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Obama faced challenges enough at the summit without that distraction. Cuba was proving the biggest. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa was boycotting the summit over Cuba's exclusion, while moderates such as Santos and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil said there should be no more America's summits without the communist island. Obama's administration has greatly eased family travel and remittances to Cuba, but has not dropped the half-century U.S. embargo against the island, nor moved to let it back into the Organization of American States, under whose auspices the summit is organized. Another big issue will be drug legalization, which the Obama administration firmly opposes. Santos left it off the official agenda but has said all possible scenarios should be explored and the United Nations should consider them. Meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez at his request, Obama can expect to discuss that country's claim to the Falkland Islands, known as the Malvinas by the Argentines, after Argentina lost a war with Britain 30 years ago while trying to seize them. Among the hemisphere's leaders, there is nearly unanimous support for Argentina's position. It remains unclear, meanwhile, whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would make it to the summit. He has grabbed the spotlight at past summits. But, suffering from an unspecified type of cancer, he has lately been shuttling back and forth to Cuba for radiation treatment.
[Associated
Press;
Associated Press writers Libardo Cardona, Pedro Mendoza, Marco Sibaja and Julie Pace contributed to this report.
Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak.
Vivian Sequera on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vsequera.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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