Translating Cuba – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Accuses Marco Rubio of Promoting a ‘Crime From the World’s Greatest Power’

Ricardo Herrero, of the Cuba Study Group: “Repression and sanctions continue using the people as cannon fodder. And their suffering continues without end.”

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez says his Government has proven itself “stronger, more capable and more effective than the U.S. expected.” / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Madrid, June 24, 2026 – “Ruthless aggression,” “collective punishment” and now “crime”: the Cuban foreign minister is working his way through the dictionary to express his outrage at the sanctions that the U.S. keeps adding day after day against the Cuban regime. And for Bruno Rodríguez, the greatest criminal is the Cuban-born Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, against whom he directs all his anger, to the point of forgetting the existence of Donald Trump, who is not mentioned a single time in Tuesday’s tweet in which he describes his nemesis and alter ego as “dishonest and deceitful.”

“What this individual is promoting from the greatest power in the world is a crime,” the foreign minister wrote in reference to the sanctions announced a few hours earlier against five state entities on the Island and the wife of General Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro. However, Rodríguez boasts that his Government has proven itself “stronger, more capable and more effective than the U.S. expected in the face of ruthless aggression and collective punishment against the people and their living conditions.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been the only member of the Government to comment so far. President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz spent the day immersed in tribute ceremonies for the late commander Ramiro Valdés, a “humble, upright and loyal hero, protagonist of the extraordinary work that is the Revolution,” according to the head of government on social media.

We pay heartfelt tribute to Commander Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, as part of the Cuban people’s homage to this humble, honorable, and loyal hero, a key figure in the extraordinary achievement that is the Revolution. /Manuel Marrero Cruz

In contrast, all officials subordinate to the Foreign Ministry joined the narrative. “The anti-Cuban mafia has assigned him the task of executioner of the Cuban people. The Secretary of State is anxious because he has failed to achieve the surrender he promised. That is how political corruption works in the U.S., with not the slightest respect for the human condition,” said Carlos Fernández de Cossío. Embassies and their chiefs also posted messages condemning the decision and attacking Rubio, whom they regard as the spokesman and executor of pressure from the exile community in Miami.

Among the most visible Foreign Ministry figures, only Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal, who is beginning to be mentioned in some circles as the possible Cuban counterpart to Delcy Rodríguez sought by Washington under the model applied in Venezuela, remained on the sidelines and shared on social media the interview she granted to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, in which she discussed talks with the U.S., without specifying who the interlocutors are on either side. “There is a channel, there have been meetings, there have been exchanges, but there has not been significant progress,” she said. In that conversation, the diplomat mentioned a dynamic that summarized exactly what was about to happen. “There have been occasions when we sit down to talk and, a few days later, a new sanction arrives.”

A few hours later, new measures indeed arrived, affecting financial, logistics, mining and steel companies, and threatening third parties that maintain relations with them. One of the most notable cases is the International Financial Bank (BFI), used, among other things, to channel payments for the Cuban doctors that the regime still exports, mainly to Mexico, Calabria (Italy), and some continue reading

Persian Gulf countries.

Several Cuban economic analysts have offered their views on the latest measures.

Several Cuban economic analysts have offered their views on the latest measures

Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, noted that “the domino game is blocked” in reference to the talks between Havana and Washington and that the only thing that can break the deadlock is “sufficient political concessions that Trump and Rubio can sell as a victory in Florida.” The expert, known for his opposition to the embargo and sanctions, makes clear that Trump will decide what is sufficient, but he believes Rubio is advocating for a “social explosion that changes the calculation in Washington in favor of military intervention,” because so far the regime has not moved enough. “Meanwhile, repression, control, and sanctions continue using the Cuban people as cannon fodder. And their suffering continues without end,” he argued.

For his part, Cuban-American historian Michael Bustamante considered that the measures announced yesterday represent a rebuff to Havana’s economic proposals but, although he supports the end of GAESA, the regime’s military conglomerate, he doubts they will be useful because they are discouraging any exit strategy. He does, however, see two possibilities: that the intention is to provoke “impoverishment in order to trigger a social explosion and a military operation,” or alternatively “to devalue the assets of the Cuban state to such an extent that Havana agrees to dismantle GAESA and sell off parts of it for next to nothing to U.S. bidders, ironically something that the new reforms announced last week could facilitate.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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If Cuba Does Not Implement a Radical Change Like Gorbachev Did in the USSR, Then Washington Will Do It

Former Mexican ambassador to Cuba Ricardo Pascoe says the reforms announced on the Island are a “desperate attempt” to buy time.

“Cuba urgently needs to open its economy in a rapid manner because it is in a state close to extinction,” Ricardo Pascoe Pierce tells 14ymedio. / EFE

14ymedio, Mexico City, Ángel Salinas, June 24, 2026 — “Cuba urgently needs to open its economy in a rapid manner because it is in a state close to extinction,” Ricardo Pascoe Pierce, who served as Mexico’s ambassador to Cuba between 2000 and 2002, tells 14ymedio. The political analyst spoke with this newspaper about the 176 reforms grouped into 23 areas, announced last week by the Regime in what he describes as a “desperate attempt” to steer its economy.

However, he adds, “the conditions are not in place for what they have proposed to work, and it is certainly not going to be enough to address the Island’s problems.”

The problem with the country, Pascoe says, is that “it no longer has time; the bell has already rung, the adventure is over, the model has failed for whatever reasons.” The Regime is backed into a corner: either it “implements a radical internal transformation, as Mikhail Gorbachev did in the Soviet Union, or Washington will do it.”

14ymedio. There is talk of deeper institutional changes and opening up to private investment in an attempt to mitigate the economic crisis. Are the conditions to attract foreign investors being created?

Ricardo Pascoe Pierce. What the Cuban leadership is trying to do at this moment is absolutely overdue. They are attempting, at a time when they are backed against the wall and drowning, a perestroika (the economic reform undertaken by Gorbachev in the former USSR) while trying to avoid political reform. The problem is that the Cuban proposal actually leaves intact the entire structure of control exercised by the Army and the Cuban State.

Who is going to be interested in investing as a capitalist in an economy with a rigid monopolistic structure?

In reality, no one is going to be interested unless they see, for example, a genuine possibility of generating an adequate return on investment. But that takes many years, and Cuba does not have years available. Cuba has months, possibly a year at best.

No one is going to invest in Cuba, much less Cubans in Miami, if there is no continue reading

political reform and change, especially regarding political prisoners, which is an open wound. Ninety percent of businesspeople simply will not do it, or if some naïve person does, it’s because they are willing to lose their money.

No one is going to invest in Cuba, much less Cubans in Miami, if there is no political reform and change, especially regarding political prisoners, which is an open wound

14ymedio. Nevertheless, some people are enthusiastic. In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum says the opening represents an “important change” and has even spoken of incentives to encourage investment in the Island. Which Mexican sectors or companies would be interested?

