Odds and ends

• At the Export Law Blog, a note on recent fines imposed by Treasury on embargo violators – a company that shipped furniture from China to Cuba, purchasers of Cuban cigars over the Internet. Plus a few other posts on Cuba sanctions issues.

• While we’re on the subject of the President and the Pope, here’s a January op-ed by the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, in which he associates the Administration’s policy with that of the Vatican, without mentioning that the Vatican and the Cuban Catholic bishops have long opposed the core of the U.S. approach to Cuba, which is to block contacts between Americans and Cubans.

• A Reuters report on a draft EU policy statement that would ditch the EU’s 2003 diplomatic sanctions. Some Europarliamentarians have a different view.