Shameful act of anti-American freedom by Mario Diaz-Balart

The House Appropriations Committee today approved the fiscal year 2012 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. The legislation provides annual funding for the Treasury Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and several other independent agencies.

The following amendments were offered and adopted:

Diaz-Balart (R-FL) The amendment tightens regulations on family travel and remittances to Cuba, returning these policies to those that were in place during the Bush Administration. These changes to travel restrictions include: requiring specific licenses for family travel, tightening the definition of “family,” and limiting travel to every three years for a time period of 14 days.  The amendment would also limit family remittances to immediate family members, and limit the total to $300 for every quarter of the year. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.

Flake (R-AZ) The amendment inserts report language regarding the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), related to Cuban Asset Control regulations. The amendment directs the office to provide a report on pending license applications related to education exchanges. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.

Final Passage The bill was approved by the full Appropriations Committee on a vote of 27-21.

Latin America Working Group email - LAWG.org

Dear Cuba Policy Advocates,

Today the House Appropriations Committee voted in favor of an amendment, put forth by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida (R-FL 21st), to the FY 2012 Financial Services Appropriations bill. This amendment, which passed by voice vote, rescinds changes that President Obama made in 2009 to Cuban-American family travel and remittances regulations. If this amendment were to become law, Cuban Americans would only be permitted to visit their families in Cuba once every three years, with a limited definition of what constitutes family, and with no humanitarian exceptions. Cuban Americans would also be limited in what they could send in remittances to Cuba. We would be back to Bush Administration-era regulations on family travel. This is totally unacceptable.

NATO - Official text: NATO-Russia Compendium of Financial and ...

The figures given in Table 1 represent payments actually made or to be made during the course of the fiscal year. They are based on the NATO definition of defence expenditures. In view of the differences between this and national definitions, the figures shown may diverge considerably from those which are quoted by national authorities or given in national budgets. For countries providing military assistance, this is included in the expenditures figures. For countries receiving assistance, figures do not include the value of items received. Expenditures for research and development are included in equipment expenditures and pensions paid to retirees in personnel expenditures.

Defence expenditures as of 2002 and personnel figures as of 2003 have been calculated on the basis of the revised NATO definition agreed in 2004, which excluded expenditure on Other Forces from the totals reported to NATO, except in the case of those elements of Other Forces which are structured, equipped and trained to support defence forces and which are realistically deployable. Most nations have reported defence expenditures according to this new definition, and in some cases (Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Turkey), this has resulted in a significant apparent decrease in defence expenditures. A few, however (France, Italy and Luxembourg), continue to have difficulty meeting this requirement and the data provided by these countries did not fully accord with the new NATO definition on defence expenditures. For the Russian Federation, data was provided based on the previous NATO definition.

France is a member of the Alliance but does not belong to the integrated military structure and does not participate in collective force planning. The defence data relating to France are indicative only. According to the new budgetary reform and the financial law, from 2006 on, defence expenditure and strength figures are calculated with a new accounting methodology.

Iceland has no armed forces.

The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the Alliance in 1999.

From 2001 on, United Kingdom has changed its accounting system for defence expenditures from “cash basis” to “resource basis”.

For nine European NATO member countries, monetary values are expressed in national currencies up to 2001. As from 2002, they are expressed in euros. From 2007 onwards, Slovenian monetary values are also expressed in euros.

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