Mass. AG sues feds over fishing rules

BOSTON (AP) — The state attorney general of Massachusetts filed suit against federal fishing regulators Thursday in an attempt to block new rules that she called a "death sentence" for New England's fleet.

The filing by Attorney General Martha Coakley comes four weeks after major new cuts in catch limits for bottom-dwelling groundfish went into effect May 1.

The most significant cut is a 78 percent year-to-year reduction in the catch of Gulf of Maine cod, but fishermen have also absorbed huge reductions in key flounder and haddock species.

Fishermen say they aren't allowed to catch enough fish to stay in business.

"I am in financial ruin," said Gloucester fisherman Joe Orlando, who stood with industry advocates and Coakley at the Boston Fish Pier when Coakley announced the suit.

The suit alleges that though regulators at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration acknowledge the cuts will be devastating, they haven't met legal requirements to mitigate them. It also charges regulators with using flawed science to back overly restrictive rules.

"The federal government has shown a callous disregard for the well-being of Massachusetts fishing families," Coakley said.

In the months before the rules took effect, regulators took various steps to try to ease the blow, such as by increasing the quota on healthier species. But the Northeast's top regulator, John Bullard, has repeatedly said the sharp cuts, though painful, are needed to help fish stocks rebound.

And he says the science is sound and backed by results on the water last year, when fishing was down region-wide and fishermen failed to catch near their quotas on most species.

In a statement Thursday, Bullard said it was "unfortunate" that Coakley decided to sue rather than work with NOAA to find ways to help the industry.

"It is time for us to look forward, not backward, if we are going to be able to help fishermen through this difficult transition," he said.

In the suit, Coakley refers to a historically dysfunctional relationship between federal regulators and local fishermen, recalling a 2010 review that found fishery cops had levied unreasonable or inflated fines against Northeast fishermen.

"The (new rules) are the latest in an unfortunate series of actions by NOAA that have threatened, instead of cultivated the success of, New England fisheries and fishermen," the suit said.

The science Coakley attacks in the suit has long been a point of contention for fishermen, who say its unreliable, and can fluctuate wildly, with fish stocks seen as healthy suddenly viewed as struggling. Fishermen note that they've caught within the limits recommended by science for a decade, but the payoff promised by scientists hasn't come.

"My livelihood has been slashed before my eyes because the scientific reports changed so drastically," Orlando said.

The Northeast Seafood Coalition, a Gloucester, Mass.,-based industry group, backs Coakley's suit and is pushing to replace the current regulations with emergency interim rules installed for 2012. The coalition says another year of the interim rules would allow more businesses to survive, while still allowing key fish species to grow. Bullard declined to continue the interim rules, saying it was neither legal nor prudent.

Peter Baker of the Pew Environment Group said he believes Coakley's suit will fail, but that it has the potential to make a bad situation worse by overturning rules aimed at rebuilding long-struggling fish stocks. Federal regulators are following the law, and the science — though imperfect — still clearly shows the fish are struggling, as does last year's poor catch, he said.

"There's something wrong. There's no fish," Baker said. "Trying to get the federal government not to end overfishing and not to follow federal law is a race to the bottom."

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New Jersey toughens rules for Ferris wheels after 11-year-old dies

Riders must be 54 inches tall to ride without supervision, new rules mandateHaving two riders in each car is "strongly recommended," official's letter statesAbiah Jones, 11, fell to her death at a Wildwood amusement park on June 3How the girl fell has not been determined; officials have no eyewitnesses

(CNN) -- The state of New Jersey is imposing harsher restrictions on Ferris wheel safety after an 11-year-old rider fell to her death earlier this month.

Officials are mandating riders be at least 54 inches to ride without supervision, according to a letter from Michael Triplett of the New Jersey Carnival and Amusement Ride Safety Unit.

Triplett also "strongly recommended" that each car have at least two riders, and added that if a manufacturer has a more strict requirement, that requirement should be followed.

The changes coincide with the release of a preliminary report into the death of Abiah Jones of Pleasantville, New Jersey, who fell at Morey's Piers Mariner's Landing Pier, in Wildwood, on June 3.

