Translating Cuba – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cuban Dissident Roberto Veiga Denounces Pressure to Leave Cuba

One month after returning to Cuba, the Cuban intellectual was questioned by two “immigration officers” and reaffirmed his decision to remain on the island

Political scientist, jurist, and founder of Cuba Próxima, Roberto Veiga, in Havana. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, July 4, 2026 / Cuban dissident Roberto Veiga González denounced this Saturday that he had been pressured by immigration officials to leave the island, after being taken to an “interview” in which, according to his account, he was pressed to buy a return ticket to Europe and leave the country “quickly.”

The political analyst, who returned to Cuba this past June after years in exile, stated that he rejected this pressure and reaffirmed his intention to remain permanently in the country.

In a post on his Facebook profile, Veiga stated that on the afternoon of July 3, after returning home following his participation by videoconference in an event organized in Paris by the Casa de América and the Association France for Democracy in Cuba, he was intercepted by two “immigration officers” and taken to an “interview.”

According to his account, during the interrogation the officials repeatedly pressed him on when he would buy his return ticket to Europe and “imperatively advised him to leave the island quickly.” Veiga rejected this pressure and reaffirmed that his intention is to remain in Cuba on a stable basis: “There will be no return ticket to Europe. I confirm that I have returned to Cuba to settle here permanently in my country,” he wrote. continue reading

“There will be no return ticket to Europe. I confirm that I have returned to Cuba to settle here permanently in my country”

Roberto Veiga returned to the island after nearly seven years in exile. His organization, the Cuba Próxima study center, reported at the time that Veiga had been detained upon his arrival at José Martí International Airport and subjected to interrogation by State Security, surveillance that, according to the organization itself, has not ceased since then.

Veiga, who was one of the central figures of the magazine Espacio Laical and later of the Cuba Possible project, returned to Cuba with the intention of promoting, from within the country, a political transition proposal titled La apertura acordada: una hoja de ruta para la reconstrucción nacional (The Agreed Opening: A Roadmap for National Reconstruction).

The plan, presented in April by Cuba Próxima, proposes a negotiated transition based on a “multi-actor sovereign dialogue,” with deep institutional reforms, the release of political prisoners, changes to the electoral system, and the restructuring of the Gaesa military conglomerate. It also includes proposals directed at the US, such as the lifting of economic restrictions and the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The organization maintains that Veiga’s return is part of a commitment to “political action from within” at a time of national crisis. In recent statements to 14ymedio, Veiga himself defended his decision to return despite the risks: “No matter how much one works from outside, one remains a spectator. You have to work in here, because that is where things are going to happen.”

Translated by GH

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Roberto Veiga: “We Have To Work Here on the Inside, Because That Is Where Things Are Going To Happen”

The founder of Cuba Próxima speaks about his return to the island, surveillance by State Security, and the need to build a political alternative for the Cuban transition

Political scientist, jurist, and Cuban dissident Roberto Veiga, during his meeting with this newspaper. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, July 2, 2026 / Roberto Veiga was known as a Catholic layman in charge of a church magazine called Espacio Laical, as well as a political scientist and jurist specializing in human rights. Today he is a politician trying to save the country, in his own way.

One month after returning to Cuba following an attempted exile in Spain, he speaks with 14ymedio about his Cuba Próxima project.

Escobar: Your departure from Cuba in January 2020 turned into an exile, but now you have returned without asking permission. Have conditions been imposed on you? Have you made any commitments?

Veiga: When I left Cuba, my idea was to rebuild my personal situation, but then 11 July 2021 happened, and together with other people, we decided to start what we call Cuba Próxima as a human rights study center. I spent more than a month thinking about returning. I am convinced that Cuba has reached a turning point. What form it will take and in what sense, it’s impossible to know. It’s going to be very difficult, but that turning point has already begun.

I am convinced that Cuba has reached a turning point. What form it will take and in what sense, it’s impossible to know

The most normal thing would have been to stay in Spain waiting for events to unfold. That was one option, perhaps the most normal one, perhaps the one I should have taken, but no matter how much one works from outside, one remains a spectator. You have to work in here, because that is where things are going to happen, work to help ensure that what happens, happens in the best possible way. That has been the explanation I’ve given to all the friends who’ve asked me, and many have concluded that I’m crazy.

Escobar: What was your arrival in the country like?

Veiga: When I arrived at José Martí Airport on May 30, State Security was waiting for me, which I expected, because I had announced my trip, but it was very frustrating, because I had assumed I could engage in a debate with them, and I couldn’t. In the three hours that the encounter lasted, the only thing they were interested in, besides thoroughly searching my luggage, was finding out who was paying me and who was giving me orders. I could discuss anything except that, because nobody pays me, nobody gives me orders. Afterward, about fifteen days went by during which continue reading

I felt under surveillance, and during that time I had no contact with anyone. I don’t believe the surveillance has stopped, but today it’s less obvious.

Escobar: Have any prohibitions been imposed on you? Have you had to make any commitments?

Veiga: So far no prohibitions have been imposed on me, nor have I made any commitments. Many people believe that to take a step like the one I’ve taken, it’s essential to feel safe, and that’s fatal. That’s precisely why this country hasn’t changed. If I had had to accept any conditions in the middle of a process being carried out by others, I wouldn’t have come. Returning had to be a personal decision. Unfortunately, we live in a society with a culture opposed to this kind of undertaking, one that assumes that if you do something, it’s because you’re someone else’s pawn, especially the government’s.

Many people believe that to take a step like the one I’ve taken, it’s essential to feel safe, and that’s fatal

Escobar: What does it mean that Cuba Próxima has stopped being a study center and become a center for action?

Veiga: We’ve worked hard on analysis, on presenting proposals, we’ve tried to influence those who should take up these proposals both inside and outside Cuba. We already have that groundwork laid, but it’s action that turns ideas into history, and strategic action has been missing.

The paths for action have been closed off. But if we never take them, they will never open. We felt more comfortable doing analysis and proposals, which is part of the nature of most of us at Cuba Próxima. But to be consistent with what we’ve been doing, we had to move to action. The country is in ruins and it needs to be rebuilt, we have to take part in that reconstruction, and without organizing ourselves that’s not possible, nor would it be possible without a vision of what kind of country we want. We are determined to pay whatever price, whatever political cost, to help get this country out of the situation it’s in.

Escobar: This new way in which Cuba Próxima is presenting itself suggests it will end up becoming a political party seeking a share of power in a future Cuba.

Veiga: What that political undertaking needs is a programmatic project, a political vision with a clear strategy, functioning bodies, and above all a membership, which is the muscle, the vitality of a society willing to act along those lines. We call it a “platform.” A party is something very rigid, very vertical; a movement is something closer to what we want, given the horizontality involved, but for that horizontality to be large enough, the mechanisms for participation have to be expanded and the executive dimension reduced. The programmatic project has to be a minimal one, which is why we don’t want to be either a party or a movement. This dynamic we’re immersed in will tell us what bodies need to be created, what our relationship with the membership we need will look like, and what it will become. What’s beyond doubt is that it must be a political grouping committed to saving this country.

Cuba Próxima’s political position moves between democratic liberalism and social democracy, and that doesn’t make it an ambiguous position

Escobar: The program you’ve hinted at is far from the classic positions that end up being labeled radical left or far right. Where would you place it on that left-right spectrum? Is there room for centrism?

Veiga: To put it in familiar terms, Cuba Próxima’s political position moves between democratic liberalism and social democracy, and that doesn’t make it an ambiguous position. It’s a stance that integrates both of those outlooks, that opens horizons for both, but with very concrete, very direct proposals. Not to the center, nor to the right, nor to the left, but forward.

In the constitutional proposal we have, for the day when there is a constituent assembly here, a semi-parliamentary system is proposed. We aspire to work within that Parliament.

Escobar: You recently warned that Cuba’s rulers still had the opportunity to at least carry out economic reforms. Do you think the newly announced 176 measures could be that first step, one that would make the need for political reform even more evident?

Veiga: There’s always a tendency to doubt what they do, because so often what they decree goes unfulfilled, or they backtrack. As a matter of principle, one has to be skeptical, but the country is in a difficult situation, and for the first time, so are they. It gives the impression that they’re determined to carry these measures forward, even if they’re not convinced.

To implement the reforms, they are forced to simultaneously implement institutional and political reforms, because otherwise it won’t work

The problem is that this now hinges on a response from the United States. In practice, those measures can’t be implemented without a concession from the United States that opens the financial door, fuel, just a little. And if those in power can’t make this benefit them, not just the country but themselves, then they won’t expand the reforms. Why would they, if it’s not going to gain them anything except weakening the control they hold? To implement the reforms, they are forced to implement institutional and political reforms at the same time, not afterward, because otherwise it won’t work. And I’ll say more: they would have to replace 99% of the people currently in government.

Escobar: And do you believe the United States is willing to open those doors that would allow the announced reforms to move forward?

