The shutting of doors to Indian exports is seen as a retaliatory measure, or as to garner more items on the negotiating table while both sides meet again in the ongoing bilateral talks. The case in point for the payback is that India does not allow transit facilities to Pakistan’s exports to Nepal and Bhutan.

At a glance, the accord hugely favours Pakistan as its goods gain access through Afghanistan to Central Asian countries including lucrative markets of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The amended trade deal was signed by Pakistan Commerce Minister Amin Fahim and his Afghan counterpart Anwarul Haq in the presence of Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Islamabad has for long resisted pressure from Kabul to allow the export of Indian goods by land through Pakistani territory. However, this long-standing demand by both Afghanistan and India seemed to impact more the poor of the region than the governments of the nations involved.

The failures of protracted farcical talks between India and Pakistan continue to push every possible event to be used as a tool to blatantly demonstrate displeasure with one another’s actions. Lately, while Islamabad refuses to give India the Most Favoured Nation status, Delhi has raised both tariff and non-tariff barriers to restrict Pakistan’s exports.

It is yet to be seen whether Clinton would be able to play a meaningful role in the region to re-weld the two nuclear states for ushering in peace and prosperity to the region. But given the frequent border tensions and unrest in Kashmir after a respite indicate that any time in near future it is unlikely the two governments giving in to allow each other land transit rights.

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Although the utterances by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon stand in the way of improving ties between both countries diplomatic developments in the region is likely to override those differences. Clinton told last month that Fidel Castro and his brother President Raul Castro “do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would then lose all their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” In retaliation, Alarcon challenged her to lift the embargo even for a year to see whether it was in his country’s interest or hers.

When President Barack Obama assumed office last year he called for better ties with Cuba if Castro executed democratic reforms and improved human rights status, an US policy widely criticized over its double standards in dealing with China and Saudi Arabia at the same time. However, the recent election in Cuba which saw almost 95 percent of the electorate exercising their franchise, technically helps Obama to put in effect one of his poll promises.

The legislation approved by the House does not lift the overall embargo, but prohibits advance payment for agricultural sales to Cuba. Likewise, this week’s election in which Cubans was able to choose between more than one candidate also cannot be termed as a major electoral reform as it does not interfere with the top leadership of the country.

The US rice sales to Cuba declined every year after the Bush administration’s cash-in-advance rules were imposed in 2005. The new provision if ratified is expected to make the US rice and other agro-commodities once again attractive to Cuba. The US Chamber of Commerce estimates the embargo costs the country about $1.2bn a year in lost business.

All trade with Cuba, with the exception of US exports of agricultural products and some essential medicines, has been prohibited since 1962. Under George W Bush, the Cuban-Americans were eligible to travel to Cuba only once every three years and were limited to sending only $300 to relatives every three months. On the contrary, the Obama administration relaxed travel and remittances restrictions that allowed Americans with relatives in Cuba to travel there more frequently with longer stay duration and to send as much money as they want to any Cuban who is not a senior government or Communist party official.

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Starting from the arrest of 10 US missionaries who tried to kidnap children after the quake in Haiti down to the recent apprehension of another man linked to the US missionaries by the Dominican police are seen as a prelude to exploitation and predation yet to jolt the Haitian coast. The quake that has killed more than 200,000 people has left thousands of children orphaned, and consequently vulnerable to being preyed upon by child sex traffickers.

Although millions of dollars have flown into Haiti in Aid and another $11.5bn expected to be spent by the UN in the next three years for socio-economic reconstruction of the country, an Al Jazeera report shows there are widespread misgivings among the Haitians about the rich nations’ participation in the whole re-building process. In a feature presented by Sebastian Walker in Al Jazeera elaborates that many Haitians see the expansion of foreign companies as a way to take advantage of the rampant poverty plaguing the nation, where the unemployment rate is up to 80 percent.

Miguel Angel Torres, a factory manager of one of the largest garment factories of the famous American brand, the Levi Strauss & Co told Al Jazeera that Haiti’s competitive factor of growth was its lowest salary. In the feature, Walker said with the promise of economic incentives for Haiti many multi-national companies were exploiting the cheapest wages in the world to make extra bucks, or in other words, “profiting from poverty”.

Walker pointed out that the sale of just one pair of jeans could pay off two weeks of a Haitian garment worker’s salary, $4 per day. It has been noticed that these low wages would not bring needed change to the Haitian economy unless stricter rules to raise the wages were enforced. He blamed the US president Barack Obama and former presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush for their plans of promoting the US clothing companies in Haiti which took all the profits back home.

Yannick Etienne, a garment worker said the clothing firms were helping themselves under the garb of shaping the future of Haiti. She added that she couldn’t see any improvement in the economy through these projects rather than reproduction of poverty.

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