Jones, who met a 54-inch height requirement, was on a school trip when she fell from one of the park's main attractions, called The Great Wheel. After receiving first aid at the scene, she was taken to Cape Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

How the girl fell is still undetermined, and officials have no eyewitnesses, according to a report by the state of New Jersey. Surveillance footage showed her during the fall but did not show her leaving the gondola, the report said.

It determined she entered the ride as a single rider and sustained "significant head trauma as well as cuts on her arms and shoulders," hitting several objects on her way to the ground.

The findings also concluded operators had no knowledge of any problems, the ride had no mechanical defects, and no other problems had been reported in its 25-year history.

"The fact that Abiah Jones was alone in the gondola, without any nearby passengers, may have led her to take a risk that she would have been convinced not to take if there were other riders in the gondola," the state investigator concluded.

At 156 feet, the ride is one of the tallest wheels on the East Coast, Morey Piers spokeswoman Lindsey Young told CNN.

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Libyan rebels distribute rules on POW treatment (AP)

BENGHAZI, Libya – The rebel administration that controls much of eastern Libya is distributing guidelines on how its fighters should treat prisoners of war, following a string of allegations that rebels have engaged in unlawful arrests, mistreated captives and killed sub-Saharan Africans wrongly accused of being mercenaries.

The rebels are holding about 300 prisoners, including 10 foreigners, according to the top legal affairs official in the newly created National Transitional Council, Salwa Fawzi al-Deghali.

The rebels say they want to make sure that these and future captives are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions governing the humanitarian treatment of prisoners and other victims of war.

The low prisoner count raises questions about what has happened to the scores of alleged mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa that the rebels earlier reported capturing. The rebels have accused Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi of bringing in thousands of mercenaries, and their fate remains an open question.

Questions also are being asked about rebel detention and interrogation of people living in the areas they control who are suspected of supporting Gadhafi.

Al-Deghali said pamphlets containing rules on POW treatment were being handed out to rebel fighters on the front lines because most are civilians and aren't familiar with the Geneva Conventions. "They need guidelines and advice about the rules and procedures they should respect," she said.

"The NTC firmly believes that these prisoners' rights are important, not just as a matter of principle, but that they will help all Libyans to build peace between themselves once the war is over."

She said anyone who broke the rules would be punished, but did not say what the punishment would be.

The guidelines call for prisoners to have access to medical care, to be allowed to freely practice their religion and contact their families, and to receive visits from representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The standards may be workable in the rebels' Benghazi stronghold, but it remains unclear how they would be carried out on the front lines, where the poorly equipped rebels don't have communications equipment and medical facilities for themselves, much less for prisoners.

"When capturing someone, first make sure whether he is a fighter or a civilian. If he is a civilian, let him go," the Arabic-language guidelines state. Fighters can be held for an initial 48 hours and interrogated, before being referred to the justice system if suspected of crimes such as killing civilians.

Allegations also have been made that Gadhafi's forces have mistreated POWs and political opponents, but international rights groups say they have been unable to get any information from the regime.

Al-Deghali said about 150 prisoners were being held in Benghazi, the rebel bastion on Libya's northeast Mediterranean coast, and 150 were in Misrata, the rebel-held port in the west that has been under siege for more than two months. The 10 foreigners include Chadians, Ghanaians, Algerians and Egyptians, she said.

One European who was in Misrata a month ago, said he saw 27 bodies of what appeared to be sub-Saharan Africans, all shot in the back of the head.

"I saw bodies brought in on the back of pickup trucks around Tripoli Street in downtown Misrata," said the man, who didn't want to be identified by name or nationality for fear of reprisal.

He said he counted 11 bodies in one truck and nine in another. The rebels told him they were mercenaries from Mali, Chad and Niger, he said.

Near Misrata's vegetable market, he said he saw seven more bodies near what appeared to be an "execution ground." All appeared to have been forced to their knees and killed with a bullet to the back of the head.

Since then, however, prisoner treatment appears to have improved: Last week, reporters in Misrata were shown prisoners held in two floors of a school, their wounds bandaged, some praying.

Amnesty International and the ICRC say they have visited people detained at three or four locations in Benghazi, and both put the number held there at around 200 — including civilians suspected of supporting Gadhafi.