Veiga: I don’t think so. Trump has lost interest in Cuba, and if the Democrats were to regain Congress in the midterm elections coming up in November, they wouldn’t attempt anything bold either, because it costs them politically, because they have to focus heavily on defending their domestic role. They’ll use different language, but they won’t do anything. Back in 2019, when Obama’s thaw failed, the United States made the decision not to open up to Cuba again, but rather that it would be Cuba that would have to open up, and then they, whether Democrats or Republicans, would decide whether or not to come in.

Escobar: So it all comes down to pressure?

Veiga: They are subject to pressure from the United States and to internal pressure. When there’s that much pressure, there has to be an alternative way out, and that way out cannot be the project the rulers present, nor the steps they’re willing to take amid their own precariousness and fears. And that’s where a key player is missing from this equation: Cuban political actors who are not part of the government, who would need to present their own proposals for the country, or more than one, viable alternatives for everyone. Someone under pressure needs to be given an alternative to the pressure.

People can’t keep enduring this, or keep waiting for someone to find a way to fix it

Escobar: But those proposals do exist, even though they haven’t been able to be widely disseminated due to the lack of freedoms.

Veiga: Yes, but proposals can’t stop at what we want; they also have to explain the how. A proposal that fails to build trust with others, with society, is just a document, an idea put on paper. What’s been lacking is the effect of these proposals, because we don’t have the democratic space to achieve it.

Escobar: Everything seems to indicate that the dictatorship is just trying to buy time.

Veiga: Things have reached a point where, without deep change, there’s no way to fix any of what’s been destroyed in recent years. We’ve reached a point of no remedy. If the decision is to buy time in order to make the country disappear before the Americans get here, maybe they’ll manage it, but what they’re actually doing is wasting time. They are not going to restore the way they used to manage poverty and maintain acceptable levels of survival. They simply can’t. Not even the best of politicians could pull that off without changing the system. People can’t keep enduring this, or keep waiting for someone to find a way to fix it. It will be long and difficult, but the country has to be given back to the people, they have to be given back the possibility of having a purpose.

Escobar: Or else?

Veiga: It’s over for everyone. We’ll become a fourth-world country.

Escobar: A Haitianization?

Veiga: That would be the best-case scenario. It could also be a North Korean-style Haitianization.

Escobar: How much time do you estimate is left before the change of system happens?

Veiga: Time has run out, but I believe that before this year ends, the process that will make it possible to save Cuba should begin, one way or another.

Translated by GH.

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Cuba and the Eternal Search for Freedom

José Antonio Saco warned more than a century and a half ago that no national sovereignty is worth anything if the citizen remains subject to despotism

Bust of José Antonio Saco at his tomb in the Colón Cemetery, in Havana.

14ymedio, Rolando Gallardo, Alicante (Spain), July 4, 2026 / There is a paradox that runs through the history of Cuba like a ruptured vein: for two centuries, Cubans have fought to be free without ever fully agreeing on what that word actually means. Free as a country from foreign powers? Free as a citizen from one’s own government? The confusion between the two has cost blood, exile, and lost decades. And the most astonishing thing is that someone spelled it out with complete clarity almost two hundred years ago – and no one listened.

To understand the origin of this tangle, one must go back to the 19th century. After the collapse of Spain’s continental empire and the emancipation of the American republics, Cuba emerged as the last great transatlantic bastion of Madrid: a magnificent island, enriched by the whirlwind of the sugar industry and ever-growing trade. It was, by far, the brightest jewel remaining in the Crown.

And yet, instead of administering it with the breadth of vision that such prosperity demanded, Spain chose to govern it with a closed fist. Terrified by the specter of the Latin American independence movements, the metropole treated its wealthiest colony like a besieged military garrison. That distrust hardened into decree: in 1825, under Ferdinand VII and at the request of Captain General Francisco Dionisio Vives, the so-called “omnimodous powers” (facultades omnímodas) were instituted, granting the captains general authority equivalent to that of a wartime city governor — suppression of civil guarantees, banishment without trial, forced silence — and these powers were later ratified by Royal Ordinance in 1834. The Crown governed while looking over its shoulder, in the perpetual alarm of one who assumes treason lurks in every sugar mill and continue reading

every social gathering.

Saco watched with astonishment as Cuba belonged to a nation – Spain – that boasted of being free, while subjecting its overseas citizens to despotism

The most curious thing about this period — and the most revealing — is that the boot of despotism did not discriminate by place of birth. The bureaucratic and military yoke suffocated newly arrived peninsulares, hardworking island farmers, and Cuban-born criollos alike. All were subjects deprived of political voice. This orphanhood of rights was the true engine of reformism, one of the richest and most misunderstood currents of that century. Later nationalist historiography often blurred it, mistakenly dismissing it as lukewarm or accommodating. It was, in fact, the first great civic effort to establish political modernity on the island.

It is in this context that the figure of José Antonio Saco emerges, and it is hard to understand why Cuba has forgotten him so thoroughly. Born in Bayamo on May 7, 1797, a thinker of uncommon lucidity and a relentless polemicist, Saco is the great neglected prophet of Cuban politics. His liberal ideas cost him exile: the decision of Spanish politicians to stamp out any reformist current on the island led to his indefinite banishment, forcing him to write from Europe what he was not permitted to think on his own soil.

It was precisely from that Parisian exile that, in October 1851, he published through the E. Thunot printing house his essay The Political Situation of Cuba and Its Remedy (La situación política de Cuba y su remedio) — an argumentative political text addressed to enlightened public opinion, not a memorial to the Crown — in which he laid bare, with analytical precision, the contradictions of absolutism. His argument was not a separatist rallying cry; it was, above all, a civic demand: the claim of the ordinary individual’s right to the freedoms proper to the good exercise of his rights.

Saco watched with astonishment as Cuba belonged to a nation — Spain — that boasted of being free, while subjecting its overseas citizens to the despotism of an old military nobility and to the swings of a metropole that oscillated endlessly between recalcitrant absolutism and the convulsive outbursts of republicanism. With a sharp pen, he directly challenged Madrid’s hypocrisy:

“Is it just and political that, when Spain today prides itself on belonging to the number of free peoples, that same Spain strives to keep Cuba, its favorite daughter, among the number of slaves?”

By refusing to yield any space for civic participation out of fear and distrust, the colonial apparatus brought about its own ruin

The metropole’s excuse hid behind the island’s particular social structure: a society built on African slavery, it was argued, could not manage liberal institutions without risking a collapse similar to that of Haiti. Saco dismantled that fear with surgical precision:

“And since when has domestic slavery been an obstacle to free men enjoying political rights in the countries where it exists?”

The argument had a brutal honesty to it, and in it lies the key to reformism: it did not call for the abolition of slavery – Saco had his own contradictions on that front – but rather separated two problems that Madrid insisted on conflating in order to maintain control. The Creole bourgeoisie accumulated economic power but repeatedly ran up against the wall of its political marginalization. Saco further warned that Caribbean prosperity was not a gift from the Crown, but a local achievement won in spite of it:

“The enlightenment and wealth that Cuba has acquired, far from being the work of despotism, are conquests it has made by fighting against it. Is it not true that, had it been free, it would be incomparably more enlightened and wealthier than it is today?”

The political lesson he drew from all this was as simple as it was devastating. By refusing to yield any space for civic participation out of fear and distrust, the colonial apparatus brought about its own ruin. Madrid could send soldiers, but it could not buy legitimacy:

“A hundred thousand bayonets sent there by the government would not do as much to secure Spanish rule as the granting of political freedoms.”

No one listened. By closing off the path of reform, the empire left no other outlet but radicalization. As Saco himself declared, with a precision that still resonates today:

“…when despotism is the regime that prevails there, despotism, and despotism alone, is solely responsible for those misfortunes and for the greater ones yet to come.”

The passage of time and the crystallization of the republican project exposed a tectonic fault line in Cuban political thought: the confusion between the freedom of the country and the freedom of the citizen

That intransigence bred a point of no return. It was no longer enough to obtain civic freedoms within the Spanish framework. Economic power would inevitably and violently seek political power. The categorical necessity of “Viva Cuba Libre” then took hold.

And there begins, however, the second part of the problem – and the more enduring one.

The passage of time and the crystallization of the republican project exposed a tectonic fault line in Cuban political thought: the confusion between the freedom of the country and the freedom of the citizen. It was assumed, with almost religious faith, that the sovereignty of the State would transfer by osmosis to the individual. History proved that to be a fantasy. During the Republic, from its birth in 1902 until 1959, Cuba was a formally sovereign state: it was, on paper, a Free Cuba. And yet Cubans lost their most basic rights in successive and highly complex stages. The climax of that dissonance came in 1952, when a military coup suspended constitutional guarantees, brutally demonstrating that national sovereignty is no shield against internal dictatorship.

The dissonance reached even more dramatic proportions after 1959. The country gained – or believed it gained – an airtight sovereignty against outside powers. Individual freedoms, on the other hand, were subjected first to the whims of a caudillo, and later to the relentless orthodoxy of a party that confused loyalty with thought. The State swallowed the nation. The status of “sovereign state” became precisely the alibi for annulling the free citizen.

