Translating Cuba – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

The Food Stalls in the Sacristy Alley in Matanzas, Cuba, are Retreating

In this prime area for private trade, customers no longer appear, and vendors grapple with shortages and inspectors.

Stalls in the alley of the Sacristy, in the city of Matanzas. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Matanzas, Julio César Contreras / In the alleyway of the Sacristy in Matanzas, there are timbiriches (food carts) that seem to be waiting for better times. Under their zinc roofs, among parked motorcycles and walls weathered by damp, some remain closed and others survive with minimal offerings. The place, behind the San Carlos Borromeo Cathedral and a few steps from Medio Street, retains the privilege of being in the heart of the city, but it no longer guarantees the flow of customers that once made every square meter a coveted space.

José Alfredo knows all too well how much that wait can cost. After struggling for almost a year to obtain authorization for the space, his mobile stand is now tucked away in a corner alongside others like it. His project to sell hamburgers and soft drinks has been trapped between a lack of suppliers and power outages. “Just buying the cart, including some repairs I made, cost me 60,000 pesos, which I haven’t been able to recoup,” he laments.

He has tried almost everything: running an extension cord from a nearby house, adapting a gas cylinder, and carrying a cooler every day to keep the drinks as cold as possible. Nothing has brought him stability. “For one reason or another, I haven’t been able to work continuously for even two months. I’m paying the license fee, the rent to the Registrar’s Office, the bank security guards who watch over the place at night, and I still can’t get sales back on track.”

“For one reason or another, I haven’t been able to work continuously for even two months.”

José Alfredo is already considering selling everything. It wouldn’t be unusual in an alley where some closed shops are starting to look like part of the street furniture.

Before money became so scarce in the wallets of Matanzas residents, selling anything in this area was practically continue reading

a guarantee. Its dual access to the historic center ensured a constant flow of people. “I’ve been selling pan con minutas [fried fish sandwiches] and shaved ice on this very corner since the end of the Covid pandemic. On bad days, by eleven in the morning I’d make at least 3,000 pesos. Now, I rarely make that much by four in the afternoon,” says Roberto from his small, makeshift griddle.

Keeping the stove burning is a feat. Roberto works with six different supply sources. “Sometimes even the small businesses aren’t making bread, oil is scarce, there’s no fish, and even the ketchup goes to waste. Many times I’m up until ten at night looking for things so I can work the next day.”

Inflation does the rest. “If the supplier raises the price of the merchandise, I have no choice but to raise the price to make a profit.” When he started, he recalls, a fish sandwich cost 50 pesos. Now he sells it for 250. “We’ll see how far we can go.”

Under their zinc roofs, among parked motorcycles and damp-damaged walls, some remain closed while others survive with a minimal offering. / 14ymedio

This price race has been compounded by another shock: the crackdown by inspectors to enforce electronic payments and price caps on certain basic goods. Hefty fines have forced many retailers to scale back, reduce their offerings, or remain closed. For those who depend on suppliers who charge increasingly higher prices, adhering to a maximum price can mean operating on minimal margins or even at a loss.

In the alley by the Sacristy, the retreat is palpable. There are empty metal structures, counters without merchandise, and vendors who have radically changed their offerings. Manuel is one of them. He’s better known as El Chino than by his name.

“Nothing can be kept refrigerated, and there’s nothing to fry with either. So, for now, the solution is to sell popcorn and plastic bags. The investment is minimal, so I can manage to survive. Something is better than nothing,” she explains.

“From time to time they come by to collect what’s theirs in order to maintain the proper silence.”

He says his grandfather taught him to persevere, a lesson Manuel now applies to street vending. He has also learned to navigate a gray area where regulations change and inspectors, he says, “occasionally come around to collect their dues to maintain silence.”

All around, the scene sums up these times: a bicycle leaning against a wall, motorcycles weaving between the stalls, a pizza cart barely moving, and another business that seems to have closed the shutters for good. Those who are still open must arm themselves with patience t while waiting for customers. Because in the alleyway by the Sacristy, every closed cart is a stagnant investment, and every one that opens is a daily gamble.

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Expedia Returns to U.S. Courts Over ‘Trafficking’ in Confiscated Properties in Cuba

The proceedings revive disputes under the Helms-Burton Act after a judge overturned a $29.8 million verdict against the company in 2025.

Facilities at the Meliá Cayo Coco hotel, which stopped being managed this year by the Spanish chain Meliá. / Tripadvisor

14ymedio, Madrid, August 30, 2026 – The U.S. travel agency Expedia Group is once again facing a lawsuit in a federal court in Miami over the use of properties confiscated by the Cuban Government after 1959, in proceedings brought under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.

The new trial began on August 19 and includes Cuban-American Mario Echevarría among the plaintiffs. A year ago, he obtained $29.8 million in damages from Expedia in a similar case, although the verdict was overturned by a judge in September 2025 and the decision is currently under appeal.

The new case stems from a lawsuit originally filed in 2019 by Maricela Mata, Bibiana Hernández and other relatives claiming rights to land expropriated by the Cuban Government. Echevarría later joined the proceedings.

Unlike the trial held in 2025, which focused on three hotels in Cayo Coco on land linked to the Echevarría family, the current proceedings cover four other hotels at the same tourist destination and the Hotel San Carlos in Cienfuegos. The establishments were operated by the Spanish hotel company Meliá before it definitively withdrew from the Island this summer. The plaintiffs estimate the market value of the properties for which they are seeking compensation at about $82 million.

The plaintiffs estimate the market value of the properties for which they are seeking compensation at about $82 million

The lawsuit alleges that Expedia “trafficked” in those assets by promoting and handling reservations at hotels built on land confiscated from the plaintiffs’ families. Expedia’s defense argues that the company did not “knowingly or intentionally traffic” in the properties because it was unaware that the hotels had been built on expropriated land.

Veronica Cassano, a former company manager, testified continue reading

that she never received instructions from her superiors regarding the Helms-Burton Act or discussed with them the historical ownership of Cayo Coco, and described meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials. Expedia’s attorney, Santosh Aravind, argued that those meetings were part of the legitimate process of establishing operations on the Island, where the State owns all hotels. He also noted that they were held with the knowledge and approval of the U.S. Treasury Department.

Expedia began operating in Cuba in 2017, following the rapprochement between Washington and Havana promoted by President Barack Obama. The company then began offering reservations at Cuban hotels through its platforms, in a market dominated by State-owned establishments managed by foreign chains, such as Spain’s Meliá.

