The free concert, which coincides with the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, will also feature Spanish pop act Miguel Bosé and Puerto Rican tropical star Olga Tañón in addition to Cuban artists Amaury Perez,X Alfonso, Carlos Varela, Los Van Van, Silvio Rodriguez and Orishas. CuCu Diamantes and Yerba Buena, Italian artist Jovanotti, Puerto Rico’s Danny Rivera, Ecuador’s Juan Fernando Velasco, and Spain’s Victor Manuel and Luis Eduardo Aute are also on the bill.

In contrast to Juanes’ last “Paz Sin Fronteras” concert, staged last year to defuse an imminent conflict between Colombia and Venezuela, this year’s lineup is shorter on major, internationally commercial Latin acts. The concert has raised the hackles of some Cuban exiles, who perceive the concert as a show of support for the Castro regime. Juanes has repeatedly defended the concert — often via his Twitter feed -as an apolitical expression of peace and a desire to bring nations together through music.

The Sept. 20 concert will be staged at the city’s Jose Marti Revolution Plaza between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. local time. There will be no presenters, and organizers have requested that both the performers and the audience wear all white as a symbol of peace.

According to a news release from Juanes’ camp, local production costs for the sponsor-free event will be covered by the Cuban Institute of Music, part of Cuba’s Ministry of Culture. Juanes has also said that he, Bosé and Tañón are covering production costs themselves. None of the artists performing are being paid to perform.

Spanish composers’ society SGAE, Air Europa, A&C Charters and Aerosur are pitching in as well to cover rehearsals and airfare. Over 160 journalists have been credentialed to cover the concert, which will be aired via satellite through Cuban TV. The feed for the concert will be made available to any TV, online or radio outlet.

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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Money transfer agent The Western Union Co. said Wednesday it will implement new rules on sending money to Cuba.

The new rules allow people in the U.S. to send money to “close relatives” in Cuba, including aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins who are Cuban nationals.

The rules also remove the limit on the total amount and frequency of money sent to Cuba.

The Englewood, Colo.-based company said the rules were issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Western Union has been providing money transfer services from the U.S. to Cuba since 1999, in accordance with OFAC laws. Western Union currently has 3,000 locations authorized to send Western Union money transfers from the U.S. to Cuba, and more than 100 Agent locations in Cuba.

Shares of Western Union rose 11 cents to $18.31 during afternoon trading.

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The discovery was made in the Zaza Dam area of Sancti Spiritus province. 

Alejandro Romero Emperador of the Cuban Academy of Sciences said Tuesday that it was the first discovery of a 10-metre-long reptile. The remains of a manatee, a marine mammal also called sea cow, were also found at the site.

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Dr. Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, president of the Cuban Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology, stated that he has been informed by the doctors that they have been unable to get permission to travel from the State Department or the Treasury Department.

The distinguished professor said that this confirms that the policy of the U.S. blockade, imposed on Cuba for more than half a century now, remains unchanged.

Dr. Alvarez Cambras, likewise director of the Frank País Orthopedic Hospital, said that the absence of these colleagues interested in attending an important scientific meeting is deplorable, but highlighted the attendance of some 400 physicians from approximately 150 countries, including Mexico, Spain, Canada, Japan, Argentina, Russia, France, Guatemala, Germany, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Yemen and Honduras.

Alvarez Cambras announced that the program for this event includes a record number of 257 scientific works to be presented via master lectures, roundtable discussions, audio-visual materials and posters.

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Richardson visited Cuba from Aug. 24 to 29 with three Cabinet secretaries to explore opportunities for agricultural exports by New Mexico producers. Such sales are now allowed, thanks to a federal decision in 2000 to loosen the nearly 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

But Tsosie Lewis, CEO of the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, said the immense challenges of conducting business with Cuba undercut NAPI efforts to take advantage of trade opportunities.

Lewis has led two of three NAPI trade delegations to the island since 2006. He even negotiated a letter of intent signed by Alimport – Cuba’s state food purchasing agency – to buy NAPI products.

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President Obama first announced most of the changes in April as part of a general opening that he said would allow Americans to reach out to the Cuban people, and he ordered Cabinet departments to take steps to implement the changes. Since then, the administration has also resumed a regular dialogue with the Cuban government on immigration issues and said it would move toward a resumption of direct mail service between the two countries.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with communist Cuba and first imposed a broad trade embargo during the Kennedy administration. Restrictions on travel and other nongovernmental contact have ebbed and flowed over the past five decades, with the tightest limits on family travel and remittances imposed during the administration of President George W. Bush.

U.S. citizens and residents were limited to family visits once every three years, and strict ceilings were placed on the amount and frequency of remittances. Although a congressional majority pushed through provisions exempting the sale of certain agricultural and medical goods from economic sanctions, the Bush administration set tight rules for allowing American sales representatives to travel to Cuba to negotiate the deals.

Obama has said the United States is not willing to explore a resumption of diplomatic ties with Cuba until it releases its political prisoners and the Cuban people are allowed democratic freedoms, measures that the government of President Raúl Castro, who replaced his brother, Fidel, last year, has shown no sign of undertaking.

