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Cuba approves flights from 9 more American cities

United Airlines spokesman says one its jetliners carrying passengers from Washington to a Mexican beach resort has made an unplanned landing in Cuba due to a strange odor inside the craft.

The statement from spokesman Charles Hobart says United Airlines Flight 831 was carrying 135 passengers route to Cancun, Mexico, when the crew noticed an unfamiliar smell in the cabin.

Air travel between the United States and Cuba will become easier with the opening of charter flights to the forbidden island from an additional nine U.S. cities announced by Cuba authorities on Friday.

Cuban travel agency Havanatur Celimar said it added the cities of Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to the list from where charter flights would be accepted.

Cuba is preparing for an increase in visitors from its long-time ideological foe under a recent loosening of travel restrictions by the Obama administration.

The United States, which maintains comprehensive sanctions on the communist-run island and bans tourism to Cuba, does not allow regular commercial flights between the two countries.

But the Obama administration has lifted all restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting their homeland and allowed religious, academic and other professional travel by Americans to Cuba.

Havana Celimar has a monopoly on the Cuban end of U.S. charter flights and already receives travellers on flights from Miami, New York and Los Angeles.

The number of U.S. citizens visiting Cuba increased last year by 20 percent, to 63,000, according to Cuban statistics.

Some 350,000 Cuban Americans visited Cuba in 2010 after the Obama administration lifted all restrictions on their travel.

The travel opening annoyed Cuban American lawmakers who have introduced legislation in Congress that would reimpose a Bush-era restriction on Cuban American travel to the island of only one visit every three years and more strictly enforce the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba.

The lawmakers argue that the Obama administration is helping prop up the Cuban government, while the White House counters more people-to-people contact is the best way to undermine the island's communist system.

President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any move to undercut his people-to-people policy toward Cuba.

Gazprom Neft takes 30 pct in Cuban shelf oil project

With the approval from the Cuban authorities, Russian firm Gazprom Neft has gained interest in four deepwater oil and gas exploration blocks offshore Cuba.

Gazprom Neft, Cuba's national oil company Cubapetroleo (Cupet) and Malaysia's national oil company Petronas have signed a Supplementary Agreement to the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) on four blocks in the Gulf of Mexico offshore Cuba.

Through the agreement, Gazprom will now hold a 30 percent stake in deepwater Blocks 44, 45, 50 and 51 of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cuba. Petronas holds the remaining 70 percent interest in the project.

According to Oil & Gas Journal, the blocks are located 100 to 200 miles west of Havana.

To date, 2D seismic has been performed across the acreage, and as of November 2010, an exploration well was scheduled for drilling in 2011.

In addition to the exploration and development of the blocks, the agreement allows for the production of oil through 2037 and the production of natural gas through 2042.

Petronas signed the PSC with the government of Cuba in 2006, and in October 2010, Gazprom Neft and Petronas signed a farm-out agreement and a Heads of Joint Operations Agreement on the leasehold.

After receiving approval from the Cuban authorities, Gazprom Neft and Petronas signed a Deed of Assignment, as well as a Joint Operating Agreement in July 2011.

Gazprom Neft, Cuba's national oil company Cubapetroleo and Malaysia's oil and gas company Petronas signed a production sharing agreement for the project on July 29. Petronas owns 70 percent in the project, Gazprom Neft said in a statement.

The project will be financed by the participants in proportion to their stakes.

Manuel Marrero, a member of the Cuba Commission for the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, said he hoped Gazprom Neft would increase its participation in the project after the discovery of the first oil, which may be drilled at the beginning of 2012.

Gazprom Neft plans to produce about 10 percent of its overall hydrocarbon output abroad by 2020.

Raul Castro Announces Immigration Policy

MIAMI - "Selling an apartment in front of the Habana Libre, excellent condition."

The seller, Marita, is advertising this Havana apartment on revolico.com, an online marketplace similar to Craigslist. She's asking the equivalent of about $57,600.

Real estate sales in Cuba are strictly illegal and have been for the past five decades. But that may change soon. As part of sweeping economic reforms unveiled at the Communist Party Congress in April, Cuba plans to allow the buying and selling of homes and cars.

A recent article in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, explained that such transactions would be permitted with little government interference beyond getting notary approval, making payment through a state bank and paying an as yet unspecified tax.

The real estate reform has yet to become law, but it's possible it could when the National Assembly convenes this week for a three-day meeting at Havana's Convention Palace. In any case, the government has said a new law will take effect by the end of the year.

Now with the possibility of a true real estate market developing, people have been dusting off property titles and fixing up properties they anticipate putting on the market.

Cuba: Plan for the Implementation of Guidelines to Come Out in September

"We make this step as a contribution to increase the links of the nation with the immigrant community, whose composition has radically changed in relation to the early years of the Revolution," said Raul Castro.

he said that the nation is in the path of changing decisions that played a role at a certain moment and which lasted unnecessarily long.