The trial that has just begun does not replace the previous one, nor is it a repeat of the same case. With a new jury and more properties in dispute, its development also coincides with recent Supreme Court rulings that have broadened the interpretation of the Helms-Burton Act.

With a new jury and more properties in dispute, its development also coincides with recent Supreme Court rulings that have broadened the interpretation of the Helms-Burton Act

This year, several decisions by U.S. courts have changed the legal landscape in which these claims are being pursued. The most significant case has been Havana Docks Corporation’s lawsuit against four major cruise companies. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Havana Docks and revived its claim against Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and MSC over their use between 2016 and 2019 of Havana port terminals that were confiscated by the Cuban Government in 1960.

A month later, the Supreme Court again broadened the scope of the law when it decided the case of ExxonMobil against the Cuban State-owned companies Cimex and Cupet. The Court determined that Title III of the Helms-Burton Act allows lawsuits against Cuban State-owned companies without requiring plaintiffs to also overcome the usual sovereign immunity barriers established under U.S. law. ExxonMobil is seeking more than $1 billion, including interest, for assets confiscated in 1960, including a refinery, oil facilities and more than a hundred service stations.

The two rulings generated expectations among former owners and their heirs and created a precedent for subsequent litigation.

This July, the former Cuban Electric Company filed a new lawsuit, this time against Unión Eléctrica (UNE) and Energas, two Cuban State-owned companies. The company is seeking $267.6 million, plus interest accrued since its assets were confiscated in 1960. The lawsuit was filed after the Supreme Court cleared the obstacle of sovereign immunity for Cuban State-owned companies.

Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, passed in 1996, allows certain U.S. citizens to seek damages from those who traffic in properties confiscated by the Cuban Government after 1959. The provision remained suspended by successive presidents for more than two decades until Donald Trump allowed it to take effect on May 2, 2019. Since then, dozens of lawsuits have been filed.

Experts estimate that between 40 and 50 lawsuits have been filed in U.S. federal courts under the Helms-Burton Act, and that some of those cases have reached the Supreme Court.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Humor in the Time of Cholera

Abel Prieto ignores that today Misha could be “La Machi” and that the best joke is no longer in the Kremlin, but in Havana.

Archive image of Abel Prieto, probably trying to explain a joke to Fidel Castro. / EFE

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, August 30, 2026 – There are books that age badly and officials who age even worse. Abel Prieto’s Misha’s Humor belongs to that rare category of texts that, thirty years later, end up explaining better precisely what their author intended to omit.

Originally published in 1997 and republished this August in Havana – for the deflated Book Fair – the essay examines political jokes in the former socialist bloc. Prieto traces jokes about the Kremlin, bureaucracy, shortages, leaders and everyday absurdity to demonstrate that humor had detected the decay of so-called real socialism long before political scientists did. The idea was not bad. What was bad was that it never occurred to him to apply it at home.

Because if jokes about Brezhnev served to measure the Soviets’ loss of faith, one would have to ask what the jokes circulating in Cuba today are saying. What does it mean that in a line, during a blackout or at a comedy show, a single word, a pause or a look is enough for hundreds of people to understand exactly what – and whom – is being talked about?

The regime can order an act of repudiation, a march, a ‘Granma’ front page or a tweet storm for the cyberclarias. What it cannot order is a burst of laughter

For years, Cuban humor has functioned as a kind of instant plebiscite. The comedian does not need to explain much. In fact, their survival instinct screams that they cannot even do so. It is enough to mention “the current situation,” “objective factors,” “the ordering process” or any other piece of official jargon for the audience to fill in the rest of the joke on its own.

That is precisely why the authorities have spent years trying to “guide” laughter. And the effort is almost touching. The official press publishes cartoons against Trump, the embargo, Miami, Marco Rubio and any external villain available in the catalog. They draw Uncle Sam with fangs, bags of dollars, bombs, a stars-and-stripes hat and an evil expression. The occasional comedian with a Party membership card insists that the chicken does not arrive because of the embargo. continue reading

The audience watches and listens with indifference. And then laughs about something else.

The regime can order an act of repudiation, a march, a front page on the official newspaper Granma, or a tweet storm for the cyberclarias. What it cannot order is a burst of laughter. The public knows perfectly well who the people are that have spent more than six decades promising a better future, while utopia runs away in terror whenever they mention it. And that is the profoundly subversive dimension of Cuban humor.

In a packed theater, when the comedian brushes against the limit and the audience erupts, something politically powerful happens: hundreds of people discover at the same time that they are not alone in what they think

Censorship forced people to perfect their codes. The comedian learned to leave empty spaces, and the audience learned to fill them. A raised eyebrow could replace a name. A pause could stand in for an entire speech. The phrase “you know who” ended up being far more effective than any explicit denunciation.

That mechanism creates an instant community. In a packed theater, when the comedian brushes against the limit and the audience erupts, something politically powerful happens: hundreds of people discover at the same time that they are not alone in what they think.

That is why programs such as Sabadazo, Deja que yo te cuente or Vivir del cuento became, for years, some of the most political spaces on Cuban television. Their characters did not need to mention the Central Committee: all they had to do was try to survive and let reality do the rest. Perhaps it is no coincidence that television programming has become so serious today. Maybe programming, too, received its instructions.

Prieto has spent years worrying about “cultural colonization.” Yet he himself seems condemned to orbit around a metropolis that no longer exists

Cuban humor also possesses a democratic cruelty that Abel Prieto seems to have understood perfectly in Moscow, but not in Havana. It laughs at the bureaucrat, the leader who talks too much, the incompetent official, the boss who explains failure with increasingly longer words. And Prieto himself belongs entirely to that same fauna.

The former minister and former Government adviser has spent years worrying about “cultural colonization,” about Beyoncé, Shakira, Sylvester Stallone and the mechanisms through which imperialism supposedly organizes our desires. Yet he himself seems condemned to orbit around a metropolis that no longer exists. His very long novel Viajes de Miguel Luna also suffers from that Sputnik syndrome: it goes round and round without managing to escape Moscow’s gravitational pull. Cubans, on the other hand, do not need Hollywood to explain whom to laugh at when they hear a speech by Díaz-Canel.