Saco asked that an epitaph be engraved on his tomb that stands as a summary of his entire life. “Here lies José Antonio Saco, who was not an annexationist because he was more Cuban than all the annexationists.” / Facebook / Naturaleza secreta

The line connecting the 19th century to the 21st in Cuba is, at bottom, the chronicle of a discontent that never quite resolves itself. From the annulment of the Constitution of Cádiz – the first constitution in history ever applied to the island – to the more than 176 reforms the Díaz-Canel administration is attempting to test, everything comes back to the same eternal clash: Cubans against the elites who hold de facto power. The ideological garb of those elites has changed several times: once they were Captains General shielded by omnimodous powers; then military coup leaders amid republican fragility; more recently, sectarian revolutionaries entrenched in bureaucracy and the monopoly on violence. The outcome for the ordinary citizen has been, in each case, alarmingly similar.

José Antonio Saco saw it all from Paris, a century and a half in advance. He died in Barcelona in 1879 without ever having lived again in the land he never stopped loving, and he asked that an epitaph be engraved on his tomb that stands as a summary of his entire life: “Here lies José Antonio Saco, who was not an annexationist because he was more Cuban than all the annexationists.” It was his way of saying that he loved Cuba too much to hand it over to anyone – not to Washington, not to Madrid, nor to any despotism disguised under a flag.

As a nation, Cubans have spent two centuries trying to find the formula that reconciles the existence of a truly free State with the construction of a legal framework in which the citizen can enjoy all the rights that are rightfully theirs. Saco’s echo still resounds across the Caribbean, uncomfortable and unanswered: despotism, no matter what flag it disguises itself under, remains solely responsible for present misfortunes. And for those yet to come, if that equation is not resolved once and for all.

Translated by GH

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A Fire Ravages 700 Hectares in Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, In Guantánamo Cuba

The protected area in Guantánamo, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has three hotspots under control while firefighting efforts continue.

The Forest Ranger Corps continues efforts to extinguish the fire in Alejandro de Humboldt National Park.

EFE, Havana, July 4, 2026 — A major wildfire reported in Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, in the eastern Cuban province of Guantánamo, consumed about 600 hectares (1,483 acres) of scrubland and nearly 100 hectares (247 acres) of forest, state media reported on Friday.

The fire, which broke out on June 27, has been brought under control, although the Forest Ranger Corps and other emergency personnel continue working to extinguish it completely this weekend, according to Jesús Martín, the Guantánamo representative of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (Citma).

The official told Radio Guantánamo that the fire remains divided into three hotspots. Firefighting efforts are advancing from north to northeast by removing combustible material, while the nearby Jaguaní River is helping prevent the blaze from spreading. continue reading

Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire in an area where high temperatures, thunderstorms, and illegal mining are common.

In 2021, specialists attributed the largest forest fire ever recorded in Alejandro de Humboldt National Park to illegal artisanal mining. That blaze destroyed nearly 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres). The park is home to some of the highest levels of biodiversity and endemism in the insular Caribbean.

The park, which extends across the provinces of Guantánamo and Holguín, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.

The protected area covers 70,680 hectares (174,641 acres), including 68,430 hectares (169,106 acres) of land and 2,250 hectares (5,560 acres) of marine territory. It contains Cuba’s largest river network and the Caribbean’s largest freshwater reserve.

Cuba’s Forest Ranger Corps reported last May that between January and April, 111 forest fires were recorded, damaging more than 3,174 hectares (7,842 acres) of natural and planted forests. Of those, 46 occurred in the western province of Pinar del Río.

The agency warned that 96% of the island’s forest fires occur between January and May and that, although the prolonged dry season and weather conditions contribute to the risk, 90% of the fires are caused by human activity.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Residents of Havana’s Focsa Building Warn of the Deterioration of a Jewel of Cuban Engineering

Residents denounce neglect, fire hazards, and poorly executed repairs in the building managed by Cimex.

“The neglect and abandonment are everywhere in the building,” residents say. / Screenshot

14ymedio, Havana, July 4, 2026 — At Havana’s Focsa Building, one of the jewels of Cuban engineering, deterioration is no longer hidden behind the monumentality of its silhouette. One only has to walk through the nearly empty lobby, go down to the garage, or look into the service rooms to find crumbling ceilings, exposed reinforcing bars, accumulated garbage, walls stained by moisture, and common areas turned into dumping grounds. Tired of filing complaints without receiving a response, residents have decided to make public a denunciation aimed directly at the building’s administration, which is run by Empresa Inmobiliaria Cimex S.A.

The document, sent anonymously by residents “as a precaution,” describes a picture of ongoing neglect, poor management, and a lack of transparency in investments. The central question running through the complaint is simple: how is it possible that a property which, according to residents, collects more than one million dollars a year from renting commercial spaces and apartments claims it has no funds for basic repairs?

In the garage, large sections of the ceiling have lost their protective covering, with chunks of concrete scattered on the floor and exposed steel reinforcement. / Screenshot

The contrast between the Focsa’s history and its current condition is difficult to ignore. Located on 17th Street between M and N in Vedado, the building was for decades a symbol of modernity and architectural ambition. At 121 meters (397 feet) tall and 36 stories high, it is one of Havana’s tallest buildings. Today, according to those filing the complaint, that image survives only on the exterior. “Neglect and abandonment are everywhere in the building,” they say, adding that for some time there have been “clear signs of corruption” among those continue reading

managing the property.

The photographs sent by residents reinforce the most visible part of the complaint. In the garage, large sections of the ceiling have lost their protective covering, with pieces of concrete on the floor and exposed steel reinforcement, including above parking spaces where vehicles remain parked. An interior staircase shows cracks, open sections, and exposed reinforcing bars in heavily used areas. Other images show storage rooms filled with black garbage bags, cardboard, packaging debris, and accumulated trash left without order or cleaning.

In their complaint, residents say that “it is common to find pieces of the ceiling on the floor,” a sign of deterioration caused by prolonged lack of maintenance. They add that only three employees are responsible for maintaining the entire Focsa, a massive building with dozens of floors, commercial areas, garages, and internal services.

Storage rooms are filled with black garbage bags, cardboard, packaging debris, and accumulated trash left without order or cleaning./ Screenshot

One of the most serious problems involves the elevators. According to the document, of the building’s seven elevators, only two operate regularly: one in the lobby and one service elevator. Residents say they must wait in endless lines to reach their apartments and that the situation becomes even worse during blackouts. During those outages, they say, several people have become trapped inside elevators because there was no fuel for the building’s backup generator.

The situation particularly affects elderly residents, children, and families living on the upper floors. Residents say that when an elevator stops between floors, those trapped must be rescued by security personnel, an operation that, according to them, endangers both those inside the elevator and those trying to help them. The complaint even proposes connecting the elevators to the building’s underground electrical system to prevent them from stopping during power outages.

Garbage is another major source of concern. The document says there are barely enough waste containers and that foul odors permeate several levels of the building. According to residents, garbage containers and piles of trash that had accumulated in the garden for months recently caught fire, and only the intervention of firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading. The photographs received by this newspaper show piles of waste in enclosed spaces near internal facilities, increasing concerns about both fire hazards and health risks.

“It is common to find pieces of the ceiling on the floor.”/ Screenshot

Residents also raise another safety concern: according to them, many of the building’s fire extinguishers no longer work, and the old fire suppression system powered by water pumps is reportedly out of service. They also mention a lack of signage, poor lighting in hallways, common areas, and stairwells, as well as leaks in the garages.

Residents complain not only about neglect but also about poorly executed investments. One example they cite is the renovation of the lobby, completed more than five years ago. According to the complaint, two air conditioning units were installed but never used, an air curtain was installed but never worked, and a television broke without ever being put into service. PVC panels were also placed over the building’s original mirrors, while the furniture that was supposed to replace the old pieces never arrived. The result, they say, was “an enormous empty hall” lacking both aesthetics and functionality.

Another disputed project involved the garages. At the end of last year, residents say, the real estate company hired contractors to paint the entrance, install signage, and set up automatic barriers. But according to residents, the paper signs fell off “after two days,” the paint was of poor quality, and the electric barriers were improperly installed, damaged by the wind, and rendered useless during blackouts.

The result of the renovation, they say, was “an enormous empty hall” lacking both aesthetics and functionality. / Screenshot

The third example concerns the supposed complete overhaul of the elevators. Residents say there was talk of a multimillion-dollar investment to replace the elevator cabins, cables, motors, control panels, rails, doors, and other components, but in the end only the cables and a few minor parts were replaced. The breakdowns, they say, continue. “Where did the money that was invested go?” they ask.

Management of the garages is also at the center of the complaints. According to residents, although the Focsa has enough capacity to accommodate the cars of those who live there, a considerable portion of the garage was converted into warehouse space by decision of the real estate company’s management. The complainants say that this measure has forced vehicles outside the building and into the covered driveway, blocking passageways, temporary stopping areas, and access routes that could be needed in an emergency. They also object to the separate fees charged for parking spaces to residents who need them, a practice they say has been imposed by the administration.

The building generates more than one million dollars a year from renting commercial spaces and apartments. / Screenshot

Residents are calling for a review of the real estate company’s accounting records to compare the investments reported with the work actually carried out in the building. They also insist that everything described in the complaint can be verified through an inspection of the property and interviews with its residents.

