US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma is mov­ing to lift the sec­ond part of the half-cen­tu­ry-old trade em­bar­go against Cu­ba, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day at the Sev­enth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Pana­ma City.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­spond­ing to re­newed diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween the US and Cu­ba, where Oba­ma and Cuban Pres­i­dent Raul Cas­tro shook hands and held a joint news con­fer­ence be­fore 120 lo­cal and for­eign jour­nal­ists at the Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

Dur­ing the morn­ing ses­sion, Oba­ma spoke, and was fol­lowed by Cas­tro. Af­ter the ses­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to the his­toric meet­ing of both lead­ers.

"It is for all of us in the Amer­i­c­as, a very his­toric and defin­ing mo­ment, one which we ad­vo­cat­ed a very long time ago," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

"You will re­call that Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana, called for this. In 1972 we es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba and we have been amongst those lead­ers call­ing for the end of the block­ade on Cu­ba, and for Cu­ba to be read­mit­ted in­to the fam­i­ly of na­tions."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­gion need­ed to ap­plaud the ef­forts of re­gion­al lead­ers for the part they played in mak­ing this hap­pen.

"It was on­ly last year, you may re­call, at the Unit­ed Na­tions, where I called for the end of the block­ade against Cu­ba, and from what I heard to­day, it ap­pears that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is pre­pared to look at the sec­ond part of end­ing the em­bar­go. The first part is tak­ing place, but there is still a lot more work to be done."

She said hav­ing heard both lead­ers spoke, "I think that is al­so in process and in the mak­ing. I think it was a great day, but as I point­ed out (in the ple­nary ses­sion), there was al­so cause for con­cern on an­oth­er front, our neigh­bour, Venezuela."

Last De­cem­ber, Oba­ma an­nounced moves to­ward nor­mal­is­ing re­la­tions with Cu­ba.

The leg­is­la­tion seeks to re­peal pro­vi­sions of pre­vi­ous laws that pre­vent Amer­i­cans from do­ing busi­ness with Cu­ba, but does not re­peal por­tions of laws ad­dress­ing hu­man rights or prop­er­ty claims against Cu­ba's gov­ern­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar will al­so to­day for­mal­ly open this coun­try's first em­bassy in Pana­ma City.

Get­ting it Right

In the Busi­ness Guardian yes­ter­day, it was re­port­ed in er­ror that Petrotrin's rat­ing

was con­firmed by Stan­dard & Poors. The rat­ing was ac­tu­al­ly con­firmed by Moody's.

The er­ror is re­gret­ted.