Cuban reality produces absurdity at an industrial pace. Perhaps that is why the republication of Misha’s Humor is so revealing. Everything Prieto detected in Moscow – and more – is happening in Cuba today. Only now Misha could be La Machi. And Havana is much closer to him than the Kremlin, even if he keeps looking toward Moscow.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Dozens of Cubans Stranded in Serbia After Waiting Months for Their Passports

Those affected say a failure in the consular system left applications unprocessed, and they fear losing their residence and work permits.

14ymedio, Havana, August 30, 2026 – Dozens of Cubans living in Serbia have spent months waiting for their new passports after an alleged computer failure prevented numerous applications submitted at the Cuban Consulate in Belgrade from being processed. The delay, which in some cases dates back to December 2025, now threatens to leave people who had until now been living and working legally in the country without legal status.

According to a complaint sent to 14ymedio by members of the Cuban community, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, more than 70 applications are reportedly pending. Those affected say the problem originated in the system used by the diplomatic mission to transmit to Cuba the data needed to produce the documents. They also claim that, after several technical sessions involving the mission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and computer agencies in Cuba, the system was restored, although the backlog of documents has still not arrived.

The Consulate reportedly collected the applicants’ data, but much of the information did not reach the central system on the Island correctly. According to the testimony received by this newspaper, while the procedure was considered completed in Belgrade, later inquiries indicated that some applications did not even appear as registered in Cuba. Although several passports were continue reading

issued in February of this year, most remain pending, the complainants say.

“Applicants have fulfilled all the requirements, and we are the ones paying the consequences of an error we did not cause”

The delay goes far beyond the inability to travel. Serbian legislation requires that a passport presented when applying for or renewing temporary residence be valid for at least three months beyond the period of residence being requested. An application may be rejected if it does not meet that requirement.

For foreign workers, Serbia also provides for a single permit that combines residence and work authorization, meaning that the lack of a valid Cuban document can also affect the ability to legally keep a job. Permits can be granted for up to three years.

“Applicants have fulfilled all the requirements, and we are the ones paying the consequences of an error we did not cause,” the complaint states.

Serbian law does, however, provide an exceptional alternative. When humanitarian reasons, force majeure or circumstances related to the country’s interests exist, authorities may grant or extend temporary residence even to a foreigner who does not have a valid travel document.

For years, Serbia was an especially accessible destination for Cubans because they could travel there without a visa

According to those affected, the Cuban ambassador in Belgrade, Pavel Díaz Hernández, has made representations to Serbian authorities to prevent those waiting for their documents from facing immigration penalties. They also say that the Embassy’s first secretary, Milexy Pérez Reyes, told them that cases are being prioritized according to how long they have been pending and that new passports should begin arriving in September through the diplomatic pouch.

The Cuban presence in Serbia has grown significantly in recent years. The country’s Statistical Office recorded the immigration of 400 Cuban citizens in 2023, compared with 233 who left Serbia that year. Another 134 Cubans arrived in 2024, while 190 left, including some who had arrived in previous years.

For years, Serbia was an especially accessible destination for Cubans because they could travel there without a visa, a circumstance that also turned the Balkan country into a stopover on the migration route to the European Union. Belgrade eventually eliminated that privilege in April 2023 amid pressure from Brussels to align its migration policy with that of the EU.

Those affected are now demanding some form of certification they can present to Serbian authorities to prove that the lack of a valid passport is not due to their own negligence

Currently, Cubans with ordinary passports need a visa to enter Serbia. Holders of diplomatic or official passports, however, may remain for up to 90 days without one.

Since July 2023, the Cuban passport has been valid for ten years for people over the age of 16 and costs 180 dollars or euros at consulates, while for minors it costs 140 and is valid for five years. The reform eliminated the old extensions that emigrants had to pay for every two years. For some applicants in Belgrade, however, the wait for that document is now approaching nine months.

Those affected are now demanding some form of certification they can present to Serbian authorities to prove that the lack of a valid passport is not due to their own negligence. They also want to know the actual status of each application and are asking that priority be given to those whose permits are close to expiring.

The administrative failure has thus produced a paradox: Cubans who arrived legally in Serbia and complied with the procedures required by that country now risk losing their status precisely because the State responsible for issuing their passports has been unable to deliver them.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Air Europa Benefits from the Void Left by Airlines Abandoning Cuba

The Spanish company maintains four weekly flights to Havana and plans to expand operations despite the fuel crisis and the collapse of tourism

LJuan José Hidalgo’s airline remains the only Spanish company operating regular flights to the island. / Facebook/Air Europa. / Facebook/Air Europa

14ymedio, Madrid, August 29, 2026 / Air Europa’s bet on maintaining its flights to Cuba this summer is proving more profitable than expected. Juan José Hidalgo’s airline remains the only Spanish company operating regular trips to the island following the departure of Iberia, World2Fly and Plus Ultra, and its flights have found sustained demand, despite its high fares.

In July, the airline added a new frequency to Cuba, bringing its weekly flights to the island to four. Its planes must make a stopover in the Dominican Republic to refuel, due to the kerosene crisis affecting the island. Air Europa stated at the time that it was considering “increasing frequencies to six in November” if results were favorable.

So far, the strategy appears to have worked, since Spain is the second most common country of residence for Cubans living outside the island.

Air Europa’s bookings confirm the expansion of operations: up to five or six weekly flights in December and a daily frequency starting April 1, 2027. Prices are around 1,000 euros in October and reach about 1,400 during the Christmas season.

The island’s leaders have expressed their gratitude for Globalia’s commitment to maintaining its operations in Cuba

The Hidalgo family also appears interested in maintaining its ties with the Cuban continue reading

government. The island’s leaders have expressed their gratitude for the commitment of Globalia – the tourism group owned by the Hidalgos – to maintaining its operations in Cuba, where it is also developing real estate projects.

Not everything seems to be going well for Air Europa this year: the company is under judicial investigation over the 475 million euro bailout it received from the Spanish state in 2020. Last June, a Madrid court admitted the criminal complaints filed by the PP and Vox over an alleged crime of administrative malfeasance.

In 2026, numerous airlines have suspended their flights to Cuba, reduced frequencies, or modified their operations due to the fuel shortage and falling demand. Some have had to add technical stopovers in third countries to refuel before continuing on to the island. Among the companies that have withdrawn are Air Canada, Air France, WestJet, Sunwing, Air Transat, Iberia, Latam Perú and Turkish Airlines.