Beyond the specific responsibility of any individual manager, the Focsa once again presents a clear picture of today’s Cuba: emblematic buildings left to decay, opaque state administrations, repairs that fail to solve fundamental problems, and residents forced to live amid blackouts, garbage, falling concrete, and malfunctioning elevators. The jewel of Cuban engineering, its residents warn, is deteriorating in plain sight.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Italy’s Neos Launches Rome-Holguín Route to Cuba as the Dominican Republic Attracts Tourism Lost by Cuba

The 2026 Global Passport Index ranks Cuba 143rd in the world, the lowest in Latin America.

Opening ceremony for Neos’ inaugural Rome-Holguín flight. / Minrex

14ymedio, Madrid, July 3, 2026 – Italian airline Neos inaugurated a new direct route between Rome and Holguín, Cuba, on Thursday, one of the few positive developments for Cuba’s tourism sector at a time when the island continues to lose international air connections and faces the consequences of the energy crisis.

The inaugural flight departed from Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, Rome, and landed at Frank País Airport in Holguín with 238 passengers on board. The airline will operate the route once a week, directly linking Italy with one of eastern Cuba’s main tourist destinations.

The departure was marked by an official ceremony at the Rome airport, attended by Cuba’s ambassador to Italy, Jorge Luis Cepero, along with Neos executives and representatives of Aeroporti di Roma. The Cuban diplomat said the new connection “represents a significant step toward strengthening connectivity between Italy and Cuba” and will make it easier for European travelers to reach Holguín, a destination the Cuban Government promotes for its beaches, natural landscapes, and continue reading

cultural heritage.

The inauguration also included a photography exhibition featuring the official Cuba Única campaign, through which the regime is trying to attract foreign visitors despite the difficulties facing the tourism sector.

“We needed this air connection; the trip was perfect, although it’s a 14-hour flight, and now I still have to continue on to Santiago de Cuba”

The new route also provides an alternative for Cubans living in Italy who travel to eastern Cuba to visit relatives, sparing them the long overland journey from Havana to provinces such as Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Las Tunas, and Guantánamo. However, reaching the easternmost provinces will still not be easy because of the Island’s transportation shortages. “We needed this air connection; the trip was perfect, although it’s a 14-hour flight, and now I still have to continue on to Santiago de Cuba,” one passenger told the official press.

Neos had already warned about operational difficulties resulting from Cuba’s aviation fuel shortage. In a statement released in February, the airline said that its flights to the Island could experience schedule changes and might even be forced to make technical stops in nearby countries to refuel before continuing the journey.

Neos’ commitment is one of the few positive developments in Cuba’s aviation market. Since the beginning of the year, numerous airlines have reduced frequencies or withdrawn from the Island because of weak demand, operational problems, and fuel shortages at Cuban airports.

In recent weeks, Iberia temporarily suspended its Madrid-Havana route at least until November; Delta Air Lines canceled its Atlanta-Havana service because of declining passenger numbers; Air Transat indefinitely ended its flights to Cuba; and earlier, Air Canada, WestJet, and Air France had already reduced part of their operations due to difficulties refueling.

The Dominican Republic’s Tourism Minister, David Collado, acknowledged that several airlines have redirected routes to his country because of the situation facing Cuba

The situation has also affected Air Europa, which last month announced a fourth weekly flight between Madrid and Havana, making it the only Spanish airline maintaining regular operations to Cuba after the withdrawal of Iberia, World2Fly, and Plus Ultra. However, its Boeing 787 aircraft must stop in Punta Cana to refuel before returning to Spain, a direct consequence of the jet fuel shortage affecting all of Cuba’s international airports since February.

The decline in flights has been accompanied by a reduction in international tour operator activity and the withdrawal of most foreign hotel chains associated with Gaesa, which have been threatened by U.S. sanctions.

Other Caribbean destinations acknowledge that they are absorbing part of the market lost by Cuba. On Thursday, Dominican Republic Tourism Minister David Collado admitted that several airlines have redirected routes to his country because of the situation affecting the Island.

“Cuba is going through a very difficult political and tourism situation, where hotels have closed,” he said while presenting the Dominican Republic’s tourism sector results. Although he insisted that the Dominican Republic “does not take advantage of the situation in specific countries,” he acknowledged that airlines, including some that previously operated from Canada, have shifted flights to the Dominican Republic. He also noted that Condor has added three new routes from Germany and that the country has recorded a 10% increase in flights this year, along with approximately 300,000 additional airline seats.

The 2026 Global Passport Index, compiled by Global Citizen Solutions, ranked the Cuban passport 143rd in the world, the lowest in Latin America

The loss of international air connections adds to the difficulties Cuban citizens face when traveling abroad. The 2026 Global Passport Index, compiled by Global Citizen Solutions, ranked the Cuban passport 143rd in the world, the lowest in Latin America. The Cuban passport allows visa-free entry to only 26 countries and requires visas for approximately 100 destinations, a limitation that affects not only tourism but also the educational, employment, and emigration opportunities of millions of Cubans.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘And When Did It Come Online?’ Cubans Mock Yet Another Guiteras Power Plant Shutdown

The country’s main thermoelectric plant has suffered at least 17 shutdowns in 2026, while its workers struggle to keep an exhausted facility running.

“Please, don’t turn it on anymore—build a new one,” one commenter pleaded on Facebook. / Facebook / Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Plant

14ymedio, Havana, July 3, 2026 – No Cuban is surprised anymore to learn that the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant has gone offline from the National Electric System (SEN). “And when did it come online? I didn’t even notice,” one Cuban asked this Friday after hearing about the latest breakdown. The Matanzas unit disconnected at 6:58 a.m., just four days after being synchronized with the grid and while generating about 180 megawatts.

As of the time this article was written, authorities had not explained the cause of the new breakdown or provided a timetable for returning the plant to service. With this latest incident, the Guiteras has suffered at least 17 outages so far this year. The previous one, announced on June 24, was caused by a water leak in the aging boiler.

The brief statement posted on the plant’s Facebook page was met with a mix of fatigue, outrage, and sarcasm. “The truth is, it never really came online. Let’s be honest,” wrote user Frank Manolo Gallardo. “The never-ending story,” added Yeudis Fernández. For Luansy Lima, the explanation was simpler: “Of course, it takes weekends off.”

“Let me guess… another boiler leak. The Guiteras is like a sieve,” joked Marta Beatriz Parra. “You can’t even tell anymore whether it’s coming online or going offline,” added Soyuz Maray Gómez. Others summed up the uselessness of the official reports for those still enduring endless blackouts: “Either way, we don’t notice whether it comes online or goes offline because there’s never any electricity.” continue reading

The plant has not undergone a major overhaul since 2010 and has been in operation for more than 38 years

The mockery, however, is not directed at the plant’s workers, who are repeatedly forced back into the depths of a deteriorating facility. In May, more than 300 people worked shifts of up to 14 hours during a 90-hour repair operation. Welders had to work inside the boiler in temperatures reaching 60 degrees Celsius (140°F) and at heights of around 150 meters (492 feet).

“Inside the boiler, the heat is hellish,” admitted Norberto Padrón Ramos, a supervisor and welder with 38 years of experience. He also warned about the gases, the exhaustion, and the cumulative toll of such work: “It’s a job that eventually takes its toll on you.”

The State press itself described the technicians welding “at full speed, racing against the clock,” eating and drinking coffee beside the boiler so they would not interrupt the work. But behind that image of labor heroism lies enormous pressure. Every Guiteras breakdown worsens the blackouts, the pot-banging protests, and the demonstrations. The regime knows this, which is why it mobilizes ministers and Communist Party officials and makes the workers directly responsible for bringing back online within days a machine that actually requires months of work.

For decades, the Cuban state postponed major overhauls, allowed its thermoelectric plants to age, and replaced systematic investment with emergency patchwork repairs

The plant has not undergone a major overhaul since 2010 and has been operating for more than 38 years. Between January and May alone, it spent 293 hours out of service due to defects in the economizer, one of the boiler components that has suffered the most frequent failures.

Guiteras shutdowns also pose a risk to the stability of the entire electrical grid. This does not mean that every breakdown will necessarily trigger a nationwide blackout, but the sudden loss of one of the country’s largest generating units can cause a frequency drop that Cuba’s weakened electrical system does not always have sufficient reserves to offset. On September 10, 2025, an unexpected shutdown at the plant caused the complete collapse of the National Electric System. In March of this year, another disconnection left two-thirds of the country without electricity.

For decades, the Cuban state postponed major overhauls, allowed its thermoelectric plants to deteriorate, and replaced long-term investment with emergency fixes. Beyond the regime’s perennial excuse of the embargo and sanctions, the problem was never a lack of resources but rather a political decision about where to spend them.

“Please, don’t turn it on anymore—build a new one,” one commenter pleaded. The remark, written out of frustration, sums up both a technical and political conclusion: the Guiteras does not need another miracle from its workers, but a comprehensive overhaul and the kind of investment that the Government chose for years to devote instead to hotels that now stand empty.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Alleged State Department Cable Leaked Outlining U.S. Position Ahead of U.N. Debate on Cuba

The State Department asks its ambassadors, in a document published by The Nation, to promote opposition to the session and to criticize Havana if it takes place.
Díaz-Canel responds to Trump: “We are not afraid of war.”

