March 2025 – Page 9 – Translating Cuba

The Disaster of Cuban Sport Is on Display at the International Sports Fair

The sports fair exhibits the balls, rackets, nets and bats that the athletes of the Island lack

On Thursday, the last day of the event, the Fair opened to all types of public, not just athletes. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, José Lassa, Havana, 1 March 2025 — A young man with patched-up sneakers, doing a pirouette to land between old mats and jute sacks: this and many other images sum up the divorce between the International Sports Fair in Cuba and reality. The event concluded this week at the Coliseo de Ciudad Deportiva, in Havana, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of coaches and athletes who have been demanding supplies for months for decent training.

For many of those present – most of them linked to the world of sport – the Fair was “a circus” designed to promote the sector’s links with MSMEs or with foreign companies dedicated to the sale of sporting goods. Rogelio, a former coach interviewed on site by 14ymedio , illustrates this with an example.

“In my province, when a small business was interested in making the clothing for the athletes of the Eide (Sports Initiation School), the answer was negative. So, what Fair are they talking about?” he asks.

Housed in several pavilions inside the Coliseum, some 92 entities participated in the Fair. / 14ymedio

On Thursday, the last day of the event, the Fair opened to all types of people, not just athletes. Recreational activities were held, with music, food sales, an agricultural fair, domino tables and even a promotional entertainer. Success was limited and people, listless, tried to keep up with the pace demanded by the entertainer under the midday sun.

Several barefoot children also ran around the Ciudad Deportiva tracks.

At the bottom of the coverage by Jit, the official specialized media that reported on the event, a user asked the question: “What is on display at this Fair? The disaster of Cuban sport?” The reader underlined the incoherence of celebrating with great fanfare a sector where every level, from the student to the professional, suffers a “clear deterioration.”

Packed into several pavilions inside the Coliseum, some 92 entities – 15 foreign and the rest national – participated in the Fair. Of the Cubans, 26 continue reading

were private companies with a stand dedicated to exhibiting their products. The greatest interest was not in the sale of sports equipment, but rather in a small/medium-sized company that sold honey.

Another attraction was the presence of glories of sport on the island, such as Javier Sotomayor – recently involved in a financial scandal with the Cuban treasury from which he has tried to disassociate himself – who posed for the cameras of his admirers.

The Inder (National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation) Marketing and Importing Company displayed balls, rackets, nets and bats that its athletes do not have. From the state-owned Acopio are fruits and vegetables that have not reached the provincial Eide canteens for years. In other booths, sports shirts and suits were sold for between 3,000 and 5,000 Cuban pesos.

Next to the Ciudad Deportiva fairgrounds, another ironic image: that of the Cuban National Circus, another symbol of what propaganda once presented as an “achievement” of the Revolution.

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Nicaraguan Freemasonry Follows in the Footsteps of the Cuban by Bending to the Ortega Regime

It is a small fraternity, but the Sandinista leaders want to dismantle it

Nicaraguan Freemasonry has not had an easy history / Grand Lodge of Nicaragua / Facebook

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 2 March 2025 — Cuba is not the only country where the relationship between Freemasonry and the Government is problematic. In Nicaragua, where the regime of Daniel Ortega has withdrawn the legal identity of more than 5,600 organizations, including Freemasonry, the fraternity has begun a laborious rapprochement with the Government. Its strategy: bend, allow former Sandinista politicians to occupy high positions and criticize the Freemasons who ask for “full democracy” for the continent.

The last episode of the controversy occurred on February 17, when the Inter-American Masonic Confederation (CMI) – a historic coalition of 94 fraternal organizations in 26 countries – met with the secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss the deterioration of democracy in the region.

Rather than ingratiating themselves with Ortega, an ally of Nicolás Maduro and defender of his legitimacy after the 2024 elections, the highest Masonic authorities in Nicaragua expressed their indignation and resigned “unilaterally and irrevocably” from their membership in the IAMC.

