Jorge Perez spoke easily about a once-taboo topic among Cuban-American powerbrokers: his desire to increase artistic exchanges with those on the communist island, that was during the opening of the Miami's new art museum in December, AP reported. Then, this week, billionaire sugar baron Alfonso Fanjul - whose family's business was seized by Fidel Castro in 1959 - spoke publicly for the first time about investing back in Cuba. Both men are among a growing number of powerful South Florida Cuban-American business, civic and political leaders breaking the long-held public line on U.S. relations with Cuba and the Castro government. For all the talk of changing attitudes among second-generation Cuban-Americans and newer Cuban arrivals, older powerbrokers have remained the guardians of the U.S government's five-decade economic and travel embargo against Cuba and have for years used their political influence to block any major changes. -- SPA 20:13 LOCAL TIME 17:13 GMT تغريد