The debate precedes the annual October vote against the embargo. / X

14ymedio, Madrid, July 3, 2026 – The United States has a clear position regarding the debate promoted by Cuba for this Tuesday at the United Nations against the “blockade” and is trying to rally both allied and less closely aligned countries behind it. This is nothing unusual, although Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez has spent the week denouncing Washington for doing exactly what Havana itself has also been doing: seeking support for its international policy.

“The State Department apparatus is trying to prevent the General Assembly from examining a matter of urgent global concern by using pressure, lies, and threats directed at member states,” Rodríguez said Tuesday in Havana.

Now, the U.S. publication The Nation has released what it says is a State Department cable revealing the position of the agency headed by Marco Rubio. The document is titled Engaging UN Member States on the July 7 General Assembly Open Debate on Cuba and makes clear that Washington would prefer the session not to take place. The main argument it presents to other countries is that the Cuban regime already uses the annual vote on a resolution against the embargo as a political lifeline.

The main argument presented to other countries is that the regime already uses the annual vote on a resolution against the embargo as a political lifeline

The three-page cable, marked SBU (Sensitive But Unclassified), instructs U.S. embassies to encourage the countries where they are stationed to “reaffirm” their objections and oppose the debate. If the session does take place, the guidance varies depending on the country’s level of alignment with Washington.

“The United States encourages the most closely aligned member states to make statements criticizing Cuba for its adherence to a thoroughly discredited economic theory, its gross incompetence, and its widespread corruption.” For countries with weaker ties to Washington, the guidance is to “refrain from making comments.” Finally, for governments that typically support Havana, the cable includes a warning: “The United States will pay close attention to their interventions during continue reading

the debate and advises against raising points that could create tensions in our bilateral relationship.”

The document argues that Cuba “does not have a real economy,” states that “the United States is deeply concerned about the Cuban people” and has therefore “offered $100 million in humanitarian assistance,” while accusing the regime of delaying its delivery. Last week, Miguel Díaz-Canel said in an interview that between $2.6 million and $2.8 million of the first aid package offered by Rubio after Hurricane Melissa had already been distributed, while the subsequent $6 million package was now beginning to arrive. As for the $100 million package, he said it has not yet been finalized.

The Cuban president spoke again on Thursday, this time with the British television network Sky News, where he said Cuba “is not afraid” of a war with the United States and denounced Washington’s threatening rhetoric. Hours before the interview aired, Donald Trump had struck a more conciliatory, though very brief, tone, saying that for the first time in many years the island “is getting closer” to the United States, in contrast to the Cuban regime’s recent statements describing relations as hostile.

“We do not want a war, but we are not afraid of one either. We are preparing ourselves so that we are not caught by surprise or defeated,” Díaz-Canel said, repeating the same message several times. “We are a country of peace. We are not a threat to anyone; on the contrary, we offer solidarity to the world. Therefore, Cuba is not a nation in conflict, we are not a colony, and we will not renounce our sovereignty or our independence,” he added.

The president referred to the White House’s threatening rhetoric and said it is part of “a strategy of media intoxication and psychological warfare”

The president referred to the White House’s threatening rhetoric and said it is part of “a strategy of media intoxication and psychological warfare” intended to intimidate the country and that it constitutes “an outrage and an affront” to the dignity of the Cuban people.

Díaz-Canel accused Washington of telling “many lies” and “manipulating” public opinion, while subjecting the Cuban population to “maximum pressure” that affects everyday life. Asked by Sky News whether, after recent U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Iran, he takes Trump’s threats seriously, Díaz-Canel repeated that he is prepared to fight “to the last drop of blood” to defend Cuba’s rights, independence, and sovereignty.

Barring any surprises, the first battle will take place on Tuesday during the United Nations debate. And both sides have already made their positions very clear.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The US State Department Rebuts Cuban President Díaz-Canel’s Claims About $100 Million in Humanitarian Aid

According to sources cited by Café Fuerte, shipments will begin in July and include food and medicine.

The arrival of assistance from the United States has generated reactions and controversy. / Caritas Cuba

14ymedio, Madrid, July 3, 2026 – The United States has responded to criticism from Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who said in an interview with Dominican television last week that the $100 million in aid announced by Washington did not include food or medicine. In statements to the independent media Café Fuerte, the State Department categorically rejected the claim and announced that shipments will begin this month.

“We can confirm that the aid is ready to be shipped and that Miguel Díaz-Canel’s illegitimate regime has been delaying the approvals,” a senior State Department official told the outlet on Thursday. “We expect major shipments in July, if the regime allows it.”

Asked about the contents of those shipments and Díaz-Canel’s claim, the official added: “That is totally and absolutely false. The shipments offered by the State Department include food, as was demonstrated during inspections conducted during the humanitarian relief phases following Hurricane Melissa, and this can be verified by the Catholic Church and other NGOs.”

“That is totally and absolutely false. The shipments offered by the State Department include food, as was demonstrated during the inspections conducted”

The same source also said that the United States has offered to bring medical care equipment to Cuba and that the regime has refused to accept it, without providing further details.

The U.S. Embassy in Cuba announced on June 17 that $60 million of the $100 million package will be managed by the Catholic Church, while the remaining $40 million will be administered by other NGOs. The agreement was finalized during a meeting between the head of the diplomatic mission, Mike Hammer; Sean Callahan, president of Catholic Relief Services; and Carmen María Nodal Martínez, director of Caritas Cuba. Also present was Dionisio García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, known as continue reading

one of the Church’s most outspoken critics of the regime.

“During these meetings, coordination was discussed for distributing humanitarian aid to ordinary Cubans, with the goal of ensuring that assistance reaches those who need it most in an effective manner,” a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy said.

In October 2025, after Hurricane Melissa struck eastern Cuba, Marco Rubio offered the Cuban regime $3 million in aid. Following a back-and-forth between the two sides, mainly over how the distribution would be organized, shipments began arriving on January 14, and their distribution was handled by Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, which have remained responsible for all subsequent deliveries.

The organizations have encountered serious logistical problems due to the fuel shortage, to the point that Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told The Washington Post that it was ultimately necessary to reach agreements with the Cuban regime to transport the aid by ship from Havana to Santiago. According to Café Fuerte, its source acknowledged that this issue had been discussed. “Of course, both humanitarian aid and oil and energy issues have been topics at the negotiating table,” the official said.

“Of course, both humanitarian aid and oil and energy issues have been topics at the negotiating table”

The first round of aid has been almost completely delivered, according to Miguel Díaz-Canel himself in the interview with Roberto Cavada. “Then they proposed another $6 million in aid, which is only now beginning to be implemented,” he added. He then claimed, however, that he knew little or nothing about the controversial $100 million package.

The president suggested that there was a political calculation behind beginning its delivery after September. “Why? We don’t know,” he said. He also claimed that the shipment did not include food or medicine. “So what is the aid for? We’ll have to see because they haven’t defined it, they haven’t clearly said what it is for,” he added. He also insisted that the cooperation is appreciated and accepted, but that it is “hypocritical.” “It means nothing compared with the damage the embargo has caused Cuba,” he argued.

According to Caritas, 82% of the donations have so far been delivered to the affected areas, reaching approximately 8,800 families in Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Las Tunas, Bayamo, and Guantánamo.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Voices Come to Light From Before the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown

CNN obtained the audio recorded inside the only aircraft that managed to escape the attack in 1996.

“It gives you goosebumps to hear it,” Martín told CNN. / Screenshot / CNN

14ymedio, Havana, July 3, 2026 – Cubans had already heard the celebration of the military pilots who, on February 24, 1996, had just destroyed an unarmed civilian aircraft carrying defenseless people. “We blew their balls off!” one of them shouted after firing his missiles at a Brothers to the Rescue Cessna, as if he had shot down an enemy bomber and not a small aircraft over international waters.

Now, a recording released by CNN en Español allows the crime to be heard from the other side. Not from the cockpit of the MiG fighter jets, but from the aircraft flown by José Basulto, the only one of the three Brothers to the Rescue planes that managed to return to Florida. The tape, preserved for three decades in a collection of videos and cassettes belonging to former pilot Reinaldo Martín, recorded the communications and the fear inside the aircraft while the other two were being destroyed.

“This is gold,” Martín says as he shows CNN the cassette recorded aboard Basulto’s aircraft, whose call sign was Seagull 1. The recording also captures Carlos Costa, identified as Seagull Charlie, and Mario Manuel de la Peña, Seagull Mike. “It gives you goosebumps to hear it,” Martín admits while listening to one of the voices.

“They are going to shoot us down,” the pilot is heard warning. Then comes the silence

Communications between the MiG fighter jets and the Cuban command post were intercepted by U.S. intelligence services. Three days after the attack, on February 27, 1996, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright made a transcript public and presented it as proof that the Cuban military knew they were attacking civilian aircraft and celebrated their destruction. “This isn’t guts, it’s cowardice,” Albright declared before the Security Council.

