal

  

  Minutes from the last meeting of US Federal Reserve policy makers show just how downbeat they had become on the state of the US economy. It was this pessimism that led them to agree to spend more than one trillion US dollars to revive its fortunes.

• Saturday, April 11th 2009 - 06:25 UTC

  Manhattan has become a buyers’ property market

  

  Sellers of property have called the shots for years on the Manhattan 22.7 square mile island that is the financial capital of the United States. But now buyers are having their day, according to the first-quarter reports due from major real estate brokerages on Thursday.

• Friday, April 10th 2009 - 10:32 UTC

  US February trade deficit smallest since November 1999

  

  The US trade deficit has narrowed to a new-year low in February, the seventh month in a row it has shrunk. The difference between what the US exports and imports, narrowed by 28% to 26.3 billion from January's revised 36.2 billion, becoming the smallest gap since November 1999.