Ricardo Pascoe Pierce. As ambassador to Cuba, I dealt with Mexican businesspeople from 2001 to 2003. Investors no longer saw investing on the Island as particularly attractive because there was no security of any kind. The Cuban government did not pay its debts and even appropriated their operations once they were established and officials saw how they worked. Sheinbaum can indulge in whatever fantasy she wants, but not even Carlos Slim, who supports Sheinbaum’s anti-liberal policies despite being Mexico’s richest businessman, is going to want to invest in the Island.

Carlos Slim accompanied then-President Vicente Fox when I was in Havana, and he told me: “There is no guarantee of any profitability here.”

Among other things, because the Cuban government’s practice has always been that when it sees a private business progressing and prospering, it immediately appropriates it. That model will continue because the reforms are not affecting the political structure, and while that may have worked, I insist, in China and Vietnam, which spent decades developing the model, Cuba does not have decades.

Sheinbaum’s proposal regarding Cuba is simply because she does not understand the situation and is promoting things based on the fantasies of advisers favorable to the Cuban regime, but it is not going to work. It is not realistic.

14ymedio. Mexico’s relationship with Cuba is more than close. Under Sheinbaum, oil shipments stood out, and now she has announced the resumption of crude deliveries through “private companies.” How would this work, selling fuel through private firms? Could Pemex be the seller, or would it have to create subsidiaries such as Gasolina Bienestar to avoid U.S. sanctions?

Ricardo Pascoe Pierce. First of all, what Mexico did was give oil to Cuba. It was not a sale, even though they said it was and claimed that somewhere in the Mexican Republic the invoices exist. No one knows where they are or for what amount. Obviously, it would be useless to try to look for those payments because they do not exist and never will because the Island does not have the purchasing capacity.

This idea that they are going to resume oil shipments through private companies simply means that the Mexican government is looking for some mechanism. However, they are not going to do it because there is currently no private company in Cuba capable of importing significant quantities of crude oil for its operations.

In reality, it would all amount to pretending that one private company is selling oil to another private company when neither of the two actually exists. I do not think Mexico will be able to do that. Furthermore, Washington’s scrutiny at this moment is such that there are really no conditions for carrying out an operation of that kind.

Ultimately, this is not going to solve the Island’s urgent needs, especially now that the U.S. has decided to seriously tighten the Cuban issue, particularly after what was voted on in the Senate, which already prohibited President Donald Trump from resuming the war in Iran, meaning they are completely shutting down that spectacle.

What Mexico did was give oil to Cuba. It was not a sale, even though they said it was and claimed that somewhere in the Mexican Republic the invoices exist

14ymedio. You say one option for Cuba is an internal transformation like the one carried out by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Can you explain?

Ricardo Pascoe Pierce. We have to look at the historical experiences that transformed this peculiar phenomenon. Karl Marx would die again if he saw what is happening: countries that implement socialism returning to capitalism or a market economy. From a Marxist perspective, this is impossible, and yet we have seen it. We saw it in the case of the Soviet Union, which became Russia. China, which is largely a market-based economic model with a strong state presence but a one-party political system. And Vietnam as well.

The processes seen in those countries, although different, took years to consolidate, and the process was very complex. China, for example, began a transformation during the presidency of Deng Xiaoping that lasted more than 20 years.

The Gorbachev model involved his personal decapitation. In the last years of his life, he was repudiated by Russia’s new leaders, notably Vladimir Putin, who refused to attend his funeral. Gorbachev had to pay that price in order to make the change and break the system.

Gorbachev paved the way for the creation of the Russian Federation, as well as for his economic reforms (perestroika) and political reforms (glasnost).

The big question is whether Cuba’s political leadership is willing to be decapitated in order to save Cuba; that is, to carry out reform internally, without Washington’s intervention, which would involve both economic and political reform. In addition, they must change the Constitution themselves to create a democratic republic with guaranteed freedoms.

That is what the political leadership must do if it does not want Washington to intervene. They are trapped in that dilemma. I repeat, they do not have the 20 years that Deng Xiaoping had.

Fidel Castro explained to me, during a conversation in Havana in 2002, that Cuba “will never make Gorbachev’s mistake.” Therein lies the Island’s existential dilemma. The decision to change must come from the political leadership because, just as in Russia, there is no organized society in Cuba capable of rising up and changing things.

14ymedio. Is Cuba trying to buy time?

Ricardo Pascoe Pierce. These measures they have just approved are a desperate attempt to buy time they do not have. The political leadership has the same fantasy as the Mexican government, though it is a different matter. Both are fantasizing that things will change in November because Trump will suffer an electoral defeat and therefore change his policy. They are absolutely mistaken, especially in Cuba’s case.

The U.S. is not going to stop increasing pressure, so it seems to me that they are betting on an illusion, and it is not going to work.

The problem with the midterm elections is that Washington cannot reach any agreement with Havana that does not satisfy Miami, which is demanding both economic and political reform.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Mexican Congressman Asks His Government to Rescue 15 Medical Students in Cuba Affected by the Crisis

If the scholarship holders cannot complete their training on the Island, the government should facilitate their safe return home through diplomatic channels, proposes Fernando Rodriguez

Foreign students at the Latin American School of Medicine, in Havana. / ELAM/Facebook

14ymedio, Madrid, 24 June 2026 / Mexican congressman Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez has asked President Claudia Sheinbaum to intervene to protect a group of 15 doctors from the state of Coahuila – which he represents – who are based in Cuba to pursue specialized studies. The doctors are suffering the effects of the Island’s economic crisis, which has not only disrupted the courses they came to complete, but also their daily lives.

The doctors come from cities such as Monclova, Saltillo, and Torreon, and are studying cardiology, pulmonology, and traumatology, but the situation has now become “unsustainable,” the congressman warns. Rodriguez Gonzalez is a representative of the state party Mexico Avante (center-left).

“These are Mexican professionals who responded to a federal program – the government offered them the opportunity to specialize in Cuba, and today they are being forgotten over there,” he said on Tuesday. Rodriguez Gonzalez noted that the doctors had already sent a letter to the Mexican president, but had so far received no concrete response. “The hardest part is that they say that if they return from the Island, they could lose the years they have dedicated to their training and postgraduate studies,” he said.

Rodriguez Gonzalez noted that the doctors had already sent a letter to the Mexican president, but had so far received no concrete response.

Rodriguez Gonzalez stressed that, given the good relationship between the two countries, a quick response would be the natural expectation, and argued that, since Mexico is open to hiring Cuban doctors, it should uphold its “moral obligation continue reading

to protect its own citizens abroad.”

The lawmaker urged that a decision be made as soon as possible, and that if the doctors cannot complete their training on the Island, they should be given safe passage home through diplomatic channels, without any penalty to the recognition of their qualifications.

Although no further details have been provided about the doctors’ programs of study, they may be receiving their specialization at the Latin American School of Medicine, located in Havana and designed for the training of foreign students.

This institution is being given energy support through institutional and European aid from MediCuba Europa, a Switzerland-based network of around twenty organizations sympathetic to Castroism, which has raised funds for various projects. Just two weeks ago, the network announced that a new project is now operational, covering half of the school’s energy needs.

In any case, the Cuban healthcare system is under severe strain, complicating the daily lives of patients and, by extension, of medical professionals.