“Breaking with the CMI is very serious: Nicaraguan Freemasonry has just harmed itself.” This is the assessment of Hiram, a Mason based in Managua who talks with 14ymedio about the schism, the State infiltration in Freemasonry and the regional situation – including the Cuban ups and downs – of the fraternity.

“Every Freemasonry is like a country: the Grand Master is the president; he has a secretary, chancellor, provincial and municipal lodges that are like departments and ministries. To break with the CMI is to isolate yourself, even for a small masonry.” continue reading

According to Hiram, Nicaraguan Freemasonry, burdened by exile, has fewer than 200 members. “And of those, many continue to leave.” The figure is minimal when compared to that of regional Masonic powers, such as Cuba, which currently has about 20,000 initiates and which, almost 10 years ago, had more than 27,000.

The letter of the Nicaraguan Masons, spread through internal channels of the fraternity, was initialed by the leaders of the Grand Lodge and the 33 degree Supreme Council – the two highest authorities in the country – and the Chapter of Freemasons of the Royal Arch, another high institution.

They protested against the “dangerous” meeting of the CMI with Luis Almagro, secretary of the OAS, “an organization that has long lost regional credibility.” According to the text, the CMI carried out an illegal and anti-Masonic act by asking the OAS “to intervene in the sovereign Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

Maduro is the “constituted authority,” they argued, and not recognizing him shows a “lack of vision,” encouraged by the OAS. This organization, in turn, serves “the imperial interests of the United States of America,” they insisted, unravelling in concrete insults against the “tentacles” of Donald Trump’s Administration.

The decision was made to “cut all ties” and abandon its membership status. Indeed, the Grand Lodge of Nicaragua is no longer on the official membership list of the CMI, although the Nicaraguan flag remains on the logo.

In reality, the Open Letter to the Society – published by the CMI on its social networks and signed in Washington on February 14 – was limited to demanding “unity, action and commitment” towards Venezuela. They demanded “dialogue and joint action” from the Masons and the OAS to guarantee the restoration of democracy in the country.

None of the Nicaraguan or Venezuelan Masons signed the letter. Nor did any Cuban Mason.

“The CMI letter was born in the heat of the Venezuelan elections, in July of last year,” Hiram explains. “Venezuela’s Freemasons – some opponents of Maduro and others not – were going to demonstrate against the result, and the CMI asked them not to risk it and to write their own statement. At that time the Nicaraguan Masons also protested.”

In 2023, Ortega declared that Nicaragua was leaving the OAS, which the Foreign Ministry called “an interference organization of the decadent unipolar and hegemonic government” of the United States. Relations with the organization had been soured since 2018, when the regime repressed popular protests and imprisoned hundreds of demonstrators.

“What do the Masons demonstrate in this whole story? Why do they ingratiate themselves with the dictatorship?” asks Hiram

“What do the Masons demonstrate in this whole story? Why do they ingratiate themselves with the dictatorship?” asks Hiram. “The Government doesn’t care about Freemasonry. Last year, both the Grand Lodge and the Supreme Council were left without legal identity. Despite that, those who go along with it, including several former Sandinista politicians, are all trying to get closer to Ortega.”

Nicaraguan Freemasonry has not had an easy history. Many Freemasons, Hiram reflects, continue to talk about “Somoza’s Masonic betrayal of Sandino.” Both leaders, the revolutionary Augusto César Sandino – who died in an ambush in 1934 – and Anastasio Somoza, dictator for several terms, were Freemasons.

It was the National Guard, led by Somoza, that was responsible for Sandino’s death. Since a Mason is forbidden to kill another Mason, Sandino’s death violated the ethics of the order. “That’s why the Government has always alluded to Somoza’s ’masonic betrayal’ of Sandino,” says Hiram. It is a symbolic stain on the order that Ortega’s propaganda has been able to take advantage of.