“Flights to Havana, scheduled to begin on October 25, have been canceled”

The Turkish airline, which holds 26.5% of Air Europa’s capital after investing 300 million euros in the company at the end of last year, had recently announced the renewal of its Moscow-Istanbul-Havana route, a decision that had raised expectations about the recovery of the Russian tourist market in Cuba. However, it became known this Thursday that the company had decided to cancel that route. “Flights to Havana, scheduled to begin on October 25, have been canceled,” a Turkish Airlines spokesperson told Diario de Cuba. For now, the airline maintains its connection to Havana via Panama, where passengers must change planes to continue their journey with Copa Airlines.

The withdrawal of several airlines from Cuba has not been a direct consequence of US sanctions against companies linked to the regime, as some media outlets have suggested, but rather of the kerosene crisis, falling demand, and the collapse of tourism. These factors are related to the profound crisis affecting the island, worsened this year by Washington’s oil blockade against Cuba and OFAC sanctions against the economic pillars of the Cuban regime.

Air China, the other operator maintaining the Madrid-Havana route, retains two weekly frequencies. According to the reservation system, the Chinese state airline will maintain these operations until the summer of 2027. Iberia, for its part, has extended the suspension of its flights until July 2027, although it continues to offer connections to Havana via Panama City, with the final leg operated by Copa.

Translated by GH.

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The ‘Italian Che’ Falls Seriously Ill in Santa Clara and Ends Up Hospitalized in Havana

Alessandro Di Battista, a former lawmaker with the Five Star Movement, was in Cuba preparing a series of reports

Born in Rome in 1978, Di Battista was a lawmaker between 2013 and 2018 and became one of the M5S’s most charismatic leaders. / Facebook/Alessandro Di Battista

14ymedio, Havana, August 30, 2026 / The coincidence seems written for a news feature. Alessandro Di Battista, the former Italian lawmaker whom his country’s press dubbed for years the “Italian Che” or the “Che grillino” – as followers of Beppe Grillo and the Five Star Movement are known in Italy – suffered a serious medical episode precisely in Santa Clara, the Cuban city where Ernesto Guevara’s mausoleum is located. After remaining unconscious for several hours, he was taken by ambulance to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in Havana, where he remains admitted.

This Sunday, however, the first signs of recovery arrived. “I will do everything possible to return soon,” wrote Di Battista, 48, on Instagram, in response to a message from Ilaria Loquenzi, who was part of the Five Star Movement’s (M5S) communications team when he was a lawmaker. These are the politician and journalist’s first public words since he fell ill.

He was taken to the 19th floor of the Ameijeiras and immediately underwent vital-sign monitoring and other specialized tests

Di Battista began to feel unwell on Friday, while he was in Santa Clara on a work trip through the island. According to the Italian news agency Ansa, he suffered a severe headache and subsequently lost consciousness for several hours. Upon regaining it, he was able to speak with doctors, who decided to transfer him by road some 300 kilometers to Havana.

On Saturday night he arrived by ambulance at the Hermanos Ameijeiras. An Ansa journalist personally witnessed his admission to the center, where Di Battista entered lying on a stretcher, but lucid and able to continue reading

respond to questions from doctors and nurses. He was taken to the 19th floor and immediately underwent vital-sign monitoring and other specialized tests.

So far, no official medical bulletin with a precise diagnosis has been released. Some Italian media have floated various hypotheses based on the intensity of the headaches and the temporary loss of consciousness, but neither Cuban nor Italian authorities have publicly confirmed the cause of the episode.

The newspaper itself confirmed that he was working on the island when he began to suffer “strange headaches” that grew progressively worse

Giorgia Meloni’s government is closely following the case and has a medically equipped plane on standby to repatriate Di Battista. The transfer will depend, however, on the doctors’ decision, who must determine whether the trip poses any risk to his health. Italy’s ambassador to Cuba, Simona De Martino, traveled to Santa Clara, while the foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said he was in contact with the diplomatic mission and with the former lawmaker’s family.

Di Battista was not in Cuba on vacation. Having stayed away from Parliament for years, he has devoted himself to journalism, books and travel, and on this occasion was preparing a series of reports for Il Fatto Quotidiano and its audiovisual arm, TvLoft, titled La polvere del mondo (The Dust of the World). The newspaper itself confirmed that he was working on the island when he began to suffer “strange headaches” that grew progressively worse.

That the episode occurred in Santa Clara is particularly striking given the Italian’s political biography. Ansa recalled this Saturday that Ernesto Guevara is one of the figures Di Battista has championed for years. Of the Argentine guerrilla fighter, he once said he had left as a lesson what “the fervent will of a human being” can achieve.

‘La Razón’ highlighted his travels through Latin America and his profile as an agitator within the M5S.

The association between the two goes back a long way. In 2018, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia titled a profile on Di Battista The Return of the Che Grillino after he returned to Rome following more than six months traveling through the Americas. The paper recalled at the time that he had publicly recommended reading Che and Marx, and that he had even spoken of Guevara in the Italian Parliament as a man capable of making history by standing up to power.

A year later, another Spanish newspaper, La Razón, presented him outright as the “Italian Che Guevara,” after Di Battista and Luigi Di Maio staged an outreach to the French yellow vests that caused a serious diplomatic rift between Rome and Paris. The paper highlighted at the time his travels through Latin America and his profile as an agitator within the M5S.

He is currently vice president of Schierarsi, a political activism association that has driven campaigns related to Palestine.

Born in Rome in 1978, Di Battista was a lawmaker between 2013 and 2018 and became one of the M5S’s most charismatic leaders. His vehement style and his rhetoric against traditional politics gave him enormous popularity among the party’s grassroots, although he never held the main institutional posts.

He then progressively withdrew from the front line and broke with the M5S in 2021, in disagreement with the movement’s support for Mario Draghi’s government. He is currently vice president of Schierarsi, a political activism association that has driven campaigns related to Palestine, public water and other social causes.

Italian politics, despite deep divisions between parties, reacted in almost unanimous fashion to the news of his hospitalization. The M5S expressed its “great concern” and voiced solidarity with his family, while leaders from political forces on both the left and the right sent messages of support.

Translated by GH

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Unicef and South Korea Donate Prenatal Supplements for 30,430 Women in Cuba

Unable to send the 213,000 bottles funded by Seoul by sea, the UN agency resorted to air transport.

Unicef used air transport between Panama City and Havana to bring the medicines to Cuba. / Facebook/Unicef Cuba

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, August 29, 2026 – A donation of 213,000 bottles of prenatal supplements for Cuba was acquired by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) with funds provided by the Government of South Korea, in order to ensure these essential supplies for some 30,430 pregnant and breastfeeding women on the Island.