The president recalled how at that time the US government gave protection to criminals of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, terrorists, traitors of all type, and encouraged the brain drain of professionals.

He noted that most of the current Cubans migrants are motivated by economic reasons, and most of them maintain their love for the family and homeland, and express solidarity with their fellow country people.

The president stressed that Cuba is the only country of the world whose citizens are allowed to stay and work in US territory without any type of visa by virtue of the criminal 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.

Raul said this sensitive issue has been the object of political and media manipulation for years in a bid to discredit the Revolution and create conflict with Cubans living abroad.

Cuban Lawmakers' Nod For Economic Reforms

Cuban ruler Raúl Castro said he is working to relax Cuba’s migration policies, almost certainly referring to Cubans abroad who want to travel back to the island but perhaps also — and much more significantly — to Cubans on the island who want to travel abroad.

Castro’s comments to parliament, as reported in the government-run news media, remained unclear late Monday but sparked broad interest among island residents who have long demanded the right to travel abroad without the need for obtaining a government “exit permit.”

He was quoted as saying that the government “is making advances with the reform and elaboration of a series of regulations” on migration that have lasted “unnecessarily” for a long time. But the reports gave no details on exactly who would benefit.

“We take this step as a contribution to the increase in links between the nation and the émigré community, whose makeup has changed radically since the first decades of the revolution,” Castro reportedly said in comments that seemed to indicate that the eased regulations would apply to Cubans abroad.

“In their overwhelming majority Cubans today emigrate because of economic reasons, and almost all of them preserve their love for family and country,” he added. The government for decades referred to Cubans who moved abroad as “counterrevolutionaries” and “worms”

Estimates of the number of Cubans who are living abroad and have been denied Havana permission to return range from 67,000 to 200,000, including “rafters” or others who left the island illegally and those who left legally but stayed abroad more than 11 months.

His comments that the “updating” of the migration regulations would retain measures to “defend” the revolution also seemed to refer to Cubans living abroad, because radical exiles are not allowed to return legally to Cuba.

Earlier addressing lawmakers, Castro indicated that changes could well be introduced to Cuba's controversial travel and emigration rules. According to him, the time had come for ushering in political and social reforms and warned that those trying to undermine the reform process would be prosecuted. "Let's clean our heads of all sorts of nonsense," he said.

Besides, Castro told the National Assembly that the government was "working to orchestrate the modernisation" of the country's migration policies. For long, rights groups had flayed Cuba's emigration policy which required its citizens to secure government's prior permission for traveling abroad.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly is set to discuss a slew of proposals put forward by the President which include downsizing of the country's massive government workforce, restricting state involvement in key areas like farming, retail and infrastructure before giving its formal endorsement.

Even as the state-controlled enterprises move out in order to give space for small-scale businesses, the government will also phase out state subsidies for goods and public utility services.

Analysts though say the implementation of economic reforms mooted by Castro will be easier said than done as it is likely to encounter stiff resistance from party officials who face the prospect of unemployment.

The septuagenarian Raul Castro, who had earlier served as Cuba's Defense Minister, took over as President from his brother Fidel after the latter was forced to step down over health concerns.

United flight diverts to Cuba

United Airlines flight travelling between Washington's Dulles International Airport and Cancun, Mexico was diverted to Havana, Cuba after a strange odor was detected on board.

The Airbus 320, carrying 135 passengers and five crew members, landed in Havana Sunday after the crew noticed a burning smell in the cockpit.

A United Airlines spokesman said that in order to be safe the pilots decided to land the aircraft at the nearest available airport”.

Gloria Berbena,a spokeswoman for the U.S. Interests section in Cuba, said a second plane arrived from the United States later Sunday and flew the passengers out.

U.S. law restricts the travel of American citizens to Cuba, although there are frequent charter flights between the two countries.

United Flight 831 was bound for the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, but diverted to the Cuban capital after the flight crew detected "a strange odor" in the cockpit, The Associated Press reports.

"In an abundance of caution, the pilots decided to land the aircraft at the nearest available airport," United spokesman Charles Hobart says in a statement to AP.

United adds to The Washington Post that the Airbus A320 "landed routinely and safely in Havana and we have reaccommodated our customers on a different flight."

CNN reports United had to bring in another plane to accommodate the passengers from the diverted flight. The Post says the A320 operating Flight 831 landed in Havana just after noon local time and was on the ground at least through 5 p.m.

Regularly scheduled commercial airline flights are not permitted to fly between the U.S. and Cuba, per the U.S. trade embargo on the island nation. Certain charter flights are permitted to fly between the nations, though there are restrictions on who can purchase travel on those flights.

AP adds "although the United States and Cuba are bitter Cold War foes, Cuba has a tradition of hospitality and is a signatory to international aviation accords. On the day of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, Havana offered to let the United States use its landing fields because U.S. airports were in a state of chaos. Washington did not take Cuba up on the offer.