“In my opinion, the Government has never launched a large-scale infiltration of Freemasonry,” he says. “But there are senior officials, such as the signatories of that letter, who try to hijack it for the Government. There are the historical toads (snitchers). There are few opponents left, but there are some of Ortega’s boot lickers. They want to convert the Lodge into a [political] party.

“But there are high officials, like the signatories of that letter, who try to hijack it for the Government”

The recent crisis of Cuban Freemasonry – still active – after the theft of 19,000 dollars from the office of the Grand Master, who tried at all costs to remain in power, was commented on in the Nicaraguan lodges. “We said, What is happening in Cuba? Why did a Grand Master leave the country in 2023? Why was that money lost? It was embarrassing, it seems incredible. But there was never a larger debate, just hallway comments,” says Hiram.

Due to its secret character in the 19th century, Freemasonry contributed to forging independence movements and fighting against dictatorships on the continent. Aware of that organizational power, regimes such as the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan have done everything possible to dismantle it, or at least keep it at bay.

For Hiram, this libertarian sense is the DNA of the fraternity, which has been immune to all dictatorships, both external and internal.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Lost More Than 300,000 Inhabitants in One Year, Confirms the Government

The regime gives the figure of the current population of the Island: just over 9,700,000

“We are an aging country, so the strategies and actions being implemented are still insufficient” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, 21 February 2025 — It has been known since last July, as the Government itself acknowledged, that Cuba’s population had dropped below 10 million. However, until this Friday, they had not disclosed the exact figure. The number of inhabitants on the Island as of December 31, 2024, according to Juan Carlos Alfonso Faga, deputy head of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), was 9,748,532—more than 300,000 fewer people than the previous year (10,055,968), the official specified.

He also indicated that more than a quarter of the Cuban population is 60 years old or older, and that the elderly are the only demographic group that has grown in recent years. By the end of 2023, for example, as revealed just three months ago, this age group accounted for 24.4% of the population (2,452,489), one percentage point more than the previous year and nearly five compared to 2016 (19.8%), when it was already considered high. Furthermore, over the past 20 years, the increase has been 9.7 percentage points.

Adding to these dramatic figures is the fact that only about 71,000 births were recorded last year, ’the lowest number in decades,’ they conceded.

About 71,000 births were recorded last year, ‘the lowest number in decades’

In light of this situation, the authorities gathered in the governmental commission on the subject, presided over this very Friday by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, expressed that ’implementing strategies’ for the Demographic Dynamics Program is ’a priority.’ One of these strategies is the establishment of ’fertility programs and the maternal and child continue reading

program.’

In this regard, Marrero asked the ’state business organizations’ to create childcare facilities ’according to the demand of their own workers.’ ’It cannot be that the central government has to be using the Ministry of Education’s budget to make investments for this purpose, when these are mothers who are employed, generating wealth, working with the State, in these business organizations that should be the ones executing these investments,’ lamented the Prime Minister.

In the meeting, which was echoed by the Canal Caribe news program, it was also revealed that not all of the budget allocated to social public policies has been executed. Referring to this, Marrero called for ’discipline’ and exclaimed: ’How is it possible that we have money and do not spend it?’

Nevertheless, they acknowledged: ’Although work is being done on different programs aimed at addressing the needs of the elderly, we are an aging country, so the strategies and actions being implemented to protect the nation’s demographic dynamics are still insufficient.’

’How is it possible that we have money and do not execute it?’

The post by pro-government journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso spreading the news was immediately filled with comments full of bitter humor. “I would like to know where the rations are for the almost three million missing people,” wrote Yariel Abrahante Jiménez, to which D Jorge Daba responded: “Simple, the shipment of rice from December, January and February arrived, and now the three million missing people show up.”

Others are simply asking for explanations. ’And how are they going to solve the issue? Soon we’ll be back to six million again,’ says Erick Sánchez, alluding to the population figure from 1959, at the triumph of the Revolution.