A decade later, Cuban journalist Wilfredo Cancio Isla revealed another decisive recording of the attack. Published in El Nuevo Herald in August 2006, the tape captured a meeting in which Raúl Castro acknowledged that he had authorized several generals to shoot down the aircraft without waiting for approval. “Shoot them down over the sea when they show up, and don’t ask,” he is heard saying. Cancio verified the authenticity of the voice with specialists continue reading

and with Alcibíades Hidalgo, Raúl Castro’s former personal secretary.

However, until now, the tape containing the audio recorded from the victims’ cockpit had never been released. Costa was piloting one of the Cessnas with Pablo Morales, while De la Peña flew the other with Armando Alejandre Jr. aboard. All four were killed when the Cuban fighter jets fired air-to-air missiles at the aircraft.

The microphone connected to Basulto’s headset captures the confusion and panic inside the cockpit. “They are going to shoot us down,” the pilot is heard warning. Then comes silence. “Charlie,” Basulto calls, trying to reach Costa’s aircraft. But there is no response. “Mike,” he insists. No one answers.

“This is the first time I have heard Basulto’s recording saying that we are next, that they are going to shoot at us”

“Both are down. They shot down both aircraft,” Martín explains during the report. By then, the Cessnas had been obliterated, and their wreckage had fallen into the Florida Straits.

An investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization concluded that both aircraft were destroyed outside Cuban airspace. The first was about 18 miles from the coast and the second more than 30 miles away, while Cuba’s territorial limit was 12 miles. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also determined that the victims were given no warning that would have allowed them to land or leave the area.

The new recording also captures the reaction of Sylvia Iriondo, who was a passenger aboard Basulto’s aircraft and survived because the third plane managed to escape. “This is the first time I have heard Basulto’s recording saying that we are next, that they are going to shoot at us,” Iriondo tells CNN. For her, what happened leaves no room for nuance or euphemisms: “They fired on unarmed, defenseless civilian aircraft in international airspace.”

“We are next,” Basulto warns. “The other one destroyed. The other one destroyed,” is heard afterward

CNN recalls that the families had already heard other recordings of the attack, some provided by the FBI and others played during federal court proceedings. But the cassette found in Martín’s archive preserves something different: the crew’s final communications and the moment those aboard the third aircraft realized they could be the next victims.

“We are next,” Basulto warns. “The other one destroyed. The other one destroyed,” is heard afterward. The victims were Carlos Costa, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran; 24-year-old Mario Manuel de la Peña; Armando Alejandre Jr., born in New Jersey and a father; and Pablo Morales, a former Cuban rafter who had previously been rescued by Brothers to the Rescue. Three were U.S. citizens, and the fourth was a legal resident.

For Mirta Méndez, a relative of one of the victims, the indictment recently filed in the United States against Raúl Castro and several Cuban military officers cannot become just another symbolic gesture. “We cannot have an indictment that remains locked away in a drawer,” she says.

When CNN asks how she imagines Raúl Castro appearing before the courts at the age of 94, she replies: “It doesn’t matter. He is still active and giving orders. So if he can’t walk, then in a wheelchair; if he can’t sit, then on a stretcher.”

Translated by Regina Anavy
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America’s 250th Anniversary: Recovering the Soul of the Republic

The CubanAmerican Voice, Julio M. Shiling, July 2, 2026 / The celebration of America’s 250th anniversary is more than a commemoration of national independence. It is an invitation to reconsider the moral architecture upon which the American Republic was constructed. To ask whether the philosophical inheritance that sustained the nation for two and a half centuries remains sufficiently intact to preserve it for generations yet unborn. Every civilization ultimately lives not by economics or military power alone, but by the ideas it believes, the virtues it cultivates, and the transcendent truths it acknowledges.

The United States was unique among nations because it was founded upon propositions rather than ethnicity, dynasty, or conquest. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that human rights do not originate in government but are endowed by the Creator. Government exists, the text argued, not to bestow liberty but to secure liberties that already belong to the human person by nature as an act of God. The Constitution translated those principles into institutions, creating a political order designed not merely to govern but to restrain government itself.

This remarkable achievement rested upon a synthesis of three intellectual traditions that together formed what has often been called the American creed. The first was biblical Christianity. The Founders differed in theology, yet they shared an intellectual world profoundly shaped by the Judeo-Christian understanding of the human person. The belief that man is created in the image of God endowed every individual with inherent dignity while simultaneously recognizing the reality of human fallenness. Liberty therefore required virtue; rights required responsibilities; freedom required moral restraint. As Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed, religion in America did not govern politically, but it governed the moral habits without which political liberty could not endure.

The second pillar was republicanism. Drawing upon the classical political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the mixed-government tradition continue reading

articulated by Polybius and Cicero, the English constitutional inheritance, and later thinkers such as Montesquieu, the Founders possessed no romantic illusions regarding human nature. They understood that political liberty required both moral virtue and institutional restraint, for unchecked power invariably corrupts and fallen human nature cannot safely be trusted with unlimited authority. They understood that concentrated power inevitably invites corruption because ambition is an enduring characteristic of mankind. The constitutional architecture of separated powers, federalism, checks and balances, judicial review, and representative government reflected what James Madison described as the necessity of enabling government to control the governed while obliging it to control itself. Constitutional government was therefore less an expression of optimism than of political realism rooted in Natural Law.

The third foundation was classical liberalism. Individual liberty, equality before the law, private property, free enterprise, religious liberty, and limited government established the sphere within which citizens could pursue human flourishing. Yet American liberalism differed significantly from its later European counterparts. It did not understand liberty as radical autonomy detached from moral obligation. Rather, freedom existed within an objective moral order inherited from both biblical revelation and natural law philosophy. In this respect, America’s liberalism remained tempered by Christianity and republican virtue.

These three traditions together produced what Russell Kirk described as the permanent things—a civilization sustained not merely by institutions but by enduring moral truths. The Founding, however, carried within it a profound contradiction. A republic dedicated to universal equality tolerated human slavery. America’s original sin was not simply political inconsistency but an applicable failure that resulted in a moral contradiction. The Civil War constituted the nation’s Second Founding. Under Abraham Lincoln, the Union’s victory preserved constitutional self- government while abolishing slavery and moving the Republic closer to fulfilling the Declaration’s universal promise. Lincoln understood that the Declaration supplied the nation’s moral compass while the Constitution supplied its institutional framework. The Reconstruction Amendments therefore represented not a rejection of the Founding but its fulfillment.

The remarkable endurance of this constitutional order cannot be explained solely by institutional design. As Tocqueville recognized nearly two centuries ago, America’s constitutional success depended upon a vibrant moral culture nourished by churches, families, local communities, and voluntary associations. In modern lexicon, this is referred to today as a civil society. Political liberty rested upon moral self-government. The Constitution worked because Americans largely governed themselves before the government governed them.

The history of socialism in America illustrates this point. Throughout the nineteenth century, utopian communities, labor radicals, anarchists, and European socialist immigrants attempted to transplant collectivist doctrines onto American soil. Although prominent intellectuals—including Edward Bellamy, Henry George, Jack London, Helen Keller, and King Camp Gillette—expressed sympathy for various socialist ideas, these movements remained politically marginal. The constitutional culture, religious vitality, entrepreneurial spirit, and civic habits of most Americans proved inhospitable to revolutionary ideologies. Why has the situation changed so slowly but so dramatically during the past century?

One explanation is that the moral ecology sustaining the Republic has steadily weakened. Liberalism, itself a child of the Enlightenment, contained within it an impulse toward secularization. Once detached from its Christian foundations, liberty increasingly came to be understood as expressive individualism rather than ordered freedom. Consumerism, material prosperity, and technological progress filled many practical needs while leaving unanswered the perennial human longing for transcendence.

At precisely this moment, intellectual movements derived from Marxism underwent a profound transformation. Following the failures of revolutionary socialism in the West, thinkers associated with Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and later postmodern traditions shifted their attention from economics toward culture, education, language, law, and social institutions. What can adequately be diagnosed as cultural Marxism—a modern variation of Marxist ideology—weaponized these approaches and increasingly interpreted for society through the lens of relationships of power, domination, and identity rather than through the constitutional language of individual rights and equal citizenship.

Here Eric Voegelin offers a profound insight. Totalitarian ideologies, he argued, function as political religions. When transcendence is denied, human beings do not cease to seek ultimate meaning; rather, they relocate salvation into history itself. Politics becomes soteriology. The state, the revolution, the class struggle, racial justice, environmental redemption, or any number of secular causes may assume quasi-religious significance. The twentieth century tragically demonstrated the consequences of such ideological absolutism. Elements of today’s so-called “progressive” movement, including organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, reflect aspects of this intellectual inheritance that is antithetical to the foundational base upon which the United States was built.

America’s semiquincentennial therefore presents an opportunity for more than patriotic celebration. It invites national renewal. Such renewal cannot be accomplished merely through legislation or electoral victories. As Edmund Burke reminded us, society is a partnership extending across generations, sustained by inherited wisdom as much as by political innovation. Institutions cannot preserve themselves if the civilization that created them forgets why they exist.