Unicef explained this Friday on social media that, due to the impossibility of shipping the humanitarian aid cargo by sea, it used air transport between Panama City and Havana.

The operation involved additional costs due to the change from sea to air transport, which Unicef covered with its own resources, leading the UN agency to state that “saving lives cannot wait.”

It also indicated that the goal is for pregnant Cuban women to have access to the prenatal supplements required for the full course of treatment during pregnancy and the breastfeeding stage.

The operation involved additional costs due to the change from sea to air transport, which Unicef covered with its own resources, leading the UN agency to state that “saving lives cannot wait”

As a precedent for this donation, South Korea had already sent humanitarian aid: last December, it donated 24,600 tons of rice to Cuba to support groups affected by the devastating Hurricane Melissa and other vulnerable groups in the country.

Havana and Seoul announced the restoration of diplomatic relations on February 14, 2024, in an event held in New York, and later established embassies in their respective capitals.

The donation arrives in Cuba amid a deep economic crisis, with shortages of basic products such as food and medicines. The situation has worsened since the United States began an oil blockade against the Island in January, in addition to imposing further sanctions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Dariel García, a New Cuban in the German Handball Bundesliga

The Santiago-born wingman became the fifth person born on the Island to play in Germany’s top division.

In Germany, Dariel García will have a one-year contract, with the possibility of competing again in the EHF European League. / Instagram/mttrommler

14ymedio, Andy Lans, Matanzas, August 29, 2026 – A new Cuban in the best handball league in the world! Dariel García Rivera has become the fifth person born in Cuba to play in the German Bundesliga when, this Thursday, he saw action in the opening round of the 2026-2027 season.

The 29-year-old wingman played exactly 19 minutes and 41 seconds in his team MT Melsungen’s 31-33 loss to Füchse Berlin. The young man from Santiago de Cuba also took the opportunity to score his first goals in his new league, with two goals from three shots, before the crowd at the Max Schmeling Hall in the German capital.

Dariel’s signing with Melsungen is no coincidence. Between 2018 and 2026, he played eight seasons in Spain’s ASOBAL League. He played the 2018-2019 season with Ciudad de Logroño, wore the colors of ADC Guadalajara between 2019 and 2021, and then established himself with CD Bidasoa Irún for five campaigns. His record at the highest level of Spanish handball stands at 197 matches and 501 goals. Now, in Germany, the Cuban international will have a one-year contract, with the possibility of competing again in the EHF European League, a continental competition in which he has accumulated 46 appearances and 128 goals throughout continue reading

his career.

The young man from Santiago de Cuba also took the opportunity to score his first goals in his new league, with two goals from three shots

The presence of Cubans in the German Handball Bundesliga began with the legendary Julián Durañona, who was part of THSV Eisenach between 1997 and 2000, played for TuS N-Lübbecke in 2000-2001, and returned to the league in 2002-2003 with HSG Wetzlar. In total, the man who would later become an Icelandic international scored 596 goals in 136 matches in the competition.

In the 2001-2002 season, Guantánamo native Julio Fis experienced one of THW Kiel’s 23 titles, making it the most successful institution in the Bundesliga. The naturalized Spaniard contributed 83 goals in 25 matches on that occasion.

Another Cuban who became an international for Iceland, Jaliesky García, played six seasons in Germany’s top division with FRISCH AUF! Göppingen between 2003 and 2009, contributing 498 goals in 150 matches.

Rolando Urios González, son of the legendary Granma-born pivot Rolando Urios, had a brief stint of seven Bundesliga matches with Füchse Berlin between 2017 and 2019. Currently, at 27 years of age, he continues his career in Spanish handball.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Decree 167 Authorizes “Light Food Service Networks of Recognized Brands,” Such as McDonald’s

The ‘Official Gazette’ publishes a “capitalist” law, but retains “centralized administrative measures” in the name of “social interest”

The private establishment San Pepper’s Burger, in Holguín, which sparked angry reactions in the official press. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, August 28, 2026 / The Official Gazette fulfilled, this Friday, the promise made in mid-June by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero to allow the creation of a “light food service network of recognized brands, restaurants, cafés, and burger joints.” Decree 167 opens the way for McDonald’s, KFC, or Starbucks. In theory.

Just four days ago, Miguel Díaz-Canel denied to a Brazilian journalist that Cuba is applying “capitalist reforms.” The president now finds himself contradicted by none other than the Official Gazette, which now publishes rules in force governing the market economy – covering competition, profit, foreign investment, public-private partnerships, dollarization, the exchange market, and store and restaurant chains extending across the island.

Decree 167, “On Domestic Trade,” is one of 176 reforms with which the government is attempting to revive a free-falling economy while simultaneously maintaining the socialist definition of the model. This maneuver is not new. For decades, Cuban authorities have alternated between opening up the economy during times of crisis and reversing course when they deem the market has gone too far.

The language appears to be lifted straight from a capitalist manual: “market signals,” “tastes and preferences,” and being competitive “in quality, price, and timing”

The new legislation defines commercial activity as that which is habitually carried out “for profit,” and lists among its objectives the promotion of “fair competition” and the consolidation of participation by both state and private management forms, as well as foreign investment. It even promises the different forms of ownership “similar conditions of access to markets” for their production and supplies.

The leap is especially visible in Article 15, which grants marketers the right to continue reading

set product assortments, sales methods, and prices, to participate in public procurement, and to “create chains of stores, restaurants, and light food service networks of recognized or other brands that extend throughout the country.”

The Decree further orders the “promotion of public-private relations” and facilitation of the development of both domestic and foreign actors. For wholesalers, the language appears to be lifted directly from a market economy manual: they must consider “market signals,” study customers’ “tastes and preferences,” and favor domestic production whenever it is competitive “in quality, price, and timing.”

Meanwhile, provincial and municipal authorities are rolling out a new offensive of price caps, inspections, fines, seizures, forced sales, and closures

All this comes after Mônica Bergamo, of Folha de S.Paulo, asked Díaz-Canel directly whether it was necessary to “promote capitalism to save socialism.” “There are no capitalist reforms,” the president replied, invoking the precedent of the Special Period and recalling that Fidel Castro had accepted “concessions” at that time in order to preserve the Revolution and socialism.