What was not mentioned at any point in the official media are the causes of the dramatic population decline, which specialists like Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos view as close to an ’implosion.’

This Cuban economist and demographer published a study last July estimating that Cuba had lost 18% of its population between 2022 and 2023, mainly due to migration. Albizu-Campos’s figures were more pessimistic than the Government’s (8.62 million inhabitants), but they align with the fact that many emigrants who left less than two years ago are still counted as residents on the Island.

In any case, the figure is also explained through many additional indicators, such as the increase in child poverty, the rise in maternal mortality, the decline in life expectancy, or the surge in teenage pregnancies.

Translated by Gustavo Loredo

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Million-Dollar Waltz at the Habanos Festival, Supposedly for the Cuban Health System

The humidor auction that closed the event raised $17 million

The closing gala was enlivened by the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire. / EFE

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo. Havana, 1 March 2025 — Two cedar drawers one atop the other, a giant Indian head – the Cohiba Behíke logo – and white squares on black varnish: this is the humidor auctioned this Friday for 4.6 million euros (4.7 million dollars) during the closing gala of the Habanos Festival. Never before had so much been paid for a cigar storage unit, whose exclusivity is based on a detail that the official press did not mention: the signature of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Six other humidors – valuable but not signed by the president, a tradition established by Fidel Castro – were auctioned off during the dinner, for a total of 16.41 million euros (17 million dollars). They represented the major cigar brands: Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, Partagás and Hoyo de Monterrey. According to some media the buyer, who was not identified, is Chinese.

The money, the official press insists goes to the island’s health system. In light of the Cuban health debacle and the total crisis in the country, few can believe this mantra that is repeated at each Festival.

Díaz-Canel was at the dinner, but unlike last year, there were hardly any photos circulating of him smoking among the guests or signing the humidor, gestures that caused great controversy at the last edition of the Festival. Also at the dinner were the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and other members of the top brass of the regime. continue reading

The auctioned piece of furniture was not the only record broken by Habanos SA – the Cuban tobacco monopoly, shared by Cuba and Spain – which announced at the beginning of the week that it had had revenues of 827 million dollars in 2024, 106 million more than the previous year.

The auction which, in the past, Castro served as host of millionaires and sometimes served as auctioneer, is the most eagerly awaited event of the Festival, attended by tycoons and fans from around the world. Some of its participants were the first, albeit very discreet, guests of the new luxury hotel Iberostar, in the 42-story K Tower on 23rd Street, opposite the decaying Coppelia.

The closing gala – with entertainment by the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire – was overshadowed, however, by the “intermediate” dinner that Habanos organized at the Capitol on Wednesday to present another luxury vitola, the H. Upmann Magnum 50. The adjectives that the company used to describe the event left no doubt about its character: “exclusive, refined, exquisite.”

The Salon of Lost Steps, once a place of debate and reflection on the Republic, was filled with 600 guests in tuxedos, overwhelmed by the play of light. No colored lights were spared on the dome of the Capitol, nor on the also gold-plated statue of the Republic, cast in 1928 by the Italian sculptor Angelo Zanelli.

“The place is the seat of our Parliament and is now used in images that resemble some kind of brothel from the 1950s”

The pro-government journalist and professor at the Faculty of Communication at the University of Havana, Ana Teresa Badía, harshly criticized the display. “What was the intention this Habanos Festival meant to convey? In a world in which the construction of public opinion is increasingly symbolic, this is very wrong. A serious error in political communication that buries the ideology that Cuba has defended. The place is the headquarters of our Parliament and now it is used in images that resemble a kind of brothel from the 1950s,” she wrote on her Facebook profile.

The painter Hermes Entenza, for his part, wrote: “The Habanos Festival, where glamour becomes ridiculous and extravagant, where the working people, who look at the building in dismay, do not even have cigarettes to smoke. Cuba in the Capitol, Cuba imprisoned by itself, moaning in the dark and feeling the walls of the beautiful building rumble to the sound of the empowered who have raised this movie to the level of a horror film… You have to have a very perverse mind to applaud this revelry.”