Recovering America’s first principles requires restoring the moral and civic culture upon which constitutional liberty ultimately depends. Such renewal begins with recovering confidence in the nation’s Judeo-Christian inheritance, whose moral teachings long provided the ethical foundation of ordered liberty. It also requires strengthening serious civic education rooted in constitutional history, Natural Law, and the intellectual traditions of Western civilization, thereby cultivating citizens who understand both the rights and responsibilities of self-government. Freedom of conscience and religious liberty must remain vigorously protected, while families, religious communities, and other mediating institutions should once again be recognized as indispensable schools of virtue and civic character. Finally, publicly funded institutions should foster genuine intellectual pluralism and the free exchange of ideas rather than ideological conformity or political orthodoxy.

The American experiment has never rested upon the illusion that human beings are perfect. Quite the opposite. It has endured because it recognized both the grandeur and the frailty of the human person. Ordered liberty, limited government, constitutional restraint, and moral responsibility emerged from that realistic anthropology. If America is to flourish beyond its first 250 years, it must recover the philosophical synthesis that animated both its Founding in 1776 and its rebirth in 1865—a synthesis of Jerusalem, Athens, and Philadelphia, where biblical faith, republican prudence, and ordered liberty together formed the soul of the American Republic.

The Regime Steps Up Repression on the Day of the Annual Gathering at American Diplomat Mike Hammer’s Residence

The diplomatic mission in Havana celebrates the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, and State Security responds with arrests, summonses, and police operations.

“They are a dictatorship. We all know what they’re going to do: repress and threaten,” predicted Anna Bensi.

14ymedio, Havana, July 2, 2026 — Leonardo Romero Negrín, an activist and former political prisoner from the 11 July 2021 ’11J’ protests, was arrested Wednesday night in Central Havana for taking part in a pot-banging protest. According to Lisbeth Moya González, it happened “with tremendous violence.”

“They told his family they would have information at 8:30 this morning, and now it turns out his case file can’t be found and that they’ll have news at 10,” the activist wrote on social media early Thursday. Romero Negrín, whose ribs were broken during the 11J protests and who was released under the constant threat that authorities would reopen charges of public disorder against him, was arrested, she added, “for doing what every decent Cuban should be doing right now.”

Because of this arbitrary detention, and that of Fernando Ginarte Mora two days earlier in Contramaestre (Santiago de Cuba), the Cuban Observatory for Freedom of Expression (OCLE) has issued an alert demanding their release. Ginarte Mora was arrested days after meeting with the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer.

This Thursday, as the U.S. mission holds its traditional annual dinner marking the Fourth of July at Hammer’s residence in Havana, dissidents have received police summonses, while independent journalists have been unable to leave their homes because of police operations deployed outside their residences.

The 14ymedio newsroom in Nuevo Vedado, was surrounded from early morning to prevent Yoani Sánchez and Reinaldo Escobar from going anywhere

This is the case of the 14ymedio newsroom, in Nuevo Vedado, which was surrounded from early morning to prevent Yoani Sánchez and Reinaldo Escobar from going anywhere. The same happened to Camila Acosta, a contributor to CubaNet and the Spanish newspaper ABC, who reported that several political police agents were monitoring her home. “The operation is stronger than usual,” she continue reading

said.

According to José Raúl Gallego, José Elías Agüero, former political prisoner Alexander Díaz, Marthadela Tamayo and Osvaldo Navarro are also being held to prevent them from attending the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States.

In Pinar del Río, activists Lisandra Orraca and Irina León, members of the Latin American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR) and the Republican Party of Cuba, were also prevented from leaving their homes. In the same province, two days ago, State Security harassed Dagoberto Valdés and Yoandy Izquierdo, members of Convivencia, with the same objective: to prevent them from traveling to Havana to accept Mike Hammer’s invitation. According to a post by Valdés, Agent John of the political police told him he couldn’t go to the capital that day, but “that if he needed to travel to Havana another day, he should call him.” The layperson replied that “he wasn’t going to ask for permission to go to Havana.”

Anna Sofía Benítez, known on social media as Anna Bensi, received a summons ordering her to appear today at the Alamar police station. “Obviously the situation is a disaster because they do everything wrong except repress people—that’s what they’re experts at,” the influencer had said in a video. She also expressed surprise that the document read “official warning” instead of “interview,” as on previous occasions when State Security had summoned her. “They are a dictatorship. We all know what they’re going to do: repress and threaten,” she predicted.

The YouTuber siblings Betty and Abel, hosts of the program Fuera de la Caja, also received an “official warning” ordering them to report to the Diez de Octubre police station, as did Rolando Fidel Pérez, known as Pregonero de Cristo. Announcing the notification on Facebook, Pérez declared: “I have committed no crime. My only crime is thinking differently. My only crime is preaching freedom. My only crime is saying that Cuba belongs to Christ.”

“What is this ‘warning’ for?” Pérez asked, answering himself: “To silence me. To frighten me. To make me stop denouncing the blackouts, the hunger, and the prisons full of innocent people.” In a lengthy post, he held “the National Revolutionary Police, State Security, and the Cuban dictatorship responsible for anything that happens to me or my family. Any ‘accident.’ Any ‘suicide.’ Any disappearance.”

“Why does the regime mind so badly that ordinary Cubans participate in an event that celebrates freedom?”

For their part, Betty and Abel mocked the official notice because it carried the wrong date—June 2—and was barely legible due to a lack of ink, in addition to being “poorly written” and “outside all legal deadlines.” According to the young woman, “this only demonstrates that this regime treats the law as nothing more than decoration.”

The siblings’ father recorded a video denouncing that, despite the legal two-hour limit, they still had not been released. He and his wife went to the police station to demand information. “The explanation they gave us was that they had several people to interview.” By then, Betty had already been questioned and was able to briefly tell them that “everything went calmly and without any major problems,” yet she still was not allowed to leave. Abel had not yet been questioned by the officers.

State Security, therefore, found itself overwhelmed by the growing number of summonses. The fuel and resource crisis has not affected the Ministry of the Interior.

The U.S. Embassy has not remained silent in the face of these operations. “What do you think about State Security threatening Cubans who attend or come to work at events, such as the U.S. Independence Day celebration?” it asks on its official Facebook page . “Many have said that the regime is preventing them from attending our Freedom250 event. Why does it bother the regime so much that ordinary Cubans participate in an event that celebrates freedom?”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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PedroCarr Private Company Sells Viazul Tickets in Euros From Abroad

While finding any transportation in pesos has become an ordeal, the private company offers routes across the Island to those who can pay in foreign currency.

A brand-new PedroCarr bus stands out in a city battered by the transportation crisis. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Alejandro de Cañas, July 2, 2026 – A large PedroCarr bus, with the company’s logo prominently displayed on its side, left passersby in Central Havana astonished this Thursday. In the midst of Cuba’s transportation crisis, seeing luggage being loaded and passengers about to board is nothing short of a miracle.

PedroCarr, a private small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), has just opened a much easier option for those who can pay from abroad. On Wednesday, the company launched a digital platform to book interprovincial trips, hotel transfers, and transportation from Cuban airports, with fares listed in euros.

“Travel through Cuba with us,” the private company announces in a social media campaign. Through its new website, PedroCarr promises “fast and secure” reservations, bus rentals for excursions and events, as well as connections between the Island’s main cities and tourist destinations.

The company says its regular services in Cuban pesos will continue operating “under the same conditions and accessibility as always.” However, the launch is clearly aimed at Cubans living abroad who pay for their relatives’ travel and foreign tourists—two groups with access to hard currency in a country where the average state salary barely covers a fraction of the cost of any trip sold in euros. continue reading

PedroCarr also offers a downloadable 28-page fare schedule explicitly labeled “Viazul Service Fares”

The most striking aspect is not only the announcement itself but also the documents available on the website. PedroCarr allows users to download a 28-page fare schedule explicitly titled “Viazul Service Fares,” listing routes from airports, provincial capitals, hotels, and tourist destinations across the country.

From Terminal 3 of José Martí International Airport, for example, a transfer to Old Havana costs 10 euros. A trip to Las Tunas is listed at 44 euros, Holguín at 50 euros, Santiago de Cuba at 60 euros, and Baracoa at 74 euros. The fares include two suitcases and vary for children, round trips, and multi-destination itineraries.

The document is virtually identical to the one used by Viazul, the service operated by the state-owned National Bus Company, traditionally aimed at tourists and passengers paying in foreign currency. PedroCarr does not explain in its announcement whether it acts as an intermediary, a ticketing agency, or a transportation contractor for Viazul, nor does it specify what portion of the fare remains with the private company.

The platform presents itself as a bus transportation management and reservation system, but the network of routes it offers covers virtually the entire country, from Viñales to Baracoa, as well as airports, island resorts, and hotel complexes.

PedroCarr is not a newly created company. Cuba’s Ministry of Economy and Planning included it in its official registry of new economic actors as a private SME based in the municipality of Las Tunas, dedicated to ground passenger transportation. It was authorized in 2022 during the first major wave of small and medium-sized enterprises approved by the Government.

In February of this year, the company’s own fleet consisted of ten Yutong buses and seven Foton minibuses, in addition to another 17 leased vehicles.