On Monday, Claudia Sheinbaum announced that her government is working to deliver fuel to Cuba through “private companies that hold the necessary permits.” The president noted that work has been underway for some time – since Cuba and the United States each authorized, on their respective sides, the opening of the fuel market to the private sector – and she hopes that trade “can resume on a commercial basis soon.” She also clarified, in order to deflect criticism within Mexico over the free supply of oil to the Island, that the matter “is not a humanitarian issue.”

Translated by GH.

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The ‘War of the Corners’ Against Havana’s Garbage Begins, with Guards Hired by Residents

On unmonitored streets, enormous dumpsites grow large enough to block vehicle traffic

At the corner of San Martín and Escobar streets, ’14ymedio’ witnessed a heated argument between residents and a woman who was attempting to violate the new rules for the area. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Dario Hernandez, Havana, 24 June 2026 / At the corner of San Martin and Escobar in Centro Habana, anyone who dares toss so much as a scrap of paper in the street is asking for trouble. After months of living alongside a dumpsite that had grown large enough to block traffic, residents cleaned everything up, posted warning signs, and hired improvised guards to stop anyone from dumping garbage there again.

Several notices stand out on the walls: “No dumping. 50,000-peso fine.” The signs bear the signature of the National Police and add that waste must be taken to Lealtad and Dragones. With no fuel for the trucks responsible for cleaning the city, residents have taken matters into their own hands to solve a serious public health problem on their own street.

After months of living alongside a dumpsite that had grown large enough to block traffic, residents cleaned everything up and posted warning signs. .

The corner referenced on the signs, just a few blocks away, sits next to the Zanja police station and hosts one of the largest dumpsites in the area. The accumulation of waste occupies virtually an entire block and in some spots reaches two meters in height. In front of the Dragon Chino restaurant, passage is impossible due to the volume of refuse, and the smell forces pedestrians to cover their faces with masks.

At San Martin and Escobar, 14ymedio witnessed a heated argument between residents and a woman who tried to ignore the corner’s new rules. The woman wanted to get rid of an old cooking pot at the spot where she used to dump her garbage. Residents confronted her. One of them grabbed her by the arm while warning her that he would alert the block supervisor and report her to the police. The argument escalated over several minutes – the woman even threatened to hit the neighbor with the same pot – until she gave up and went to dump her garbage somewhere else.

Streets without hired guards have turned into enormous dumpsites.

“We had to take care of it ourselves because nobody was doing anything,” explained one resident, still agitated from the confrontation. A bicitaxi driver passing by at that moment took the rule-breaker’s side: “What’s the big deal? If the Government does nothing…”

The garbage problem is turning neighbors against each other. Every corner tries to protect itself on its own. Those that manage to stay clean simply push the problem onto nearby blocks. Some residents hire these guards and put up signs threatening fines. On one corner, there is even a notice that security cameras are in operation. [view video here] continue reading

Faced with months of accumulated waste, residents and the Communal Services agency themselves had taken to setting it on fire, with all the toxic consequences for the population. “Now we’ve entered a new phase,” sums up one neighborhood resident: “It’s the war of the corners.”

Images captured by this newspaper reflect what has already become an everyday reality in Centro Habana. Each community has begun to invent its own ways of surviving the garbage. Streets without hired guards have turned into enormous dumpsites, and it is common to see elderly people there picking through the refuse in search of food.

Some residents hire guards and put up signs threatening fines. [Multa=fine. Basura=Trash. P.N.R. = National Revolutionary Police] / 14ymedio

Facebook user Enrique de la Osa recently shared images of San Martin and Escobar before the cleanup organized by residents. The photographs show a solid mass of garbage accumulated over weeks, with fire and smoke rising from the waste, while residents try to go about their daily lives around it.

The corner is clean today, but the garbage has not disappeared – it has simply piled up somewhere else. Like the country’s structural problems, which move around without ever being solved and grow larger with each passing day.

Translated by GH

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Félix Navarro, Luis Manuel Otero and Maykel ‘Osorbo’ Receive the 2026 Democracy Award

“As political prisoners and dissident artists, they have challenged the control of the Cuban regime,” the National Endowment for Democracy points out.

Political prisoners “have challenged the Cuban regime’s control over public expression,” notes the National Endowment for Democracy. L: Maykel Castillo *Osorbo*, R: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara] / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, June 23, 2026 / Cuban political prisoners Félix Navarro, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and Maykel Castillo Osorbo are among the winners of the 2026 Democracy Awards, granted by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The awards, announced this Monday, recognize individuals and organizations from various countries for their defense of fundamental freedoms against repressive regimes.

The U.S. organization reported that the award recipients were chosen for defending freedom of religion, expression, press, assembly, and petition. Regarding the Cuban dissidents, it emphasized their “courage” and noted that “as political prisoners and dissident artists, they have challenged the Cuban regime’s control over public expression.” The NED also stated that they “have inspired greater civic participation and exposed the fear behind state censorship.”

Félix Navarro is serving a nine-year prison sentence, accused of “assault, contempt and public disorder” for events related to the massive popular protests of July 11 and 12, 2021. His daughter Saylí Navarro is also imprisoned, sentenced to eight years, for the same crimes as her father, plus “disobedience”.

Félix Navarro is serving a nine-year prison sentence, accused of “assault, contempt and public disorder”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement, was arrested on 11 July 2021, just before joining the protests on Havana’s Malecón. He was sentenced to five years in prison for the crimes of desecrating national symbols, contempt, and public disorder, in a closed-door trial. His sentence is scheduled to end on July 9.

Musician Maykel Castillo Osorbo, winner of two Latin Grammy Awards for the song “Patria y Vida” [youtube] was arrested on May 18, 2021. In June 2022, he was sentenced to nine years continue reading

in prison. The charges included contempt, public disorder, and attacking and defaming institutions, organizations, heroes, and martyrs.

Regarding Otero Alcántara and Castillo Osorbo, Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the Cuban government for using the penal system as a tool to “punish dissident artists and silence their right to freedom of expression.”

Four years after the sentencing of the artists, the organization stressed that both continue to face the consequences of an arbitrary judicial process incompatible with international human rights standards, which “also demonstrates how repression can particularly impact Afro-Cuban people who publicly challenge power.”

The organization stressed that both continue to face the consequences of an arbitrary legal process.

In addition to Cuban activists, the National Endowment for Democracy, founded in 1983, recognized this year the German organization Friede Allen for its support of Russian clergy members opposed to the war in Ukraine. Also recognized were the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Ethiopian newspaper Addis Standard, and the pro-democracy community organizers of the so-called Spring Revolution in Burma.

Peter Roskam, chairman of the NED board of directors, noted that “this year’s honorees embody the courage and perseverance needed to defend those rights in their own communities. Their work reminds us that America’s commitment to freedom is strongest when we support those who keep that promise alive.”

The Democracy Awards ceremony is scheduled for September at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s historic residence in Virginia, USA. The award is a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue erected by protesters during the Tiananmen Square protests in China in 1989.