Licensing for Cuba travel and remittances is regulated by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which officially amended its regulations Thursday.

The amendments expanded the definition of “close relatives” — previously limited to parents, spouses and children — and said there would be “no limits” on the frequency or duration of their visits to Cuba. Virtually all restrictions on money sent to Cuban family members were lifted.

The measure easing the sale of agricultural products was not part of the changes Obama initially announced, but it was pushed by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who said in a statement Thursday that the change “will make it easier for our producers to sell their goods to Cuba, and it makes good economic sense for family farmers in North Dakota and across the country.”

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All U.S. presidents since the mid-1970s have signed one-year extensions of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWTEA).

And Obama is expected to do the same because even without it the Helms-Burton law would keep the sanctions in place.

But the fact that Amnesty International on Monday urged Obama to let TWTEA expire underlined the legal maneuvering underway as opponents and supporters of the embargo strategize over the best way to undermine or preserve the U.S. sanctions against the island.

Allowing TWTEA to expire would be “a gesture without meaning,” said Washington attorney Robert Muse, considered a top expert on the history and legal structure of the embargo. Adopted in 1917, TWTEA for many years was applied to “enemy countries” after a formal U.S. declaration of war, Muse said. In 1963. President John F. Kennedy used TWTEA against Cuba under a declaration of an “international emergency.”

But in the 1970s, TWTEA was replaced by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. No new sanctions could be imposed under TWTEA, Muse added, but Cuba was grandfathered in. The 1996 Helms-Burton measure essentially turned the embargo into law and set conditions for lifting it that amount to having a democratically elected Cuban government.

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OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza told reporters it’s likely that “some years” and “a lot of changes in Cuba” will happen before the Cuban government asks to return to the 34-nation organization.

“We hope they will do so, but we don’t think that they will do so in the near future,” Insulza said in Barbados, where he was holding his first official meeting with the country’s new foreign minister.

The OAS voted in June to lift the suspension of Cuba’s membership as part of an effort at regional solidarity. Cuba quickly rejected the offer to rejoin the OAS, which it has accused of supporting U.S. hostility toward its communist government.

Insulza said the OAS did not expect Cuba to immediately embrace the group but felt it was important to remove a prohibition on the island’s membership — a Cold War relic that he said had become “negative for the organization.”

“We succeeded in that; we eliminated that,” he said of the lifting of the suspension. “Now the next step belongs to Cuba. They have to ask to return and we have to discuss that in council, with them.”

Membership in the OAS gives a country a voice in hemispheric agreements on major issues. The OAS has often tried to mediate solutions to political conflicts and it has offshoots that coordinate health policies and protect human rights.

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“It has to be Cuban,” said Navarro, the oldest of the island’s nine certified rum experts. “Havana Club can’t exist anywhere else.”

But another Havana Club does exist, one made by Bermuda-based rum giant Bacardi Ltd. A variety of Cohiba cigars, once rolled exclusively for Fidel Castro, is produced by Swedish Match North America of Virginia, and a Miami firm offers its own version of Cubita, a top Cuban coffee.

Washington’s 47-year-old trade embargo has kept Cuban products out of the U.S. — but hasn’t prevented companies from using the communist island’s brand names.

As the U.S. and Cuba consider better ties, such trademark issues would have be settled before any easing of the embargo. The fight between Bacardi and the Cuban government for the Havana Club name already has played out in the U.S. courts and Congress for more than a decade — and is now before Spain’s high court.

But the battles are about so much more than brand names. They are charged with 50 years of emotion over Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution and expropriation of private companies as he implemented socialism. They are also rooted in the future as U.S. corporations face the specter of new competition from Cuban products, which may carry a special allure after being banned for nearly a half century.

“There are U.S. interests thinking about how they are going to be affected by an influx of Cuban products, and the outlook is not always positive,” said Jake Colvin, director of the Washington-based USA Engage, which opposes the embargo.

Americans craving all things Cuban already can buy products inspired by the Caribbean island — just not made there.

Bacardi’s Havana Club is an 80-proof rum that has sold in Florida since 2006, and sales have been so strong, it’s thinking of expanding the label to other states, said spokeswoman Patricia M. Neal.

Even though Cuba’s Havana Club rum can’t be sold in the U.S., the Cuban government still sued Bacardi for using the name.

Bacardi argues it owns the name because the original Havana Club was expropriated by Castro from its Cuban producers, the Arechabala family, who went into exile. Bacardi bought the name and recipe from the Arechabalas in 1997.

Cuba says it registered the Havana Club trademark in the U.S. in 1976 after the Arechabalas let their claim on it expire. It has sold the rum internationally since 1993 in a joint partnership with French spirits consortium Pernod Ricard.

So far the U.S. courts have sided with Bacardi based on a 1998 federal law that prevents the registration or renewal of U.S. trademarks tied to companies nationalized by the Cuban government. Cuba has appealed its most recent case to the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s Havana Club is winning abroad. A Bacardi suit filed in a Spanish court against the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard over the trademark in that country was thrown out in 2007. Bacardi, too, has appealed, and the case is before the Spanish Supreme Court.