The immoderation marked both the making of the humidors and the vitolas. This was underlined by David Savona, director of Cigar Aficionado – the most recognized magazine in the sector – who was present at the Festival, who described step by step the hours it took him to finish the Cohiba Behíke BHK 58, the star of the night.

While the cigars and lights were lit in the Capitol, the country’s electricity deficit was 1,641 megawatts (MW). On Friday, while the multimillion-dollar auction was taking place in Pabexpo, west of the capital, the shortage was 1,625 MW. This Saturday, when the guests announced their return home with “cigars as gifts,” they left an Island submerged in blackout and with a deficit of 1,575 MW.

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With the ‘Instability’ of the Family Basket, Cuba’s Ration Stores Run Out of Cash

The function that allows customers to receive money with a QR code linked to their bank account is thus lost.

Businesses that request the extra cash service do not receive money in advance by the bank to put it into the hands of customers / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, February 28, 2025 — The Government must have thought “for big problems, big solutions” when it invented the “extra cash” service. The long lines at the banks, the lack of cash in the branches, the blackouts that shut down the ATMs and the disconnections that prevent card payment were going to be solved with this alternative. The concept is simple: the customer goes to one of the affiliated establishments, scans a QR code and makes a transfer of money to the premises, which – once the validity of the operation is verified – gives him cash: the panacea for rural areas.

More than three years later, the idea, which never prospered as expected, fails to work worse than ever. “If the stores and government establishments don’t collect money, you can’t withdraw money. The last thing they told me in the grocery store is that they are saving money to pay their workers. The rest of us have to sleep in front of the bank to withdraw 2,000* pesos, assuming there is money and electricity,” says a woman from Nuevitas.

Businesses that request the extra cash service do not receive money in advance by the bank to put in the hands of customers but rather depend on what they collect themselves. The 2021 measure was designed for ration stores, points of sale for propane and pharmacies, although later Correos [post offices], Casas de Cambio [currency exchanges], Cupet [gas stations] and other state-owned companies have been able to take advantage of it. The incentive is basically null, since the bank pays the premises a continue reading

commission of 0.5% of the balance of the day and a peso for each operation carried out, but – in return – it is doing the job of a cashier.

The official press of the provinces has dedicated some sporadic reports to the disappointment of this service

The official press of the provinces has dedicated some sporadic reports to the disappointment of this service, which has been progressively reduced. In December, the Central Bank of Cuba announced that the amount of 5,000 pesos without limit of operations, that was in force until that moment, was drastically reduced: 6,000 pesos, but only once a week.

The Government has not given up on the service but admits that it has been increasingly limited, as indicated by the report published this Friday by the State newspaper Granma. The article gives both praise and criticism to the extra cash service, based on cases in two provinces: Villa Clara, where the project progresses properly, and Granma, where it is shipwrecked without hope of rescue.

Juan Miguel Cabrales Perdomo, director of Development of the Commerce Business Group in the eastern province, says that of the 862 extra cash services that were initially enabled in the Commerce network, there are not even 400 that continue to work. For the official, the reason is very clear: the shortage of products for the rationed family basket leaves the coffers of the ration stores empty.

“Regardless of the fact that the majority of ration stores sell industrial products and other items, the most money they collect is from the sale of products for the family basket, which today do not have stability and arrive in fractional form. What happens as a result? The ration store requests extra cash, but there is none,” he tells the official newspaper of the Communist Party.

Cabrales Perdomo says that it was a good idea and was born “as an alternative to the lack of cash,” but “the situation has been changing.”

The provincial management of the Bank of Credits and Commerce (Bandec) indicates that there are 1,298 premises with the service, but the requests have stopped due to “lack of interest of some agencies, given the limitations they have with the existence of cash.”