But people are being held at a score or more places in the city, security sources said, including military barracks, government buildings used by some 30 self-appointed rebel internal security units and at some High Court offices.

A new interior minister appointed two weeks ago is charged with streamlining and organizing the security units, Council vice chairman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told the AP.

AP reporters tried unsuccessfully for days to see detainees in Benghazi. Despite a letter of permission from the council's media center, rebel officers refused to allow access.

Before the uprising erupted three months ago, Libya, with a population of about 5.5 million, hosted 2.5 million foreign workers.

Al-Deghali says the rebels now acknowledge that some people detained as suspected mercenary fighters were just foreign workers swept up in the chaos.

"But we released them after we interrogated them (because) they turned out to be innocent — just expatriates, foreign workers," she said.

Still, residents in Benghazi say some foreign fighters — who stood out, they said, because they wore yellow hard hats — were migrant workers hastily paid to join the battle on Gadhafi's side.

The U.N. Human Rights Council is looking into rights violations in Libya, including extra-judicial killings on both sides.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague said he is investigating reports of unlawful arrest, mistreatment and killing of "sub-Saharan African civilians wrongly perceived to be mercenaries."

He said angry mobs in rebel-controlled Benghazi and other cities are accused of assaulting and killing dozens of them, and perpetrators could be prosecuted for war crimes.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Google, Facebook warn on Internet rules at e-G8 (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – Google Inc Chairman Eric Schmidt and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg warned governments to tread lightly on Internet regulation because moves to tame its rough edges risked hurting its virtues.

At the conclusion of a two-day forum in Paris, their comments exposed deep rifts between tech titans, academics and policy makers even as they tried to agree on a message to take to world leaders at the Group of Eight industrialized nations meeting on Thursday in Deauville, France.

With the forum, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was seeking to put his stamp on the debate over regulating the Internet and encouraging the digital economy during his one-year term as president for the G8.

Despite a glittering guest list, the event dubbed the eG8 ended up with few concrete policy recommendations and mostly vague conclusions that the delegation of six technology chief executives, including Schmidt and Zuckerberg, will present to leaders in Deauville on Thursday.

The outcome highlights the difficulty of finding a way to regulate the Internet that is acceptable to both governments and industry.

Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old entrepreneur who created the social network with 500 million users around the world, was greeted like a rock star during a question-and-answer session on Wednesday and praised for creating a tool that helped touch off democracy movements in the Arab world.

"People tell me on the one hand 'it's great you played such a big role in the Arab spring, but it's also kind of scary because you enable all this sharing and collect information on people'," said Zuckerberg, who was clad in a T-shirt and jeans.

"But it's hard to have one without the other .... You can't isolate some things you like about the Internet and control other things that you don't."

Schmidt sounded a similar note earlier when he told the assembly: "Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences."

The divisions on copyright proved too large to be bridged, as well as the question of how the burden of investing in telecommunications networks should be shared among telecom operators and the Web giants that rely on them.

At the final panel intended to finalize the message to the G8 leaders, Schmidt squared off with Vivendi CEO Jean Bernard Levy over copyright issues.

Levy, whose company puts out music and video games that are often pirated, said: "I don't think you can compromise on copyright. It's the right of the artist to decide how his work is used."

Schmidt shot back: "I would be opposed to any absolute statements. Copyright is not an absolute right; it is a shared right. Copyright in one form or another is a balance of interests."

Maurice Levy, chief executive of advertising firm Publicis, which is hosting the conference, said they didn't have to resolve the many debates over the Internet's future.

"We are not going to Deauville with a list of grievances or requirements," said Levy at the close of the forum. "We are going with the idea of sharing our points of view and to have an exchange with leaders."

(Additional reporting by Marie Mawad and Gwenaelle Barzic; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Yemenis flee gunbattles as Saleh rules out concessions (Reuters)

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemenis fled the capital on Wednesday to escape gunbattles between loyalists and opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said he would make no more concessions to those seeking his ouster.

Sporadic machinegun fire rang out for the third day in the sandbagged streets around the mansion of an influential tribal leader who has backed protesters seeking to overthrow the longtime ruler after repeated international mediation failed.