The true argument is over who can claim to produce authentic Cuban rum — especially if the country opens up to global commerce.

Bacardi, a family-owned spirits conglomerate founded in Santiago, Cuba, in 1862, pioneered the light, dry smoothness Cuban rum is now famous for, devising a charcoal-filter system and aging in oak barrels for added sweetness.

But the Bacardis joined the fiercely anti-Castro exile community in Miami after Castro nationalized the company in 1960. Havana Club, like all Bacardi rums, is made in Puerto Rico — and says so on the bottle.

Still, Neal says her company’s Havana Club transports consumers “back to the time it was created: sultry nights, classy nightclubs, and pulsating Latin music, enjoyed by locals and visitors alike.”

Cuba and Pernod Ricard spent $70 million to rehabilitate a Havana Club distillery specializing in darker, higher quality anejo rum in San Jose de Las Lajas.

“If I have a recipe, am I producing a Cuban rum? No. Cuban rum is not a recipe. It’s an expression of an entire culture,” said Navarro, while scrutinizing stacks of barrels filled with aging rum.

Even without the U.S. market — 40 percent of world rum drinkers — Cuban Havana Club has seen its annual sales soar 13 percent to 3.4 million cases. Bacardi’s more than 200 brands and labels sell 20 million cases in 150 countries every year.

It’s a debate that may ultimately be decided by consumers.

John Verburg, manager at Cafe Habana in Ann Arbor, Michigan, uses Barcardi to mix his mojitos, the famous Cuban cocktail of rum, sugar and mint. But he’s asked all the time when he will get rum “authentically from Cuba.”

“I don’t know if people are salivating yet,” Verburg said, “but it could be something very exciting.”

The thought of competing with Cuba is already keeping executives at Swedish Match North America up nights. The Richmond, Virginia-based company owns General Cigar Inc., which has sold Dominican Republic-made Cohiba cigars in the U.S. since 1997.

“It’s not the brand that’s going to make the difference, it’s whether it’s Cuban or not,” said Gerry Roerty, the company’s vice president and general counsel. And smokers are willing to pay a premium for Cuban, he said.

Cohiba was founded in Cuba to make cigars for Castro and visiting dignitaries. Today it is the flagship of 27 premium brands produced by Habanos, equally owned by the government and Madrid-based Altadis SA, which was acquired last year by Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Group PLC.

Cuba never registered its version of Cohibas in the United States but still sued General Cigar. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with General Cigar, which has factories in the Dominican Republic and Honduras and produces versions of signature Cuban brands Partagas, Hoyo de Monterrey, Bolivar and Punch. It also makes the La Gloria Cubana, Rico Habano and Havana Honeys brands, which despite their names are unknown on the island.

U.S. industry estimates show 85 million Cuban cigars could be shipped to the U.S. annually in a post-embargo world, slashing profits for U.S. companies that sell about 255 million premium cigars a year.

Roerty said not only would General Cigar face a trademark war, but the company would not have access to Cuban tobacco leaves or other raw materials to match its new competitors.

Some say the forbidden-fruit factor around Cuban cigars and other products won’t last if the embargo vanishes.

Still, most U.S. aficionados are anxious to get their hands on real Cubans.

At Havana Connections, a cigar shop in suburban Richmond — General Cigar’s own backyard — mention of Cubans sparked an hour-long discussion.

“When you smoke, it’s taste. And the Cuban seed and Cuban cigar — they’re smoother and creamier,” said 60-year-old Dan Tater, a smoker for about a quarter-century. “There’s got to be something to that lore that this is really a better cigar.”

Americans hankering for super-strong, Cuban-style espresso can get Cubita, a coffee imported by Universal Brands Inc. in Florida that shares a name with the Cuba’s best-seller on the island.

Universal Brands President Raul Diaz said his company has held a U.S. trademark for Cubita since the early 1990s and is confident it will stand regardless of any change in America’s Cuba policy. But he acknowledged that “at some point, if Cubita from Cuba is sold in the U.S., one of the Cubitas is going to suffer.”

More than 3,000 U.S. brands continue to hold trademarks in Cuba, with everything from McDonald’s to Macy’s to Mr. Peanut paying periodic registration fees in case the island one day embraces the free market, according to a 2002 list compiled by U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, Inc. in New York.

Experts worried the 2006 decision to nullify Cuba’s Havana Club trademark in the U.S. would prompt Cuba to stop respecting American brand names on the island — especially after Castro famously threatened to produce Cuban Coca-Cola.

So far, there has been no retaliation.

Colvin said Cuban leaders know that violating U.S. trademarks will weaken the island’s case before the World Trade Organization and other groups, where it claims American laws have allowed multinational companies to trample its trademarks.

“They’ve always made the case that they are right on this issue and they are the victims,” he said. “If they start violating trademarks, they lose the moral high ground.”

Felberbaum reported from Richmond. Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report from Havana.

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