The contradiction does not remain merely at the level of words. While the central government expands the space available to private businesses by decree, provincial and municipal authorities are rolling out a new offensive of price caps, limits on trade margins, inspections, fines, seizures, forced sales, and closures.

In June, as part of the 176 measures, the Government had announced the general elimination of price caps. Not even two months had passed before Artemisa, Matanzas, Holguín, and other territories began setting maximum trade margins of 30%, while municipalities in Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, and other provinces imposed maximum prices or, under another name, “reference” prices.

Resolution 15 repeals the rules with which the Ministry of Domestic Trade itself tightened wholesale trade for MSMEs, cooperatives, and self-employed workers in 2024

Nor has the result been unexpected. In some places, products subject to greater administrative pressure, such as cooking oil, have disappeared from stores or returned to the informal market at higher prices.

The Gazette itself unwittingly sums up this ambivalence. Alongside competition and market signals, Decree 167 enshrines “centralized administrative measures” intended to induce economic actors to make decisions “in line with the interests of society.” It also reserves for the State the ability to introduce restrictions or prohibitions and to intervene in price formation in the name of “social interest.”

Even one of the resolutions published this Friday acknowledges another about-face. Resolution 15 repeals the rules with which the Ministry of Domestic Trade itself tightened wholesale trade for MSMEs, cooperatives, and self-employed workers in 2024. It now deems it necessary to “ease” those regulations.

This looping pattern also has precedents. In 1986, Fidel Castro launched the “Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies,” initially aimed at economic mechanisms that the leadership considered deviations from socialism. Decades later, the Ordering Task (Tarea Ordenamiento) was again presented as the solution to distortions accumulated over years. Beginning in January 2021, it was meant, among other things, to end monetary duality and restore the Cuban peso’s central role in the economy. Barely a month after it took effect, Granma was already publishing an article titled “Prices and Cost Cards: ‘Ordering’ the Ordering Task,” while the Government introduced new mechanisms to contain prices that had exceeded its projections.

The Cuban economy remains trapped in the same pendulum swing: opening up when the crisis leaves no alternative, correcting course when the opening threatens to escape control, and opening up again when the restrictions produce a new suffocation

Five years later, the new commercial legislation in fact enshrines another dual system. Decree 168, within the same Gazette, divides the Central Commercial Registry into two sections – one for “Cuban Pesos” and another for “Foreign Currency” – and requires establishments that sell in both currencies to hold a license for each. Registering or re-registering a business that operates in foreign currency can cost $500, updating its records $370, and obtaining a duplicate license $450, while the same procedures cost 1,300, 600, and 1,000 Cuban pesos, respectively, for those operating in national currency. Resolution 195 itself justifies these fees on the grounds of “partial dollarization in inter-enterprise and commercial operations.”

After six decades, the Cuban economy remains trapped in the same pendulum swing: opening up when the crisis leaves no alternative, correcting course when the opening threatens to escape control, and opening up again when the restrictions produce a new suffocation.

Translated by GH.

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Havana Mother Detained After Reporting a Local Official for Denying Her Water

The official who requested the arbitrary arrest of Sady Companioni is a lieutenant colonel in the Revolutionary Armed Forces

The arrest occurred just one day after Companioni posted a message titled “I’m Scared!” / Facebook/ Sady R. Companioni

14ymedio, Havana, 29 August 2026 / After several weeks of denouncing the lack of water in her home on social media and receiving threats for documenting the favors granted by a local delegate in her neighborhood through water trucks, Sady Reynaldo Companioni, a resident of Lawton, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre (Havana), was detained this Friday and taken to the Aguilera police station.

According to Companioni’s own account shortly before her arrest, four uniformed police officers arrived at her home to take her away over “an accusation” on file at the police station on Aguilera Street. Among the officers, according to testimonies circulated afterward, were a member of the Search and Capture unit, a major, and a first lieutenant.

The woman had not previously received a summons. The detention took place, moreover, in front of her parents and her six-year-old daughter, who began crying as she watched her mother being taken away. Her relatives later confirmed that she remained in a holding cell at the Aguilera station.

A water truck had once again arrived in her area, but a woman she identifies as “the delegate” again prevented her home from being supplied

The arrest occurred just one day after Companioni posted a message titled “I’m Scared!”, in which she again denounced the reprisals she had faced for demanding water for her home. According to her account, a water truck had once again arrived in her area, but a woman she identifies as “the delegate” again prevented her home from being supplied.

Companioni stated that the official pointed her out to the driver and told him: “that’s the woman who doesn’t need water.” She also said the woman was filming her and had threatened to continue reading

bring her social media posts to the sector chief on a claim of “defamation.” Activist Tania Tasé, who has followed the case and remains in contact with the family, says she has identified this official as Yanelis, a delegate of the Poder Popular (People’s Power) and a lieutenant colonel in the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

In a message sent to Tasé during her niece’s illness, Companioni said that “the water truck and the delegate” passed by her house some days without stopping. “She only stops when she’s paid, and as soon as I have proof I’m going to file a formal complaint,” she wrote.

Companioni also reported that at Aballí hospital “there isn’t even drinking water for the children”

The situation worsened as an eight-year-old niece of Companioni’s grew sicker after several days of vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. The family took her repeatedly to the Ángel Arturo Aballí Maternal and Child Hospital and to the William Soler hospital, but she was initially sent home. After vomiting bile with traces of blood and, later, developing bleeding gums, she was finally admitted, and tests determined that she had dengue with warning signs and, according to relatives, several inflamed organs, meaning she needed to be transferred to a pediatric facility with intensive care. Companioni also reported that at the Aballí hospital “there isn’t even drinking water for the children, literally.”

While the girl remained hospitalized, the family continued to have no regular water supply at home. Companioni said they even relied on collecting rainwater. “Today at home we don’t have a single drop of water, because it hasn’t rained,” she wrote to Tasé. “I’m not going to stay silent in the face of so much shamelessness and helplessness,” she added.

Neighbors were able to fill their containers, but she was denied water. / Facebook/ Sady R. Companioni

The government’s own leadership acknowledged the severity of the problem this week. On Thursday, Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the Paso Seco water supply source in Boyeros, a strategic point for pumping water to the southern and central parts of Havana. The official press acknowledged that the facility had entered a “critical situation” and that work is underway to restore equipment, motors, and power lines to sustain service during the prolonged blackouts. The president had ordered that “permanent protection” be sought for the water supply of the capital, home to nearly two million people.