Black smoke rose from the compound of Sadiq al-Ahmar, at the center of the clashes that have killed more than 40 people since Monday, when his guards first exchanged fire with loyalist forces they accused of stockpiling weapons at a nearby school.

Authorities closed Sanaa airport and flights were being diverted after clashes broke out with tribesmen loyal to Ahmar, a security official told Reuters, adding that some airlines had begun cancelling flights to Yemen on Tuesday.

"What happened was a provocative act to drag us into civil war, but it is limited to the Ahmar sons. They bear responsibility for shedding the blood of innocent civilians," Saleh told selected media including Reuters.

"Until this second, they are attacking the Interior Ministry. But we don't want to widen the confrontation," he said. "They have chosen this and they made the wrong decision to confront the state with this kind of violence."

Four people were killed and 11 wounded, the defense ministry said, blaming Ahmar's men. Witnesses and officials said Ahmar's backers took over several ministry buildings near his compound.

The fighting, the most sustained clashes in Sanaa since protests against Saleh's rule began in February, erupted on Monday, a day after the president refused at the last minute to sign a Gulf-brokered deal that would ease him out of power.

Saleh has backed out twice before, but Sunday's turnabout, after loyalist gunmen trapped Western and Arab diplomats in the United Arab Emirates embassy for hours, appeared to have sparked a major reaction.

General Ali al-Mohsen, a regional army commander who has sided with protesters, called on the armed forces to defy Saleh.

"Beware of following this madman who is thirsty for more bloodshed," Mohsen said in a statement.

Both sides blamed each other for the violence, which the opposition said could start a civil war. The bloodshed dimmed prospects for a political solution to a popular revolt inspired by protests that swept aside the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia.

"I think there's a real risk that violence can escalate, and we see a move toward low intensity civil war," said Shadi Hamid, analyst at the Brookings Doha Center.

"There's a real loss of faith in the political process after Saleh refused to sign a deal several times. That really cast doubt on whether Saleh has any real commitment to letting go of power voluntarily," he added.

CONTROL OF MINISTRIES

Saleh said the deal remained on the table, despite his repeated failure to sign: "I am ready to sign within a national dialogue and a clear mechanism. If the mechanism is sound, we will sign the transition of power deal and we will give up power."

"No more concessions after today," he said.

In the capital Sanaa, fighters in civilian clothes roamed the streets in some districts and sporadic bursts of machinegun fire punctuated the air.

Long lines of cars snaked out of the city, bags piled high on their roofs, even as gunmen blocked entrances to prevent tribesmen from bringing in reinforcements, witnesses said.

The situation calmed slightly in the afternoon as mediators tried to seal a truce. Yet in the neighborhoods close to the fighting, men fled with suitcases and women carried their babies in the streets, seeking safety elsewhere.

"It's no longer possible to stay in Sanaa. The confrontations will reach all parts of the city," said Murad Abdullah as he left by car. "I am afraid for my life. I will go to my village in Ibb. The situation there is safe."

The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by a wing of al Qaeda based in Yemen, have tried to defuse the crisis and avert any spread of anarchy that could give the global militant network more room to operate.

U.N. Secretary Genera Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said Ban was deeply troubled by the clashes in Sanaa and called for further peace efforts and an immediate end to the fighting, while Britain reiterated calls on Saleh to sign the exit deal.

But a peaceful outcome looked ever less likely.

Witnesses and officials said supporters of Ahmar, head of the Hashed tribal federation to which Saleh's Sanhan tribe also belongs, were controlling several ministry buildings near the Ahmar compound including trade and tourism, as well as the offices of the state news agency Saba.

Ahmar's fighters had also attacked the headquarters of the interior ministry, the courtyard of which came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses said.

Televised images of the Ahmar compound showed tribesmen rushing through opulent but dusty halls, their floors spattered with blood, as they helped colleagues wounded in the fighting.

"This is an attempt to drag the revolution from its peaceful path," opposition politician Hamid al-Ahmar, brother to Sadiq al-Ahmar, said on Al Jazeera television.

"But this is understood, and it won't affect the path of the revolution. The popular revolution."

