No passage to Cuba
Knowledge Exchange
The us government in March announced it would ease restrictions on publication of papers from countries under a trade embargo, but almost in the same breath warned 50 us scientists from attending a conference in Cuba, says the journal Science (March 19, 2004, Vol 303 No 1742). For scientific cooperation among nations, this means one step ahead and two backwards.
The Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (ofac), which is responsible for enforcing trade sanctions against embargoed countries, had last September ruled that us publishers needed a government licence to "edit' submissions from Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Cuba. After protests from publishers, ofac said it would provide them with a "general licence'.
But even as ofac relaxed this rule, its was threatening another type of scientific exchange. ofac wrote to us researchers planning to attend the