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“There’s No Way To Continue Living Like This”: Challenges to the Regime Are Growing Throughout Cuba

Residents of Guanabo demand solutions in front of the People’s Power headquarters, and in Santiago de Cuba, the house-museum of “martyr” Orlando Pantoja is set on fire.

Residents of Guanabo met with authorities to demand solutions to problems that go beyond the lack of electricity. / Screenshot

14ymedio, Havana, June 23, 2026 / The wave of protests against blackouts, water shortages, and the worsening crisis continues to spread throughout Cuba. Pot-banging protests are now a common sight in neighborhoods, even in broad daylight, but the discontent has also begun to reach government buildings, where a growing number of citizens are demanding explanations for the deterioration of their living conditions.

This Monday, dozens of residents of Guanabo, in East Havana, gathered in front of the People’s Power headquarters to demand solutions to their “unsustainable” situation, after weeks of unanswered complaints. The residents managed to meet with officials, but the outcome was equally disappointing.

“The people of Guanabo are uniting to demand answers because what they are doing to us is abusive,” wrote Sisi Aguilera, a user who posted a video on social media showing a large group of neighbors talking about the situation affecting them. They denounced that it is not simply the lack of electricity, which the whole country suffers from, but also basic things like a motor that doesn’t work and has left them without drinking water for weeks, among continue reading

other issues.

One of the participants, activist María Elena Mir, told the independent media outlet Cubanet about the reasons for the accumulated discontent and details of the meeting in front of the government building. One of the main causes of the discontent is the inequality between protected and unprotected circuits. Guanabo is divided into two such areas, although even that is no longer a guarantee of anything.

In the circuit subject to cuts in basic services, the affected area includes essential services such as healthcare facilities, banks, the post office, and other public utilities. The most critical case is the emergency room of the polyclinic, which operates using solar panels and whose backup for the intensive care unit was not provided by the government but purchased by local residents. “It was the community that solved the problem,” Mir explains, adding that residents had to pool their money to buy an EcoFlow system after serious incidents related to the power outages.

Residents are denouncing the lack of public transportation, gas, and water supplies, which are compounded by 45-hour consecutive power outages. “The population, exasperated, tired, exhausted, and dehydrated, gathered at the location,” stated one resident, where the police were also present.

“I had to clarify that what we were protesting were social and human issues, not political ones. Nevertheless, the police arrived,” Mir recounted. “I was on the front line and I knew that if I took out my phone they could take it from me.”

After several hours in the sun, the residents received a frustrating response from officials, who claimed to be unaware of the magnitude of the problems reported – even though the residents had brought documents as evidence of their complaints for days – and promised to meet with provincial authorities before offering solutions.

After the meeting ended, there was a brief flash of electricity. The water, however, still hadn’t appeared. “There’s nothing else to ask for. There’s no way to go on living like this,” Mir concluded.

The protest in Guanabo adds to the wave of pot-banging demonstrations reported in recent days in numerous Havana neighborhoods. Early Tuesday morning, there were also pot-banging protests and burning of trash in El Vedado, although nothing as striking as what happened on Sunday in Santiago de Cuba, when residents of the Santiago municipality of Contramaestre set fire—according to videos circulating on social media—to the Orlando Pantoja Tamayo House-Museum, an institution administered by the Communist Party in honor of one of its “martyrs.” In the videos, slogans such as “Turn on the electricity!”, “Freedom!”, and “Contramaestre doesn’t want any more communism” can be heard.

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US Sanctions the Wife of General Alejandro Castro Espín and Five Cuban State Entities

The following companies have been added to the OFAC list: Banco Financiero Internacional, Almacenes Universales, Rafin, Geominera and Antillana de Acero

Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro, is also on the OFAC sanctions list. / Swiss Association of Cuba (ASC)

The Trump Administration announced on Monday a new round of sanctions against Cuban state entities linked to the military conglomerate Gaesa and against an individual related to the Castro family, following the offensive initiated after the signing of Executive Order 14404 on May 1.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the U.S. Treasury Department, added five Cuban companies to its Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN List): Almacenes Universales SA, Banco Financiero Internacional (BFI), Geominera SA, Empresa Siderúrgica José Martí (Antillana de Acero), and Rafin SA

In addition to the companies, the sanctions also include Annalie Lilliam Rueda Cardero, wife of General Alejandro Castro Espín – son of Raúl Castro – who was also sanctioned in early June .

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X: “Today I sanctioned new entities in the Gaesa network linked to both the movement of its funds and the management of its physical assets, as well as entities responsible for exploiting Cuba’s mineral and metallic reserves to obtain illicit profits.”

“The situation in Cuba continues to deteriorate as the island’s corrupt, brutal, and anti-American communist regime continues to prioritize its absolute control over freedom.”

Rubio warned that any person or entity providing services to the sanctioned actors risks being sanctioned as well, and that, therefore, foreign banks and other entities that maintain commercial relationships with these entities must cease their activities immediately.

“The situation in Cuba continues to deteriorate as the island’s corrupt, brutal, and anti-American communist regime continue reading

continues to prioritize its absolute control over the freedom, opportunities, and basic well-being of the Cuban people,” the Secretary of State said.

With this decision, Washington makes it clear that the economic reforms recently announced by the Cuban government have not altered its strategy or pressure. Although the package of 176 resolutions has been presented as the most significant reform of the Cuban economic structure in decades—including the legalization of private banking, the opening of state-owned enterprises to private and foreign capital, and a greater expansion of private enterprise—the US maintains that the core of the economic system remains under the control of the military leadership.

According to the AFP agency, a US State Department spokesperson dismissed the Cuban government’s package of measures as “smoke signals” and demanded “far more substantial economic and political reforms that make Cuba attractive to investors” and offer its citizens “the freedom, dignity, and opportunities they deserve.”

Washington dismissed the Cuban government’s package of measures as “smoke signals” and demanded “much more substantial economic and political reforms.”

Since the signing of the Executive Order on May 1, 2026, Washington has deployed a strategy of pressure against the economic pillars of the regime.

First, it sanctioned Gaesa, its president, General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and the state-owned mining company Moa Nickel, which precipitated the withdrawal of foreign companies such as the Canadian company Sherritt International and several hotel chains associated with the military conglomerate, including Blue Diamond Resorts, Iberostar, Meliá and Archipelago International.

Major international shipping companies, including France’s CMA CGM and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, suspended all services to Cuba in compliance with the new secondary sanctions regime. The decision brought a significant portion of cargo traffic to the island to a standstill and forced operators to abandon routes or renegotiate contracts.

The measures also affected Fincimex, with the suspension of Visa and Mastercard operations on the Island.

In previous actions, Washington had already expanded sanctions to include figures in the political and family circle of power in Cuba, including Miguel Díaz-Canel.

On June 11, the inclusion of Cupet on the OFAC sanctions list thwarted the operation of Florida-based Vanguard Energy, which had hoped to finalize one of the largest private fuel sales to Cuba in recent years. The sanctions against Cupet also led to the withdrawal of Australian oil company Melbana, which boasted of working on one of the most promising crude oil exploration projects, although it never presented convincing data.

