WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Americans with "close relatives" in Cuba can visit the island as long and often as they would like under new rules lifting some travel and telecommunications restrictions, the U.S. Treasury said on Thursday. The rules, effective immediately, fleshed out an announcement by President Barack Obama in April to ease the U.S. trade embargo enforced on Cuba after Fidel Castro's leftist revolution half a century ago. But the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Americans could spend only $179 per day on visits to family members in Cuba, including aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins.

BY Anahi Rama SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) The Organization of American States lifted its 47-year suspension of Cuba on Wednesday in a move backed by Washington, but Cuban state-run TV said Havana had no interest in rejoining the group. "Cuba has not asked for nor does it wish to return to the OAS, which is steeped in a submissive and shady history," said anchorman Randy Alonso. There was no immediate reaction from officials of Cuba's communist-run government. But former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in April that Cuba had no desire to rejoin the OAS, which he has criticized as an instrument of U.S. policy, and did not want to "hear the vile name of that institution." The 34-member hemispheric body, meeting in Honduras, unanimously scrapped a 1962 decision at the height of the Cold War that barred Cuba as revolutionary leader Fidel Castro took it toward communism and an alliance with the Soviet Union. While leftists in Latin America hailed the OAS vote as a diplomatic victory for Cuba, Washington said it had succeeded in ensuring that Cuba could not rejoin the group without moving toward democracy and respect for human rights. U.S. President Barack Obama has taken…

HAVANA (Reuters) - The number of Cuban Americans visiting Cuba is up 20 percent so far this year and will likely keep rising as Washington eases travel restrictions, the Cuban tour operator for U.S. traffic said on Wednesday. Antonio Diaz Medina, vice president of Havanatur, said arrivals picked up after the U.S. Congress in March eased a Bush administration measure that restricted Cuban American visits to once every three years. "The flights from the United States carried about 85,000 last year and so far this year arrivals have been about 40,000," Diaz said in an interview. Diaz said an additional increase in visitors was expected during the summer after President Barack Obama signed an executive order last month lifting all restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting relatives.

Qatar and Cuba on Wednesday launched a joint $75 million project to create a five-star resort on the Caribbean island, officials said. The gas-rich Gulf state is set to become the first Arab country to invest in Cuba's booming tourism sector, after representatives inked the deal in Havana. The 450-room upscale hotel complex is to be built in the south of the island and is expected to be completed by 2015.While Cuba already receives millions of visitors from Europe, Latin America and Canada each year, officials hope improving ties with the United States will soon spell an influx of American tourists. U.S. citizens have effectively been barred from traveling to Cuba for nearly a half century. In 2008 the communist island received 2.3 million tourists. AFP.