Behind the business is Pedro Yosvany Carbonell Fernández, known as El Chino. The official Las Tunas newspaper 26 identified him in 2022 as the manager of what was then called Pedrocar y Socio, noting that the project began on May 8 of that year. Its original goal was to transport passengers between Las Tunas and Havana.

A Prensa Latina report published in February of this year refers to him as president of PedroCarr and states that the company operated the Havana–Puerto Padre and Havana–Las Tunas routes with fares in Cuban pesos. To acquire its buses, the private company obtained financing through an unidentified Spanish institution, arranged via Consultoría Internacional. PedroCarr also worked with foreign suppliers, including China’s Yutong Bus and Mexico’s Sunshine Best.

At that time, the company’s own fleet consisted of ten Yutong buses and seven Foton minibuses. Those 17 vehicles were supplemented by another 17 leased from the state-owned National Bus Company, giving PedroCarr a total of 34 vehicles under its management. The launch of a platform offering connections throughout the Island now points to a further expansion of its operations.

The service exists, the bus and fuel appear without problems, and reservations can be made without long lines… but in euros.

The private company’s growth has therefore taken place hand in hand with public institutions. PedroCarr has marketed transportation capacity through state bus terminals and has operated in a sector where fuel shortages, lack of spare parts, and vehicle scarcity have left numerous state-run routes paralyzed.

For a Cuban living on the Island, paying 44 euros for a trip from Havana Airport to Las Tunas amounts to tens of thousands of pesos on the informal market. For a relative paying from Miami or Madrid, however, it may be a quick solution when state-run tickets are impossible to obtain.

That contrast summarizes the direction much of the Cuban economy has taken. The service exists, the buses and fuel are readily available, and reservations can be made without long lines, but only if someone, usually from abroad, has euros.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Operation Garbage Begins in El Vedado With Only Five of the Planned 30 Tricycles

There will be inspectors to apply “severe measures” against those who put out garbage bags outside the scheduled hours.

A tricycle from the company Vedca collects waste in El Vedado. / 14ymedio

Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, July 1, 2026 — It was just a few minutes past 7 a.m. when, on 11th Street in Havana’s El Vedado neighborhood, a lone garbage bag waited beneath a palm tree for the brand-new El Rampeño service. The previous hours had been rich in information. The delegate of the Rampa People’s Council, the hyperactive Pedro Garcés, had circulated a large amount of information on social media about the waste collection zones announced Tuesday in the state press.

“Tomorrow, July 1, we begin the new solid waste collection project in these locations,” read a message listing the streets involved. The text specified that collection would be carried out door to door and stated that once the garbage had been picked up, it was “strictly prohibited” to dispose of any more waste. It also warned that, because of the new home collection service, the garbage containers would be removed the previous day.

A worker collecting garbage on the first day of the program / 14ymedio

This morning the containers were still in place, overflowing with waste, as the project’s first day got underway. Even if somewhat chaotic, it seemed better than nothing. “Don’t carry the sack all the way over there, just take the bags and bring them to the tricycle,” advised the driver of the electric vehicle from the Chinese-Cuban company Vedca, who effectively kicked off the operation. His coworker had intended to take the sack door to door, apparently unaware that its weight would increase minute by minute.

Gradually, more and more garbage bags appeared along the streets, delighting the occasional scavenger searching through them for anything salvageable. Participation in this first collection effort was modest, although given the size of the tricycle, that was probably for the best.

The first solitary garbage bag seen during a route through El Vedado. / 14ymedio

“We still don’t know where it’s headed. We’ve just started and we’re waiting for the delegate to tell us something,” the garbage collector—wearing red pants, a red cap, and gloves—told a local resident. The improvisation was obvious, since even the workers themselves did not know exactly where to go. Still, somewhat encouraged, residents wished the team success with the project.

Tuesday’s message called on “the men and women of Rampa living in the mentioned areas to maintain discipline and vigilance. Let us show from this small piece of land that it is possible to have a healthy environment. The cleanliness of my block, my greatest pride!” it concluded. continue reading

Yet at 19th and O Streets, one of the collection zones, garbage was visible both inside and outside the containers, making it clear that the initiative will need, at the very least, some time to take hold.

The containers that were supposed to have been removed Tuesday were still there at 7 a.m. / 14ymedio

The local development project El Rampeño is expected to receive 30 electric vehicles provided by the government, although only five are currently available. The charging station that will support the tricycles, other private transportation, and residents’ electrical devices is still under construction, financed in part by revenue from the municipal 1% tax on state and private enterprises. In addition, residents will be required to contribute 100 pesos per household, payable either in cash or through a QR code payment system.

According to Garcés, the main funding will not come from residents but from organizations and businesses of all kinds. “If your state company or private business is located in this area, you may also call 56275023 for the mandatory renewal of your contract if you already have one, or for a new contract if you have not previously signed one. Next week, between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. at the People’s Council headquarters (17th and K Streets), you may complete the contracting or renewal process,” stated the Gente de Barrio channel, which also clarified an issue that had remained unresolved the previous day.

At 17th and N Streets, at 9 a.m., the containers remained full of garbage even though they should have been removed the day before. / 14ymedio

Inspectors will be present “on a permanent basis” to apply “severe measures against violators,” meaning those who put out garbage outside the designated collection times. It is also known that “there may even be criminal proceedings for the offenses of disobedience or spreading epidemics.” However, no one appears responsible for the containers that should not have been there today and that continue to overflow with garbage, as they do every day.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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The U.S. Detains a Former ICAP Employee and Member of Its “Transnational Communist Subversion Network”

A Florida law that tightens restrictions on companies and officials with ties to the Island takes effect.

Carlos Lloga Domínguez is often described as a researcher and specialist in popular culture and religious traditions, having been associated for years with Casa del Caribe and the University of Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. / Facebook / Carlos Lloga Domínguez

14ymedio, Havana, July 1, 2026 — The United States government detained three Cuban citizens after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their legal status because of one of them having ties to the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), an entity sanctioned by Washington since early June.

Carlos Antonio Lloga Domínguez, his wife, and his son are in federal custody awaiting deportation, according to the State Department on Wednesday. Washington accuses Lloga Domínguez of having worked for more than a decade as a “foreign subversive” for ICAP and, after settling in the United States, of maintaining ties with the “transnational communist subversion network” linked to that institution.

The statement does not explain what specific activities the Cuban allegedly carried out in the United States, nor were criminal charges filed against him. For now, the matter is an immigration proceeding rather than a judicial case involving espionage or acting as an agent of a foreign government.

“The United States will never be a refuge for thugs of the Cuban communist regime who spread propaganda, carry out foreign influence operations, or seek to sow revolution against American civilization,” the State Department said in its statement.

The State Department also noted that the current president of ICAP, Fernando González Llort, was a member of the Wasp Network, the Cuban spy ring dismantled by federal authorities in Florida in 1998

The U.S. administration maintains that ICAP functions as the “central node” of an intelligence and influence network that claims to maintain relations with more than 2,000 organizations in about 150 countries. On June 4, the institution was added to the list of entities blocked by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, alongside the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and Minera La Victoria.

The State Department also noted that Fernando González Llort, ICAP’s current president, was part of the Wasp Network, the group of Cuban agents dismantled by federal continue reading

authorities in Florida in 1998. González was sentenced to 19 years in prison and returned to Cuba in February 2014 after serving approximately 15 years.

Lloga Domínguez is commonly presented as a researcher and specialist in popular culture and religious traditions, having been linked for years to Casa del Caribe and the University of Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. He is the son of actor, writer, screenwriter, and radio director Antonio Lloga Simón, a well-known figure in Santiago’s cultural life. Holding a doctorate in Cultural Sciences since 2014, Lloga conducted research on popular religiosity, espiritismo de cordón (a Cuban spiritualist practice), heritage, Caribbean identity, and traditional culture.

At Casa del Caribe, he also served as an organizer of academic events associated with the Caribbean Festival, or Fiesta del Fuego. He even chaired the institution’s Technical Advisory Council and coordinated congresses and panels on spirituality, death, funerary heritage, and Afro-Cuban culture. Washington claims he worked for ICAP for more than a decade and maintained ties with its influence network in the United States.

The detention adds to other recent measures against Cubans linked to the Island’s power structure. In late May, U.S. authorities detained Alina Rosales Aguirreurreta, daughter of General Ulises Rosales del Toro, a former vice president of the Council of Ministers.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said the measure seeks to stop foreign governments from “infiltrating” public institutions

The case of Lloga Domínguez coincides with the entry into force on July 1 of the Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement Act, known by its acronym FIRE. The Florida legislation allows penalties against companies and officials connected to Cuba and other countries the state considers hostile, including Venezuela, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

The law creates criminal penalties for companies based in Florida that do business with Cuba in violation of federal laws and allows municipal governments to revoke their business licenses. It also punishes the filing of false statements regarding illegal commercial operations linked to the Island.

When signing the legislation last May, Governor Ron DeSantis said the measure is intended to curb foreign governments seeking to “infiltrate” Florida’s public institutions, infrastructure, and economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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