In previous actions, Washington had already extended sanctions to figures in the political and family circle of power in Cuba, including Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, Lis Cuesta Peraza and his stepson, Manuel Anido Cuesta, as well as Alejandro Castro Espín, among other members of the ruling elite and their support networks.

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The IACHR Demands That Cuba Annul the Conviction of Maykel ‘Osorbo’

The regime disappeared and arbitrarily imprisoned the artist, the commission noted in a resolution.

Maykel ‘Osorbo’ was sentenced to nine years in prison for “contempt, public disorder, attack and defamation of institutions, organizations, heroes and martyrs” / X

14ymedio, Havana, June 23, 2026 — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) [‘CIDH’ in Spanish] demanded that the Cuban government overturn the nine-year prison sentence of artist and political prisoner Maykel Castillo Osorbo, investigate his enforced disappearance for 14 days, and reform the laws that punish protest and dissent. Based on a complaint filed by the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD) in 2021, the Commission concluded that the regime violated the activist’s rights to liberty, integrity, artistic expression, assembly, association, justice, and due process.

In a statement released this Tuesday, PD celebrated the ruling outlined in Report No. 78/26 and noted that the IACHR resolved that the arrest of the co-founder of the San Isidro Movement on May 18, 2021, was illegal. “Maykel Osorbo was not committing a crime, he was not caught in the act, there was no record of an arrest warrant, there was no proven risk of flight, and pretrial detention had not even been ordered yet. He was arrested while having lunch.”

Furthermore, the Commission emphasized that “one of the most serious aspects of the resolution is the enforced disappearance” suffered by the artist. The IACHR concluded that between May 18 and 31, 2021, Maykel Osorbo’s whereabouts remained unknown. “During those 14 days, friends, family members, and advocates sought information at police stations and state agencies without obtaining any real answers.” According to the Commission, by failing to provide precise information about his whereabouts, “the State effectively refused to reveal his location. This, coupled with the fact that the detention was carried out by state agents, constitutes enforced disappearance.” continue reading

“During those 14 days, relatives, family members, and advocates sought information at police stations and state agencies without obtaining a real answer.”

The organization also stated that the artist’s subsequent pretrial detention was arbitrary. “The Cuban Prosecutor’s Office upheld the deprivation of liberty without justifying a risk of flight or obstruction of justice, and even refused to replace it with a non-detention measure, despite acknowledging that there was no danger of Maykel leaving Havana, in violation of his personal liberty and the presumption of innocence.”

The IACHR also indicated that the criminal proceedings “were a series of violations.” Castillo was unable to adequately meet with his lawyer during a decisive stage. In addition, his imprisonment far from Havana hampered his defense, his lawyer was disbarred three days before the trial, and another lawyer had to assume representation without sufficient preparation time. The commission also noted that the trial was held behind closed doors, preventing access for diplomats and citizens. Therefore, the IACHR concluded that the Cuban government “failed to guarantee due process or an effective defense for Osorbo,” who was sentenced in May 2022 for “contempt, public disorder, and attacks and defamation of institutions, organizations, heroes, and martyrs.”

Prisoners Defenders emphasized that the commission upheld the core of its complaint: the co-author and performer of ” Patria y Vida,” a song that won two Latin Grammys, was not imprisoned for committing crimes, but for exercising his rights. Therefore, the Madrid-based organization asserted that “the nine-year sentence is legally illegitimate,” as the commission concluded that it resulted from a process lacking due process and that it criminally punished conduct protected by human rights.

The organization demanded that the regime, in addition to overturning the conviction, fully repair the declared violations.

Finally, the organization demanded that the regime, in addition to overturning the sentence, fully repair the declared violations, as well as guarantee physical and mental health care for Osorbo , his daughter – who has been prevented from visiting the rapper in prison – and his partner Anamely Ramos.

In addition, he urged a “diligent and effective” criminal investigation into the enforced disappearance he suffered in 2021; he called for accountability of the officials involved and for them to refrain from arresting, prosecuting, or convicting the musician again for his activities.

He also called for guarantees that such a case would not be repeated, reform of pretrial detention, ensuring real access to defense, repealing the crime of contempt, modifying the crime of public disorder so that it is not used against protest, and refraining from using the crime of assault or other criminal offenses to persecute dissidents, artists, and human rights defenders.

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Communists, to the Opposition!

Where does the “conceptualization of the model” fit in now? What do we do with the guidelines?

To invoke Fidel Castro’s name in vain as the inspiration for his reforms is to forget that his first contribution to Marxism-Leninism was to decree the Revolutionary Offensive of 1968. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, June 20, 2026 / I was never allowed to join the Communist Party, despite four attempts initiated for having been chosen as an exemplary worker. Too self-sufficient, they said, hypercritical, liberal, undisciplined…

If I were a member of that organization, I would already be handing in my membership card (if I hadn’t already). Or, better yet, I would be rescuing the party from those who are leading the restoration today. The restoration of capitalism, of capitalism without democracy.

To say they remain communists committed to building socialism would be like someone who eats meat in their three daily meals trying to portray themselves as a vegetarian. To deny that they are obliged by pressure from the United States would be as if the supposed vegetarian denies that their landlord, to whom they owe insurmountable debts, owns the butcher shop downstairs.

To say that they remain communists committed to building socialism would be like someone who includes meat in their three daily meals trying to portray themselves as a vegetarian.

To invoke in vain the name of Fidel Castro’s as the inspiration for his reforms is to forget that the commander’s first contribution to Marxism-Leninism was to decree the Revolutionary Offensive of 1968 (for which he never apologized). “Create wealth with conscience,” he said. And then, in the midst of that continue reading

rectification of errors and negative tendencies, he postulated that “socialism cannot be built with capitalist formulas.”

Am I being reminded of another Fidel Castro? Where does the “conceptualization of the model” stand now? What do we do with the guidelines?

If I were a communist, I would be joining the opposition, the revolutionary opposition to the restoration, because this agenda which has been meekly approved by members of the Central Committee and members of the National Assembly, has been copied, hijacked, from the programs promoted by those whom the communists have labeled as paid enemies of imperialism, with the aggravating factor of excluding political proposals to decree an amnesty for political prisoners and to write in the ink of the laws that no one can be persecuted for disagreeing, that being Cuban means being a free citizen.

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A Short Mourning Period Is Declared for Ramiro Valdés, Who Will Be Buried Beside the Alleged Remains of Che Guevara

Only 18 hours of mourning for the nonagenarian, whose body will lie in state on Tuesday morning at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

File photograph of the late commander of the Cuban Revolution, Ramiro Valdés. / EFE

14ymedio, Madrid, June 23, 2026 — Cuba’s official press has devoted extensive coverage to the death of Deputy Prime Minister Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, a historic member of the Cuban Revolution and one of the principal ideologues and enforcers of repression, whose death became known on Sunday. The flood of coverage—figurative, in an era of lean times for the print media—stands in contrast to the brevity of the official mourning period decreed by Miguel Díaz-Canel: barely 18 hours for a period of mourning that entails no expense.

