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Officials says Obama set to lift US restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba. The Obama administration intends to allow Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money back to their families on the communist island nation, senior U.S. officials last Saturday.

President Barack Obama plans to announce the policy change before the Summit of the Americas April 17-19 in Trinidad and Tobago, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made. Although some restrictions have been eased temporarily in legislation Obama signed last month, lifting the bans would meet a pledge he made during the presidential campaign and could signal a new openness with Cuba.”The intent is to try to test the waters and see if we can get Cuba to move in another direction,” one official said. “One way of getting the regime to open up may be to let people travel, increase exchanges and get money flowing to the island.” There are growing calls in the US Congress to repeal restrictions on Cuba.

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The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country’s biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy. The populist SVP, the country’s biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the US prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider helping shut the camp down.

Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement. The SVP said Gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of US funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators. The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.

Popularity: 6% [?]