Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

U.S. cancels disaster team trip to Cuba

|
|
 
  
Published: Nov. 3, 2005 at 7:13 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- A U.S. hurricane-damage assessment team set to visit Havana to help the Cuban government will be staying home.

The State Department blames the government of Fidel Castro, saying Cuba wanted the experts to participate in talks on regional disaster recovery, the Miami Herald reported.

"The assessment team offer remains on the table, but we are unwilling to turn a humanitarian mission into a political dialogue on issues not related to providing relief to the Cuban victims of Hurricane Wilma," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Hurricane Wilma -- which also caused massive destruction in Jamaica, Haiti, the Yucatan Peninsula and South Florida -- brought massive flooding to Havana and the province of Pinar del Rio. The State Department says the government will donate $100,000 to organizations involved in recovery efforts in Cuba.

Earlier in the hurricane season, Cuba rejected $50,000 from the United States after Hurricane Dennis, and the United States turned down a Cuban offer to send 1,600 doctors and nurses to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Topics: Fidel Castro, Hurricane Dennis, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Wilma, Sean McCormack
© 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters
Passenger jet crashes into apartment building in Nigerian capitol. Over 150 princes, bank officials,...