From 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 23, until midnight the same day, the national flag will fly at half-staff on public buildings and military institutions throughout the Island. It is a short period, although less striking when compared with the lengthy nine days of mourning declared for Fidel Castro, yet surprising given that 48 hours were decreed for Nelson Mandela and three days for Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

Valdés’s remains will lie in state during the morning of Tuesday at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, which six months ago hosted a similar event: a tribute to the 32 Cuban fighters killed in Venezuela during the U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro. It was precisely at that event that concerns about the nonagenarian’s health were raised, as he was notably absent, in contrast to the presence of a frail but relatively steady Raúl Castro, who is one year older continue reading

than he is.

State television announced on Monday that “in fulfillment of Valdés’s final wish, to rest alongside his comrades in struggle and near the Heroic Guerrilla Fighter (Ernesto Che Guevara),” his remains “will be interred on the morning of Thursday, June 25, in a ceremony with military honors at the Mausoleum of the Las Villas Front, in the city of Santa Clara.” At the same time, tribute ceremonies will be held in all provincial capitals and in the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud.

State television announced on Monday that “in fulfillment of Valdés’s final wish, to rest alongside his comrades in struggle and near the Heroic Guerrilla Fighter”

State media have lavishly praised Valdés and the missions he carried out, including “the search, location, exhumation, and transfer to Cuba of the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara and his fellow guerrillas from Bolivia.” However, the claim that the Santa Clara mausoleum houses the Argentine guerrilla’s bones has been challenged on numerous occasions, to the point that physician Moisés Abraham Baptista, who performed his autopsy, once challenged the Cuban regime to conduct a DNA test on the remains to prove their authenticity.

Numerous accounts in books and journalistic articles maintain that Guevara was secretly cremated by the Bolivian army and that his ashes were scattered in the jungle precisely to prevent his grave from becoming a site of ideological pilgrimage. Castroism, however, succeeded in creating an alternative narrative and, consequently, the symbolic site that the mausoleum has become today. There, Valdés will rest beside, if anything, Guevara’s hands, the only remains that could have been taken to Cuba according to the account of Cuban-American Félix Rodríguez, the CIA agent who directed the operation in Bolivia.

Valdés’s death further reduces the small group of historic leaders who still maintain a public or institutional presence, among them Raúl Castro, José Ramón Machado Ventura, Guillermo García Frías, and Ramón Pardo Guerra. The rest of the members of the regime’s original leadership have either died or disappeared from political life.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The US Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Exxon Mobile and Denies Immunity From the Cuban State

The decision opens the door to seeking compensation from the Cuban regime, which had previously relied on foreign sovereign immunity.

The Ñico López refinery in Havana is one of the properties confiscated from Exxon Mobil. / Trabajadores

14ymedio, Madrid, June 23, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Exxon Mobil in its dispute against the Cuban state, opening the way for claims seeking compensation for properties confiscated in the 1960s. Until now, the Cuban government had relied on foreign sovereign immunity, but the justices of the Supreme Court decided, by a vote of six to three, that the very nature of the Helms-Burton Act already removes immunity for companies and entities of the regime, beginning with Cimex, which is the party involved in the case.

Exxon Mobil, formerly known as Standard Oil Company, filed a claim in U.S. courts over the expropriation of what is now Havana’s Ñico López refinery, as well as 117 gas stations that operated on the Island before Castro came to power. The lawsuit was brought against the Cimex Corporation and the Cuban Petroleum Union (Cupet) under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. The law was approved in 1996, but the section allowing claims for compensation over confiscations carried out in the 1960s remained suspended until 2019, during Donald Trump’s first administration.

That move opened the door to dozens of lawsuits concerning those properties, although to date no final ruling has resulted in the recovery of any money. In Exxon Mobil’s case, one of the two major claims that have reached the Supreme Court, the company reported losses of $72 million at the time, an amount that today would be equivalent to more than $600 million.

In Exxon Mobil’s case, one of the two major claims that have reached the Supreme Court, the company reported losses of $72 million at the time, an amount that today would be equivalent to more than $600 million.

In 2024, an appeals court concluded that the American company could not sue the Cuban state because Cuban state-owned enterprises were protected by the sovereign immunity granted to foreign countries. Exxon decided to take the case to the Supreme Court last April, and the decision has favored its interests, making it continue reading

easier for the case to return to lower courts so that the substantive issues can be examined.

The ruling was one of the most anticipated following the other major case of this kind, resolved last May, when the same court sided with Havana Docks Corporation in its claim against Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival Corporation, and MSC Cruises. The four companies had been ordered in 2022 to pay more than $400 million for profiting from properties confiscated in the 1960s, but an appeals court also blocked that judgment on technical grounds. In that case, the judges held that Havana Docks Corporation’s rights—since it was a lessee rather than the owner of the docks—had expired before the four cruise companies began using them.

The Supreme Court overturned that ruling a month ago, sending the case back to the lower courts for a final decision.

Exxon’s appeal had the support of the Trump administration, and this was reflected in the votes of the justices, as the six conservative members backed the American company. The decision, set out in a 35-page opinion, states that foreign governments, including their companies, enjoy a presumption of immunity from lawsuits in U.S. courts except under certain exceptions. However, in the case of the Helms-Burton Act, that immunity does not apply nor are plaintiffs required to prove that they meet the criteria for an exemption.

Several companies have filed lawsuits under the Helms-Burton Act against other businesses that have profited from confiscated properties, in addition to the cruise lines already mentioned. Among them are Expedia and Airbnb.

But the Supreme Court’s decision has broader implications because it opens the way to suing the Cuban state directly by holding that it cannot invoke sovereign immunity. In practice, this creates the possibility of recovering money—if the courts ultimately rule in favor of the claimant—by seizing assets abroad.

Even so, collecting any judgment will remain difficult, as demonstrated by a very different case: compensation for the prison killing of Rafael del Pino. Twenty-eight years ago, U.S. courts ruled that the Cuban state was responsible for paying damages for the death of the former pilot—and former friend of Fidel Castro—who was also a U.S. citizen and died in one of Cuba’s prisons. However, there are not enough attachable assets in the United States to satisfy the judgment, so his heirs have sought alternative avenues, including in Spain, where they have encountered bureaucratic obstacles for years.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Opposition Leader Cuesta Morúa Is Released After Being Beaten and Threatened With Death by Cuban State Security

The opposition leader was abandoned on a road in Artemisa after being intimidated for supporting protests called for the anniversary of the Island-wide ’11J’ protests of 2021

Cuesta Morúa has suffered numerous arrests and acts of harassment for his political activism. / Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba

14ymedio, Madrid, June 21, 2026 / Cuban opposition leader Manuel Cuesta Morúa was released this Saturday after being detained, mistreated and threatened with death by State Security agents.

The Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC)—an organization chaired by Cuesta Morúa— had denounced his forced disappearance hours earlier, stating that he was being held incommunicado. The opposition member was arrested at the Zanja police station in Central Havana, handcuffed, and forcibly taken away in a patrol car along with two State Security agents and two police officers.

According to information released by the CTDC this Sunday, Cuesta Morúa was beaten and threatened with death during the ride in the patrol car. The organization also reported that the officers confiscated his wallet and destroyed his identity card in his presence.