A day later, the United States Embassy in Havana issued a health alert warning that Cuba’s water supply infrastructure is “increasingly unstable” and that there are residential neighborhoods that go long periods without receiving water from the municipal networks. The diplomatic mission noted that the supply problems, worsened by the blackouts and the drought, pose “significant challenges for health and safety.” That same Friday, police detained Companioni, whose protest had begun precisely over one of those prolonged water cutoffs.

A conflict presented as a neighborhood dispute is serving to conceal a reprisal that is political in nature

The conflict began in early August, when the woman reported that her family had gone about 15 days without water service. She went to the municipal government’s command post and to other institutions, including the Communist Party headquarters, without obtaining an effective solution. Days later, a state water truck arrived on her block. Neighbors were able to fill their containers, but she was denied water. When she tried to film the scene, an official warned her that she could be detained if she continued photographing or filming what was happening.

The sequence of events now makes it difficult to reduce the case to a simple neighborhood dispute. That she was detained by a group of police officers that included Search and Capture personnel and high-ranking officers, after weeks of public complaints against local authorities, shows the significance that has been attached to the case. In addition, the reference to an official linked to the FAR, the prior threats, and the speed with which an alleged accusation of “defamation” turned into an arrest all support the belief that a conflict presented as a neighborhood dispute is serving to conceal a reprisal that is political in nature.

Companioni had not led an organized protest or issued any opposition call to action. She had demanded something more basic: water for her home while a girl in her family was seriously ill. And despite admitting her fears, she had made clear she did not intend to stay silent.
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Democratic Socialism Is an Oxymoron

The CubanAmerican Voice. Julio M. Shiling, August 28, 2026 / “Democratic socialism” is a rhetorical convenience, not a coherent political category. It is an oxymoron because the ends of socialism—collective ownership or decisive state control of the means of production, the subordination of private property, culture, and market signals to a comprehensive plan for social justice, and the remaking of human relations according to an egalitarian moral template—cannot be achieved or sustained by democratic means. Enforcement requires coercion. Coercion on that scale corrodes the very institutions that make democracy possible. The historical pattern is consistent: what begins as a promise of popular empowerment hardens into authoritarian administration and, frequently, totalitarian control.

Socialism is not primarily an economic arrangement. Economics is the instrument. The deeper project is political and anthropological: the redesign of society so that private interest, traditional authority, and spontaneous association yield to a master conception of the good. Property rights, contracts, family forms, cultural production, and even moral language must be brought into alignment with that conception. Once the goal is comprehensive restructuring rather than incremental redistribution, the tools of democratic deliberation become obstacles. Voters may reject higher taxes, nationalizations, speech codes, or curriculum mandates. Markets may generate inequalities the plan cannot tolerate. Civil society may shelter dissenting associations. At that point the socialist project must either retreat or override the obstacles. Override is the more common choice.

The twentieth century supplies the evidence. Bolsheviks, after seizing power in the name of the workers, quickly suppressed rival socialist parties, independent trade unions, and the free press. Vladimir Lenin’s party had entered the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party as a faction; it exited as the monopoly of power. Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, the Eastern Bloc after 1945—all began with the language of popular liberation and ended with one-party rule, secret police, and the criminalization of private initiative. Even milder experiments that retained formal multiparty competition—Allende’s Chile, for a time—relied on extralegal pressure, expropriation without reliable compensation, and the polarization of institutions until constitutional order collapsed. The pattern is not accidental. When the state claims the authority to reallocate capital, labor, and cultural capital according to a single plan, it must also claim the authority to silence continue reading

, re-educate, or liquidate resistance. Democracy, which presupposes contested elections, independent judiciary, and protected private spheres, cannot survive that claim indefinitely.

Contemporary Western Marxists understood the difficulty and shifted the battlefield. György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, and the Frankfurt School recognized that economic determinism alone was insufficient in advanced societies. Cultural hegemony—control of the universities, media, churches, the family, and the language of everyday life—became the necessary precondition for political power. Once the cultural means of production are captured, socialist moralism can be presented as common sense and dissent as pathology. The project remains totalizing; only the sequence has changed. Democratic forms are retained as long as they advance the hegemony and discard it when they impede it.

This is why the Democratic Socialists of America should be read carefully. Their program is not a Nordic-style welfare state. It is the gradual dismantling of the liberal-democratic and republican architecture that makes markets and limited government possible. The analogy to Lenin’s entryism is not hyperbolic. A disciplined minority seeks to capture a major party, redefine its vocabulary, and use electoral success as a platform for deeper institutional transformation. The rhetoric of “democracy” functions as camouflage. The United States is currently undergoing the threat of this Trojan horse offensive.

Confusion with social democracy or Christian Democracy is therefore a category error. Both of those traditions operate inside a market economy and a constitutional order that protect private property and political pluralism. They tax, regulate, and redistribute to varying degrees—sometimes heavily—but they do not aim to abolish the price system or to re-engineer the human person. Otto von Bismarck introduced the first modern welfare provisions precisely to undercut socialist agitation while preserving the existing order. The Nordic countries remain capitalist economies with high labor-market flexibility, private ownership of most capital, and robust democratic competition. Their success is evidence that markets plus transfer payments can coexist with democracy. It is not evidence that socialism can.

The distinction is acutely significant for any society contemplating a democratic transition, including Cuba. A post-communist Cuba that adopts a welfare-state model within a market framework and genuine multiparty competition would not be socialist. A Cuba that retains the party’s monopoly on the commanding heights of economy and culture, merely rebranding itself democratic socialist, would remain dictatorial under a new label. The former preserves the possibility of course correction; the latter does not.

Socialism’s moral appeal is real. Many of its advocates are sincere in their desire to reduce suffering. Sincerity, however, does not alter the institutional logic. To enforce a comprehensive redesign of political, social, cultural, and moral life requires instruments of power that democratic societies rightly constrain. Those instruments, once normalized, do not remain limited. “Democratic socialism,” therefore, names a temporary and unstable hybrid. The democracy is the packaging; the socialism is the product. History shows which element prevails.

The Cuban Government Acknowledges That It Will Not Be Able To Guarantee In-Person Classes for the School Year

The Minister of Education admits that only 73% of teaching positions are filled and that uniforms “will not be available for all students.”