However, the bank states that the increase in electronic payments is also behind the reduction in available cash and gives the electricity company as an example. Last year, 85% of the billing was through the bank, the company says, so the little money in cash they have left is for paying the workers and not for the public that requests it. “For me, the extra cash service has been a very comfortable and effective option, but for some months, withdrawing money that way has become an impossible mission,” said a customer. She told Granma that she used to withdraw cash from the gas company and that she would be an example of this type of case, since payments for electricity are most often done by bank, as the authorities have stated numerous times.

Apparently to alleviate the situation, the report addresses the case of Villa Clara, where 2,243 premises offer the service

Apparently to alleviate the situation, the report addresses the case of Villa Clara, where 2,243 premises offer the cash service. In this way, the residents of the province obtained 815,425,000 pesos (about 2.4 million dollars at the informal exchange rate), an amount that, without the comparative data, was much higher than that of the previous year. Specifically, Santa Clara ostensibly excelled, with 257,210 extra-cash operations (45% more than the previous year), worth 681 million pesos.

According to the newspaper, the abysmal difference between the two provinces is due to the fact that the administrators of the establishments of the Commerce of Villa Clara carried out very adequate informative work, which has promoted adherence to the program. The merchants managed to pocket 3,745,000 pesos in commissions, “nothing negligible,” the report considers, although it is the equivalent of 11,000 dollars among more than 2,000 establishments.

The report also addresses the corruption that can occur in this service, although the Commerce director assures that everything is under control. “We have had some cases of people trying to take advantage of this facility for personal purposes or to favor others, which have been detected and neutralized immediately, thanks to the vigilance that we carry out every day on this matter, and to our close relationship with the banking system, which can trace and record all the operations,” he emphasizes.

Translator’s note: The peso/dollar exchange rate is quite volatile, and varies even on the same day in different places based on different exchange scenarios. That said, today 1 Cuban pesos is worth roughly 4.2 cents US.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With More Than a Thousand Political Prisoners in Its Jails, the Cuban Regime Denounces the Decline in Rights in the West

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez regrets the advance of “conservative and neo-fascist platforms”

Bruno Rodriguez at the opening of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday. / EFE

14ymedio/EFE, Geneva, 24 February 2025 / Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez expressed alarm at the rise of “neo-fascism” globally and the retreat of policies supporting vulnerable groups in the West, speaking at the opening of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

“We observe with great concern the advance of conservative and neo-fascist platforms, and how in developed countries we are experiencing a decades-long regression in fundamental rights, including women’s equality, sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of Afro-descendants, of ethnic minorities and of migrants,” he said.

“The right to life is in grave danger. The United Nations Charter, international law and multilateralism are being threatened, while attempts are being made to impose economic coercion and political subversion as methods of international relations,” warned Rodríguez.

“The United Nations Charter, international law and multilateralism are being threatened, while attempts are being made to impose economic coercion and political subversion as methods of international relations”

In this context, the minister called on the United Nations Security Council, which on Monday opened six weeks of debates on crises and conflicts in the world, to “advocate more strongly for a fair and democratic international order that guarantees peace and balance in the world.”

Cuba’s foreign minister also pointed to the United States, which withdrew from the Human Rights Council with the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, for being “an active accomplice to the Israeli genocide in Gaza” and for its decades of maximum pressure on Cuba through the blockade*. continue reading

Rodríguez also stated that recently “copious evidence has been released about the US practice of allocating millions of dollars from the federal budget through entities such as USAID to finance organizations, media outlets, artificial intelligence laboratories and technological platforms that use the protection of human rights as a facade.”

“In reality, they respond to the legitimate political objectives of that government. This is a serious and pertinent matter for this Council and its mandate, as it demonstrates the double standards and opportunism with which the issue of human rights has been used to subvert sovereign governments,” he said.