Instead of being taken to a detention center, Cuesta Morúa was taken to an isolated area in the province of Artemisa. According to the complaint, officers forced him through a fence into a densely wooded area, where he was physically assaulted and threatened with death.

There, the agents warned him that they would shoot him in the head “if he continued to promote ‘the pot-banging protests’ and encourage citizens to demonstrate on 11 July.”

The officers warned him that they would shoot him in the head “if he continued to promote ‘the pot-banging protests’ and encourage citizens to demonstrate on July 11th.”

The allusion refers to a campaign driven by activists calling on Cubans to demand the release of political prisoners and to protest against food shortages, blackouts, and the lack of drinking water, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the Island-wide anti-government demonstrations of 11 July 2021.

Cuesta Morúa was abandoned by the officers on the road known as Ocho Vías, in Artemisa, without documents, money, or continue reading

means of communication. According to the complaint, he remained there for five to six hours until a passerby helped him and took him back to Havana.

In a statement released Sunday, the organization described the incident as part of a “systematic pattern of action by the Cuban regime” against those who peacefully exercise their rights and demand greater freedoms. “Any Cuban citizen can be a victim of repression for expressing their opinions or demanding democratic changes,” the statement reads.

“Any Cuban citizen can be a victim of repression for expressing their opinions or demanding democratic changes.”

In this regard, the organization calls on the international community, democratic governments, international bodies and human rights organizations to recognize this reality and “join the Cuban people’s demand for an immediate end to the human rights violations that the Cuban regime constantly perpetrates against its own people.”

A philosopher and historian by training, Manuel Cuesta Morúa is one of the best-known figures in the Cuban opposition and has suffered numerous arrests and acts of harassment for his political activism. Since January 2026, he has presided over the CTDC —one of the main platforms for coordinating the opposition both on and off the island—after succeeding José Daniel Ferrer, who went into exile in Miami in October 2025.

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Havana Chronicles: The Time For Reforms Has Passed

Amid blackouts, protests, and empty bus stops, Cubans are receiving the 176 economic measures announced by the government with skepticism.

Solar-powered traffic light on Vía Blanca, out of service. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 20, 2026 / She carefully climbs onto the electric tricycle, while clarifying that she has had knee surgery. At 81, she says she dedicated her entire life to training athletes and that, many days, she has to choose between paying for transportation or buying food. “I won’t live to see any results from these measures,” she declares about the package of economic reforms announced this week by the Cuban government, which has failed to inspire hope or enthusiasm on the streets.

The days have become stifling in Cuba. By day, the sun beats down relentlessly; by night, the bonfires of the protests, fueled by mountains of garbage, dot the horizon with flames. I walk to the Faculty of Arts and Letters, where I graduated a quarter of a century ago. The dust accumulated on the windows and the silence that pervades the hallways reveal the academic paralysis that began last February. I turn to the right and begin to climb the hill that leads to the Calixto García Hospital. Next to the fence of the university stadium, more than fifty people try to share a tiny patch of shade.

“I won’t live to see any results from those measures.”

Some sweat under the sun; others seek refuge under umbrellas. They all share the same expression of annoyance while waiting for a bus to take them somewhere in a city where most of the stops remain empty. People have lost hope that any bus will ever come, and those images of passengers overflowing like bunches of grapes from the doors of the 22, the 30, or the 195 are a thing of the past. If during the Special Period passengers were practically hanging out of the windows, now many don’t even try to get around. They have given up on mobility.

Near the Physics Faculty, a woman and her teenage son sleep on the sidewalk. It’s evident they’ve been there for several days: they’ve improvised a bed, hung bags from a tree, and spread out blankets on which they display items salvaged from the trash, hoping to sell them. There are cables, a doll lacking one arm, and a few books. One of them is a manual of socialist economics, one of those texts that warned us continue reading

that the market was taboo and that communism couldn’t be built with the tools of capitalism.

How many thermoelectric plants could have been built with the money invested in this giant without guests?

Did Miguel Díaz-Canel study a book like this? Very likely. However, this week he insisted that the new measures aim for more socialism, even though they more closely resemble a roadmap for a crony capitalism, where the future Cuban oligarchs will be the same ones who today ask us to resist and tighten our belts.

I continue walking to J Street and quicken my pace towards 25th. As I approach the Torre K hotel, with its immense ugliness of 42 stories, I’m struck by the desolation of the place. No taxis picking up passengers, no buses unloading tourists to enjoy the views from the top. The access street is completely empty.

How many thermoelectric plants could have been built with the money invested in this giant without guests? I ask myself as I continue towards L Street. I pass a small cafe where “everything is hot because we’ve hardly had electricity,” a young vendor explains to a woman with an obviously thirsty face.

“And now, with all these measures, what about the inspectors?” she asks. The package of relaxations has overturned many of the prohibitions that fueled the fines and bribes of those blue-coated employees who have become the scourge of entrepreneurs.

“They don’t have the time to implement any of that, neither the time nor the desire.”

But the young man doesn’t seem to share the official enthusiasm. “They don’t have the time to implement any of that, neither the time nor the inclination,” he says. While some foreign media outlets are calling the 176 measures approved by the National Assembly “the most profound economic reform” undertaken in seven decades in Cuba, the same optimism isn’t widespread on the streets. The long blackouts and the harshness of reality dampen any jubilation.

“What we need is for them to leave,” the frustrated customer concludes, as she continues searching for cold water.

A very thin boy approaches me offering instant soda for 60 pesos a pack. I give him a 100-peso bill and return the colorful envelope he placed in my hands. Begging and child labor are everywhere. Further on, a teenager plays the violin on the sidewalk, hoping someone from a nearby café will leave him a tip. Inside, everyone looks away and pretends not to hear the melody flowing from the strings.

My mobile phone rings. It’s a call from home: “The power came on at 12:52 and went out at 12:58.”

We no longer have any food in the freezer. It’s not worth it. Food spoils during the long hours without electricity, and we have to cook only what will fit on the plate that we’ll eat that same day. Canned goods, preserves, and dehydrated products are going up in price as fast as refrigerators are becoming increasingly useless. A few days ago, I opened four eggs, one after the other, and they were all bad. The loss was over 400 pesos.

“If they had done all this decades ago, my children wouldn’t have had to leave, but now it’s too late.”

“They’re going to let us wear hats now that we don’t even have heads left,” jokes a neighbor I bump into on my way back to my building. Eight years ago, she saw her son off to the Darién jungle, and two years ago, she watched her daughter leave for Uruguay. “If they had done all this decades ago, my children wouldn’t have had to leave, but now it’s too late.”

The time for possible reforms ended a long time ago.

A few hours later, the flames of accumulated garbage and the banging of pots and pans in indignation once again heated up the night. In Central Havana, a woman threw wood and paper onto a bonfire that grew out of control. The sheets fell and charred almost immediately, just as the measures incapable of quelling the popular hunger for immediate and total change had been reduced to ashes.