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Sudam and Khaled al-Mahdi in Sanaa and Nour Merza in Dubai; writing by Cynthia Johnston and Firouz Sedarat; editing by Erika Solomon and Philippa Fletcher)

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Internet rules at center of 'e-G8' forum in Paris (AP)

PARIS – France wants better regulation of the Internet. Google's executive chairman says policymakers should tread lightly and avoid "stupid" rules.

Bridging such differences about how the Internet could or should be more regulated took center stage Tuesday at an "e-G8" meeting aimed to parlay the digital world's growing economic clout into a cohesive message for world leaders at the Group of Eight summit later this week in Normandy.

The two-day Paris gathering has brought together Internet and media world gurus such as Google Inc. executive chairman Eric Schmidt, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. And the discussion includes issues such as protecting children from "evil stuff" on line, preventing illegal downloading of copyrighted materials and shielding Facebook users from unsolicited invitations.

The e-G8 comes amid concerns in the industry that some countries — including several in Europe such as France — have taken measures or enacted laws that could curb Internet freedoms.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, kicking off the conference, said governments need to lay down and enforce rules in the digital world — even as they need to foster creativity and economic growth with the Internet.

It's unclear whether he'll win over digital executives with this argument, or whether the G-8 summit — which doesn't include countries such as China, a major source of online activity and online regulation — will agree on a single policy going forward.

Sarkozy said he faced mistrust over his push for the "e-G8" when Japan's earthquake, fiscal troubles in Europe, and the Arab world revolutions are likely to dominate the G-8 summit in Deauville on Thursday and Friday. Conflicting visions about the Internet — notably about how regulated it should be — has pitted companies such as Amazon.com and Google against governments about how to protect privacy and copyrights online.

"We need to hear your aspirations, your needs," Sarkozy told hundreds of business executives, creative minds and journalists at Tuileries Gardens in Paris. "You need to hear our limits, our red lines."

Policymakers such as Sarkozy say the blistering pace of growth has often left regulators behind. He said a "balance" needed to be struck to prevent misuse of the Internet — such as to protect children online — while boosting its potential as a driver for economic growth.

While praising the executives, he said regulatory curbs are needed.

"Don't let the revolution that you've begun threaten everyone's basic right to a private life and full autonomy," said Sarkozy. "Full transparency ... sooner or later runs into the very principle of individual freedom."

Google's Schmidt said technological changes have led to a "shift in power" toward individuals — whether to illegally release secret documents or transfer copyrighted material, or rally against their repressive regimes.

"My own opinion is that most governments are having trouble with that shift in power," he said. "So rather than sort of complaining about it, which is what everybody does, why don't we see if we can harness it?"

During an e-G8 panel talk, Schmidt said: "You want to tread lightly on regulating brand new, innovative industries. ... Clearly you need some level of regulation for the evil stuff. But I would be careful about overregulating the Internet.

"I cannot imagine any delegate in this conference (who) would want Internet growth to be significantly slowed by a government that slows it down because of some stupid rule that they put in place," he said.

Last week, the U.N.'s independent expert on freedom of speech said governments that curtail users' access to the Internet are violating a basic human right — regardless of the justification.

Britain last year joined France by announcing it would cut off Internet access to people who illegally download copyright-protected material. The French government has so far issued only warnings under the "three strikes" formula for possible penalties.

Privacy concerns have also raised hackles in Europe.

In January, Facebook and German officials reached a deal over unsolicited invitations sent to nonmembers of the social networking site through its "Friend Finder" feature — which allows Facebook to send email invitations to potential users through current members' address books.

The feature came under fire in Germany for violating privacy laws by allowing unauthorized access to information of third parties. The agreement allows Facebook members more control over the email addresses they share.

Johannes Caspar, a data protection official in Hamburg who negotiated the deal for the Germans, said American laws under which Facebook operates tend to be more laissez-faire than those of Europe about privacy issues.

He said Facebook has cooperated with German investigations about possible privacy law violations, and the onus now is on Europe "to make things clearer" about the rules companies face on the continent.

___

Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

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New rules usher in a tasty comeback for Cuban food (AP)

HAVANA – Ramon Menendez went to his grave in the 1980s believing that his family grocery, shut down by Fidel Castro's revolution, would one day rise again. In January it finally happened.