The opening of the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council coincided on Monday with the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was the focus of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ speech. “Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the war in Ukraine is a grave threat not only to the peace and security of Europe, but also to the very foundations and fundamental principles of the United Nations,” he said.

The opening of the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council coincided on Monday with the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Cuba has not commented on this matter, in which it has always sided with Russia, calling the invasion a “special operation.” As of 31 January 2025, there were a total of 1,150 political and prisoners of conscience on the island “suffering judicial sentences or restraining orders,” according to the organization Prisoner Defenders.

Like that organization, the human rights NGO Amnesty International has denounced that the Cuban regime, which committed itself in January to release 553 prisoners, and has incurred in a multitude of “irregularities” and “lack of transparency” in the process .

According to the NGO, 172 prisoners have been released and another nine have received some change in their legal status, with most of these being participants in the anti-government demonstrations of 11 July 2021 (11J). Prisoners Defenders, for its part, estimates the number of political prisoners released to be 200, and added that it has accredited some common prisoners who have also been released.

Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

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“There Is No Bread, There Is No Flour”: The Omnipresent Poster in Havana’s Shops

Shortages affect both the rationed and informal markets

A bakery in Havana announces on an improvised poster that it is not selling bread / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 28 February 2025 — In La Timba the mornings are too quiet. In that poor neighborhood that extends a few meters from the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, the proclamations of the street vendors who sell bread have not been heard for days. The absence of their voices is a terrible sign in a city where many bakeries have displayed the “There is no” sign due to the lack of flour that has sunk the production of this basic food.

“There is some, but you have to do a lot to find it,” says a retiree who this Friday walked from the Luyanó neighborhood to Central Havana. “I went to several private businesses, and they say they are not making bread, that they don’t know when they will sell it again.” In at least two of these MSMEs, employees explained that the current shortage is due to problems with the supply of flour after the offensive that the authorities unleashed against informal sellers and illegalities in the sector, in the capital and also in the provinces, especially Matanzas.

An open secret is that much of the bread sold by street vendors is made in the same bakeries that make the rationed bread. The raw materials that guarantee 60 grams per consumer per day are being diverted and become a product that economically supports a wide network of bakers, administrators who turn a blind eye, and informal sellers. These days, the official media have warned in several provinces that the State does not have enough flour to guarantee that daily quota, a shortage that has also put the black market in check.

“I went to several private businesses that say they are not making bread and don’t know when they will have it for sale again”

Private producers are also experiencing difficulties. “The price of flour has gone up, which forces us to raise prices or cut production,” Samuel, a young baker who works in a private candy store where they also make cookies, breads and the popular breadsticks, explains to this newspaper. “In continue reading

February of last year, if you bought by quantity, a 25-kilogram bag wasn’t even 30 dollars, but now it’s a miracle if you can find it under 40.”

“We had to stop selling bags of bread because there was one complaint after another. We had one that contained eight bread rolls at 200 pesos because they were big, but the people who came in treated us like scammers,” he explains. Finally, “we couldn’t even continue at that price, because buying quality flour and selling at that price only gives us losses.”

Samuel points to an increase in State controls as part of the problem. “Some inspectors arrived at the bakery and started handing out fines before even entering. They fined us thousands of pesos because we had a sign outside with the prices, and they said No, it has to be inside. Then they came in, and because there was a bag with a little flour that we had transferred from a sack and did not have the origin on the outside to compare it with the invoice, they added 8,000 more pesos to the fine.”

The result was that they stopped making not only bread but also panettone, puff pastry and any other type of dough made from flour. “Now we are only making cremitas de leche (milk caramels), guava bars, custard and coconut macaroons.” Of course, the large sign with “There is no bread, there is no flour” has been placed inside the business, on a counter with empty shelves behind it.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Regime Releases Five Other 11J Political Prisoners

Following the resumption of releases this week, nine opposition members have been released from prison

As of Friday, there have been 219 releases of political prisoners / Niurka Rodríguez García / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2025 — Five other Cuban political prisoners – Yunaiky de la Caridad Linares Rodríguez, Andy Alexis Martín Pérez, Luis Armando Cruz Aguilera, Lázaro Antonio Rodríguez Jerez and Abel Lázaro Machado Conde – were released this Friday. After stopping the releases in January, the Regime resumed them as the result of a negotiation with the Vatican. All the prisoners had been arrested during the popular protests of 11 July 2021 (11J) and given sentences of up to 10 years.

