Roberta S. Jacobson: “We have consistently called on the Venezuelan Government to release those it has unjustly jailed.”

The exit of either of the Castro brothers is very, very significant.

The President's new approach makes clear that the United States can no longer be blamed as an obstacle to progress on such things as access to information or connecting Cubans to the world.

But comprehensive changes in our economic relationship will require congressional action to lift the embargo, and the President has urged Congress to begin that effort.

Most human rights abuses were official acts committed at the direction of the government.