La Moneda Cubana, which sold groceries, snacks and liquor, is back in business in the heart of Old Havana. But now, under the management of grandson Miguel Angel Morales Menendez, it's an elegant restaurant, one of dozens that have sprung up as the country struggles to adapt its communist system to modern economic realities.

"My grandfather would be proud," Morales said. "I kept telling people it's not a dream! It's not a dream! One day it will be possible. One they have to let us."

After years spent working in dreary state-run restaurants and hush-hush culinary speakeasies, restaurateurs and chefs are operating under a set of new, less exacting rules that allow their talents freer reign. There are brand new places such as La Moneda Cubana, and splashy reopenings such as La Guarida, made famous by the Oscar-nominated 1993 movie "Strawberry and Chocolate."

The boom runs the gamut from La Pachanga, which serves guava shakes and towering $4 burgers, to Cafe Laurent, a converted penthouse where the mostly foreign clientele can easily drop $30 a head — more than Cuba's average monthly wage.

If the restaurants are successful, they could generate badly needed tax revenue and provide a model for how to shrink the bloated state-employed sector by absorbing hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats into the private sector.

"This was long overdue," said Jose Antonio Figueroa, 39, a partner in Cafe Laurent. "This is a chance to achieve what we always wanted."

After six years working at El Templete, one of the more highly regarded government restaurants, he, another manager and an assistant chef quit to start their own place as soon as the rules were announced last fall.

At Cafe Laurent, they have the freedom to set their own prices, experiment with the menu, handpick employees who care about service — and pay them enough not to pilfer food for their families.

The new eateries are a boon for well-off residents and tourists tired of the bland fare at many government restaurants.

"It's a lot better food, better service," said Simon Castellani, a 21-year-old visiting student from Copenhagen who was dining on fresh shrimp at Cafe Laurent.

Authorities first let private restaurants open in homes in 1993 during the austerity that followed the collapse of Cuba's lifeline, the Soviet Union. But just months later they slammed on the brakes. In 1995 they rolled out strict rules: Paladars (the word is Spanish for "palate") were limited to 12 seats and prohibited from serving steak or seafood. Live music was banned. Employees had to be family members or registered as residents of the home.

The restaurant scene peaked in 1996-1997, when the government decided the economic crisis was easing. It sharply raised the restaurateurs' taxes and stepped up enforcement.

"They began to phase this experiment out," said Ted Henken, a professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Baruch college in New York. "I think that was mostly due to Fidel's ideological aversion to this kind of thing."

Only a handful of the most successful survived. Even La Guarida, whose A-list of past guests ran from Jack Nicholson to Queen Sofia of Spain, shut down in 2009. Its owner was quoted as saying the laws made it too tough to operate.

The new rules allow the independent restaurants to seat up to 20 people. Gone is the ban on seafood and steak, as well as the rule on hiring only family members.

"That was always absurd," said Morales. "No family is entirely made up of gastronomes and chefs."

Since then 60 to 100 restaurants have been launched in Havana, including new, reopened and clandestine ones that went legit. They're also opening in lesser numbers in cities on the tourist route. In blistering hot Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city, a number of homes now have improvised ice cream and fruit shops.

In interviews with The Associated Press, the new restaurant owners said getting a license is now quick and easy, and government inspectors are professional and helpful.

While Fidel Castro admitted that he opened the economy in the 1990s only grudgingly and out of desperation, his brother and successor, Raul Castro, stresses that the island must change its ways.

"They really feel like this is different from Fidel," Henken said. "There is a new sheriff in town, and that sheriff sees these people not as illegitimate but as legal, honest workers — who should follow the rules and be controlled."

Still, running a restaurant can be brutal even in a thriving economy. In Cuba, there's an array of taxes that one restaurateur estimates will take at least 60 percent of his earnings this year. Supplies of fresh ingredients are unreliable and credit is often unobtainable. The government is developing plans to extend loans, but for now, many entrepreneurs have gotten startup capital from relatives overseas.

Foreigners and well-heeled Cubans are too few to support all the new restaurants that have opened, and some restaurateurs are already scaling back operations or giving up.

Raul Castro has said he has no intention of dismantling socialism or letting individuals accumulate too much wealth, and there's no guarantee that the rug won't be yanked out again.