Martín Pérez received the prison benefit yesterday afternoon, when the release from prison of four other political prisoners was also announced: Iván Mauricio Arocha Arocha, Ohaurys Rondón Rivero, Brusnelvis Adrián Cabrera Gutiérrez and Yaquelin Castillo García.

According to the organization Justicia 11J, Martín Pérez – father of five children and a “ponchero“* by profession – was arrested in Colón, Matanzas. After his arrest, he was prosecuted by a military court, and the prosecutor asked for 22 years in prison for sabotage, robbery with force and public disorder.

Linares Rodríguez, for her part, was the first person released from prison this Friday, and according to CubaNet was put on parole. The 27-year-old – she was 24 at the time of the demonstrations – was arrested in Havana and “was incommunicado for two days,” Justicia 11J clarifies. continue reading

For her participation in the Toyo corner protest, which left the iconic image of the overturned patrol car, she was accused of sedition

For her participation in the Toyo corner protest, which left the iconic image of the overturned patrol car, she was accused of sedition; the prosecutor’s office requested 17 years in prison. The sentence was 10 years, and after an appeal by the family, it was reduced to eight, which she served in the Women’s Prison of the West, also called El Guatao, in the capital.

Yunaiky [Linares Rodríguez] suffers from thyroid problems, and during her confinement she reported that she did not receive medication. On several occasions she was taken to a punishment cell after she demanded that her rights be respected. Her helplessness and pain for the injustices she endured in prison led her to self-harm,” said Justicia 11J.

During her time in prison, her mother, Niurka Rodríguez García, carried out a very intense activism for the cause of political prisoners and tirelessly reported the violations of the rights suffered by Linares Rodríguez and other women prosecuted for their participation in the historic demonstrations.

The releases were negotiated between the Vatican and Havana, which promised the release of 553 prisoners throughout 2025, allegedly to show the “spirit of Jubilee” and the humanism of the Cuban Government. The statements, made at the beginning of the year, coincided with the decision of former US President Joe Biden to remove the Island from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

After the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House on January 20, Cuba was again included on the list, and the releases stopped. Until that moment, about 200 political prisoners had left Cuban prisons – more than 30 of whom had already finished their sentences – along with others, common prisoners.

After Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House on January 20, Cuba was again included on the list, and the releases were stopped

With the most recent five, there have been 219 releases of political prisoners, but this not guarantee their acquittal. They are on conditional parole.

Mike Hammer, Special Envoy for the U.S. Embassy in Havana, arrived on the Island shortly before the releases began and, since then, has been involved with activists, political prisoners and opponents.

This Friday, the diplomat posted on the Embassy Facebook account: “On my second visit to Matanzas, I met with Maibel Gelin and Alexey Rodríguez, parents of political prisoner José Alejandro Rodríguez Gelin, and with Rosemery Bello, wife of political prisoner Yasmany Porras. We join their request for the release of their relatives and other political prisoners.”

One day before, he visited former political prisoner Samuel Pupo Martínez and his wife Yuneisy Santana González, who thanked the diplomat for their interest in the Cuban opposition and for the testimonies of those who have been imprisoned for political reasons.

In recent weeks, Hammer visited other opposition figures such as José Daniel Ferrer, who was also released from prison as part of the agreement; the leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler; the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque, who was hospitalized; Félix Navarro; and the teacher and activist Bárbara Alina López in Matanzas.

*Translator’s note: Someone who repairs flat tires

Translated by Regina Anavy

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