Previous Havana Chronicles:

Surrounded by Garbage, Miramar Is No Longer the Glamorous Neighborhood It Once Was

A Circus Facing Off Against Power, and a City Growing Increasingly Lonely

Chronicle of a Monday That Feels Like Wednesday

“We Used to Complain About the ‘CUC’, But Now We Miss It”

The Roar of Despair of a Cuban Woman Returning to Her Country After Many Years

The Tulipán Market Closed: “They’ve Given the Order To Go to the March for Raúl”

Along Carlos III Street and towards Ethiopia

Sleeping Is Also a Privilege in Havana

A Desperate Plea in the Middle of the Dark Havana Night: ‘Light!’

The Refuse of Disenchantment

Under a Picture-Postcard Blue Sky, the Country is Crumbling

Fatigue Barely Allows One to Enjoy the ‘Lights On’ in Havana

Dollars, the Classic Card, and a Havana Without Tourists

A Journey Through the Lost Names of Havana

The Shipwreck of a Ship Called “Cuba”

Havana Seen From ‘The Control Tower’

In Havana, the Only Ones Who Move Are the Mosquitoes

Reina, the Stately Street Where Garbage is Sold

Searching for Light Through the Deserted Streets of Havana

The Death Throes of ‘Granma’, the Mouthpiece of a Regime Cornered by Crisis

The Anxiety of the Disconnected Cuban

One Mella, Three Mellas, Life in Cuba Is Measured in Thousands of Pesos

It Is Forbidden To Leave Home in Cuba Today Because It Is a “Counter-Revolutionary Day”

Vedado, the Heart of Havana’s Nightlife, Is Now Converted Into a Desert

Havana, in Critical Condition

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Germany’s Foreign Minister Says an ‘Unjust Regime’ Prevails in Cuba

Johann Wadephul stated this Sunday that he does not believe a U.S. blockade exists against the Island.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul responded to a citizen who referred to the U.S. “blockade” of Cuba. / X

14ymedio/EFE, Berlin, June 22, 2026 – German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stated this Sunday that he does not see a U.S. blockade against Cuba and that the requirement for Cubans to enjoy greater well-being is for them to be governed better.

An “unjust regime” prevails in Cuba, Wadephul said during a dialogue with citizens as part of the government’s open house events, which he cited as an example of how a democratic society functions, where “everyone can express their opinion without fearing harassment afterward.”

“That would be the first thing I would say, as the German Government, about Cuba,” he said in response to a citizen’s question.

The conservative minister explained that Cuba in the past “benefited greatly” from economic ties and oil imports from Venezuela, a situation that no longer exists “by decision of the Venezuelan government.”

For the Island’s population to live better, the “decisive prerequisite” would be for the country to be “governed better,” he indicated. “I do not see a blockade of the kind you describe,” he told his interlocutor.

Wadephul expressed the hope that the Cuban people can enjoy a better future and stated that Germany contributes toward that goal “through active assistance measures.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced on Saturday that the United States is imposing a “total blockade” on the country through a “plan of economic strangulation” that includes preventing foreign companies from selling parts and technology for Cuban thermoelectric plants and preventing any company in the world from selling oil to the Island.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on May 1 threatening sanctions against foreign entities operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, mining, and financial services sectors, in addition to the oil restrictions imposed in January, which have prolonged the blackouts that citizens had already been experiencing for several years throughout the country.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Eliminates Price Caps on Chicken, Cooking Oil, and Three Other Imported Foods

The measure maintains the tariff exemption for those products but excludes powdered detergent.

Since July 2024, cut chicken could not be sold for more than 680 pesos per kilogram, while the maximum price for cooking oil was 990 pesos per liter. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, June 21, 2026 – The Cuban Government has eliminated the maximum prices established for the retail sale of cut chicken, cooking oil, powdered milk, pasta, and sausages, after President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged this week that the price caps failed to contain inflation and ultimately caused products to disappear from the market.

The decision appears in Resolution 150/2026 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, published this Saturday in Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 73. The regulation took effect the same day and maintains the exemption from customs duties for the importation of those five groups of food products.

The resolution repeals provisions 225 and 310 of 2024, through which the government had approved both the customs benefit and the maximum retail prices. By nullifying both regulations, the nationwide limits imposed on merchants disappear.

Since July 2024, cut chicken could not be sold for more than 680 pesos per kilogram, while the maximum price for cooking oil was 990 pesos per liter. Powdered milk had a limit of 1,675 pesos per kilogram, pasta 835 pesos, and sausages 1,075 pesos.

“Price caps, in practice, failed to contain inflation”

However, the official caps had already been widely exceeded in practice. According to the price update published this Sunday by 14ymedio, a liter of oil sells continue reading

in private small and medium-sized businesses (mipymes) for 1,600 pesos and reaches 1,850 pesos at the Correo de Pueblo Nuevo market fair in Holguín, and 1,900 pesos at the Delio Luna Echemendía fairgrounds in Sancti Spíritus, nearly double the former maximum.

A kilogram of powdered milk costs 3,200 pesos in the mipymes and reaches 3,700 pesos at the Holguín fair, more than double the limit established in 2024. A pound of chicken, meanwhile, sells for 550 pesos in that same market and for 650 pesos at the Sancti Spíritus fairgrounds. Converted to kilograms, those prices are approximately 1,213 and 1,433 pesos, respectively, far above the 680 pesos authorized until this Saturday.

The failure of the price-cap policy was acknowledged this week by Díaz-Canel during the closing session of the Extraordinary Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. “Price caps, in practice, failed to contain inflation,” the ruler admitted. According to his assessment, those measures “often caused products to disappear, encouraged diversion into illegality, led to higher prices, reduced tax revenues, and created an impossible race between real prices and administrative decisions that always arrived too late.”

Díaz-Canel also acknowledged that the limits remained “unchanged despite a changing economic reality” and that they hindered those trying to carry out economic activity legally. “Therefore, we are not going to continue imposing general price caps, as the prime minister explained,” he concluded.

Many economists had been calling for years for the end of price caps, which were incapable of containing inflation and were often responsible for emptying markets

The president added that the Government must correct “distortions in the tax system” that make production chains more expensive and ultimately get passed on to final prices. He also linked the abandonment of price caps to the announced transition from subsidizing products to subsidizing people, a long-standing promise of the government that has still not been broadly implemented.

The text of the Gazette stipulates that imports of cut chicken, edible oils—except olive oil—powdered milk, pasta, and sausages are exempt from customs duties, in accordance with the tariff subcategories included in the annex.

In the case of chicken, the exemption covers frozen chicken pieces and offal. For oils, the regulation lists soybean, palm, sunflower, safflower, and cottonseed oils. The list also includes different types of powdered milk and cream, pasta products, and various meat preparations.

One of the notable changes is the exclusion of powdered detergent. This product had been part of the package of six goods benefiting from the exemption in 2024, but it does not appear among the imports exempted by Resolution 150. The preamble itself specifies that the previous exemption remains in effect, “except for powdered detergent.”

Many economists had been calling for years for the end of price caps, which were incapable of containing inflation and were often responsible for emptying markets. But lifting them in the midst of the current crisis, without a recovery in supply, real wages, or the value of the peso, has fueled fears among many Cubans that prices could soar to levels that are difficult to imagine today.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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