"They've been through this before," said Rafael Romeu, president of the Washington-based nonpartisan Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy. "Cuba has a flexible boundary that moves back and forth in terms of the public sector's tolerance for private sector activity."

So restaurant owners are tempering their expectations for now.

"We don't anticipate people lining up outside the house to eat," said Niuri Ysabel Higueras Martinez, 36, one of a trio of seasoned restaurateur siblings. They operate stylish L'Atelier, perched on the top floor of an 1860s mansion in El Vedado district and serving experimental Cuban-fusion fare, everything from ceviche and clams au gratin to falafel and babaganoush.

"We're not trying to get rich or become millionaires," added her brother, Herdys Higueras Martinez. "We just want to have a good time with the customers and have something left over for ourselves without making a big show of it."

That could change if there is further economic opening — and if Washington lifts its decades-old ban on travel to the island. Some here consider the latter an inevitability, and say the paladars can absorb the flood.

"At some point there will be brand new tourism from America." said Figueroa of Cafe Laurent, "and it's good to be prepared."

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FAA Announces New Rules Following Aborted Landing of First Lady's Plane

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The Federal Aviation Administration has announced new procedures following the aborted landing of a presidential plane carrying first lady Michelle Obama that flew too close to a military cargo jet on Monday. 

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said that the agency will start requiring a supervisor to monitor movements of flights involving the vice president and first lady, just as the FAA requires for flights carrying President Obama. 

"As of today, we are making the same supervisor oversight requirement for VPOTUS and FLOTUS flights in the DC area and at their destinations where possible," she said. 

The announcement comes as both the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board launch investigations into the incident. It marked the latest embarrassment for the agency, which is trying to tamp down growing anxiety over flying after suspending nine air traffic controllers and supervisors across the country in recent weeks, including five for sleeping on the job.

Monday's mishap didn't involve a sleeping air traffic controller. Instead, the civilian controller at the regional radar facility in Warrenton, Va., allowed the Obama plane to get too close to an Air Force C-17 plane in front of it.

The FAA requires a minimum separation of 5 miles between planes when the plane in the lead is as large as the 200-ton cargo jet because the turbulence created by the wings can be dangerous to trailing aircraft. 

Obama and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, were aboard a Boeing 737, one of the fleet of presidential passenger jets, returning from an appearance on ABC's "The View" in New York, when the near-collision occurred on final approach to Andrews. 

The civilian controller in Warrenton told the military's controller at Andrews that the distance between the planes was 4 miles -- an estimate that turned out to be inaccurate. The distance was just more than 3 miles. 

The controllers at Andrews ordered the Obama plane to execute a series of "S-turns" in an effort to increase the distance, but that was ineffective. The military controllers weren't sure there was enough time for the C-17 to get off the runway once it landed before the first lady's plane could land on the same runway. So they instructed the Obama plane to abort its landing.

The FAA said it was investigating the incident as a possible error by controllers at Warrenton and added that the aircraft were never in any danger.

Michelle Obama's office said it would not be commenting on the incident.

After a series of incidents this year involving sleeping air traffic controllers, the FAA official in charge of the U.S. air traffic system resigned last week.

The first disclosed case of a controller falling asleep on duty occurred March 23 at Washington's Reagan National Airport. The most recent was this week, when a controller at a regional radar facility near Cleveland was suspended for watching a movie on a DVD player when he was supposed to be monitoring air traffic.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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New rules for air traffic controllers

STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe transportation secretary says the FAA and controllers' union agreed to changesThe changes will be implemented immediatelyControllers will now have a minimum of nine hours off between shifts Washington (CNN) -- Air traffic controllers are facing a slew of new rules aimed at preventing them from falling asleep while on duty, the government announced Sunday.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Federal Aviation Administration and the Air Traffic Controllers Union agreed to implement the changes effective immediately, following a series of recent incidents involving sleeping air traffic controllers.

Air traffic control staffing under scrutiny

Controllers will now have a minimum of nine hours off between shifts, instead of the current eight-hour minimum, LaHood said. That will apply when they swap shifts as well. Controllers can no longer be put on an unscheduled midnight shift following a day off.

FAA managers will schedule their own shifts in a way to ensure greater coverage in the early morning and late night hours as well, LaHood said.

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