Hotel closure after Mexico-US row
Local authorities in a district of Mexico City have announced the imminent closure of a US-owned hotel at the centre of a diplomatic row. It said the branch of the Sheraton chain had committed irregularities such as unauthorised building work and failure to provide a menu in Braille.
The announcement comes as Mexico investigates the hotel for expelling 16 Cuban officials last week. The delegation was ordered out to comply with a US embargo against Cuba.
A US law bans American companies from doing business with the island. However, the authorities in the city’s central Cuauhtemoc district did not say if the closure of the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton was linked to the diplomatic row.
There have been anti-US protests outside the building since the incident occurred.
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Virginia Jaramillo Flores, head of the city borough where the upscale Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel is located, said authorities notified the hotel staff that it would be closed because it is in violation of building codes.
Jaramillo said the hotel could reopen when it had corrected the violations and paid a $15,000 fine.
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The delegation was ordered out of the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton last week at the behest of Washington, because of the US embargo against Cuba.
Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said the US law could not be applied in a third country. Some 30 people held an anti-US rally outside the hotel.
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The Cuban officials were due to meet
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Protesters waving Cuban flags blocked the entrance to a US-owned Sheraton hotel in Mexico City yesterday, calling for it to be closed because it evicted Cuban officials on orders from Washington.
About 30 people shouted "Yankees out" as they demonstrated outside the hotel over its eviction of the 16 Cubans who were staying there last week for a conference with US energy companies.
Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said Mexico was looking into the evictions and would apply the full force of the law against the Sheraton if a crime had been committed.
"It
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