Cuban Education Minister Naima Trujillo speaks during a press conference this Thursday in Havana. / EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa

14ymedio, Havana, August 28, 2026 / Despite the fact that many mothers doubt if it is practical to send their children to school, and despite the country experiencing its worst economic crisis since 1959, authorities continue to promote the resumption of the school year on September 1st. Unlike the triumphalist tone of recent days, however, this time the government openly acknowledges the difficulties. The main ones: a shortage of teachers, a lack of uniforms, and the impossibility of guaranteeing in-person classes due to the crisis.

This Thursday, Cuban Education Minister Naima Trujillo Barreto announced during a press conference that the new enrollment will serve approximately 1,400,000 children and adolescents across all levels of education. President Miguel Díaz-Canel deemed it appropriate to increase this figure to “more than 1,500,000” to use the return to classrooms as an argument against those who speak of a “collapse” in Cuba.

The president’s enthusiasm contrasts sharply with the figures acknowledged by the Minister of Education. “Currently, Cuba has 73% total coverage with trained staff,” admitted Trujillo Barreto. “The most complex situation” in this regard is in Havana, the official said, where “around 3,000 teachers are arriving from the eastern part of the country” to support schools.

To confront this deficit officials indicated that Resolution 10 will be applied, allowing compensation for the additional teaching load assumed by teachers, but they did not specify the compensation systems. Faculty will also be adjusted, and university students and professionals from other sectors who are not currently teaching will be incorporated into the teaching staff.

“Without electricity, no workshop can function; without fuel, we cannot transport the fabric from one place to another in the country; without money and without the possibility of importing, fabrics cannot enter either.”

Another major problem centers on the production of school uniforms. The industry reached August with a production level of around 12% for primary schools and slightly higher for secondary schools. “School uniforms will not be available for all students on continue reading

the first day of classes,” the minister admitted. “Without electricity, no workshop can operate; without fuel, we can’t transport fabric from one part of the country to another; without money and without import options, fabric isn’t coming in either,” the minister explained.

A resident of Luyanó confirmed to 14ymedio that ninth and tenth grade students have been authorized to go to classes in “street clothes”: long pants and a white, blue or red sweater.

Students will be allowed to wear their bandanas—in the case of primary school—even if they don’t have the uniform, the minister confirmed. Schools must be flexible and cannot impose specific color combinations or clothing on those who don’t have the required garments. According to Trujillo, in some areas, additional days have been set aside for sewing the garments, and some students have resorted to making them at home.

For students in the general education system, younger than those in higher education, in-person learning will be prioritized, Trujillo explained. However, “current conditions require us to organize the process differently.” The minister stated that there will be “interruptions at certain times, intensive remedial periods, and closures” within each of the three periods that make up the school year.

“There are centers with resources for 15 days, others for 20, and others where supplies are still being transferred.”

The organization will take into account the characteristics of each community. Some institutions will be able to maintain double sessions every day, while others will do so only on certain days of the week. In other cases, it will be necessary to modify start times or the frequency with which students remain at the centers.

Transportation constitutes one of the main factors that will determine how each institution will function, because there are students and teachers who have to travel long distances to get to their centers.

Food is another preoccupation. The minister assured that basic conditions are guaranteed in the semi-residential and residential institutions that will begin operations, although coverage varies depending on the region. “Some centers have resources for 15 days, others for 20, and others where supplies are still being delivered.”

According to a testimony from the local government of Luyanó, water trucks are not being distributed to residents who have been without service for days and who have been demanding it because “the distribution of water in tanker trucks for schools is being prioritized to guarantee the restart of the school year.”

The minister indicated that in-person classes will not return to what they were before the “difficulties that began to worsen in February of this year.”

Similarly, to address these needs, the authorities are relying on the private sector. As Trujillo Barreto explained, “those who previously supported certain processes on a case-by-case basis will now assume commitments established through contractual relationships.”

The previous school year ended early in June, and several grade levels had to adopt a hybrid learning model due to the energy crisis. Regarding UNESCO’s warnings that education on the island “is at risk due to the energy crisis,” the Cuban minister responded that this generation “will not be at risk of not receiving an education” and that they will strive to provide “the best possible conditions.”

The official acknowledged that between 17,000 and 23,000 students had to remain “more distant” from their schools during the last academic year. For this year, the Ministry claims to have developed a plan for approximately 17,000 students. However, the minister indicated that in-person learning will not return to pre-pandemic levels due to the “difficulties that began to worsen in February of this year.”

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Power Returns to Eastern Cuba After Partial Disconnection of the National Electric System

After 10 pm, the National Electric Union said, the system was restored, four hours after the Felton plant came back online

Once the Felton CTE, in Holguín, came back online, the Diez de Octubre plant in Nuevitas (Camagüey) was reconnected. / Adelante

14ymedio, Havana, 28 August 2026 / A new “oscillation” once again pushed the battered national electric system (SEN) to the brink this Thursday. A disturbance in the transmission lines caused the disconnection of the eastern region and knocked three thermoelectric units out of service, in an incident that authorities are investigating and that once again puts the spotlight on the growing instability of the Cuban grid.

According to the information released by government-aligned journalist Bernardo Espinosa, the National Load Dispatch reported an “extreme failure” that left the provinces from Holguín to Guantánamo separated from the SEN. As a result of the disturbance, unit 1 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez plant in Felton, unit 6 of the Diez de Octubre plant in Nuevitas, and unit 6 of the Antonio Maceo plant in Renté were taken out of service.

After 10 pm, the National Electric Union said, the system was restored, four hours after Felton came back online. From there, the Camagüey-based Diez de Octubre plant was reconnected, although authorities did not provide information about Renté.

In total, the SEN has already suffered seven complete disconnections so far in 2026, in addition to several large-scale partial separations

This is not the first time an “oscillation” has preceded a breakdown of the SEN this year. On March 21, just five days after the first national collapse of 2026, Cuba was once again plunged into complete darkness following a phenomenon officially described continue reading

using that same term. On July 14, the shutdown of Felton’s unit 1 caused, according to the official version, a “sharp oscillation in the system’s frequency” that ended in another total blackout.

In early August it happened again. As the country was still trying to recover from the year’s sixth national collapse, rain and electrical storms caused an oscillation that brought down the system once more – the second collapse in less than 24 hours.

In total, the SEN has already suffered seven complete disconnections so far in 2026, in addition to several large-scale partial separations. The first national blackout occurred on March 16. After that came the one on March 21, three in July – on the 6th, 10th, and 14th – and two consecutive ones in early August.

The recurrence of these oscillations takes on particular significance at a time when the Government is rapidly incorporating photovoltaic generation into a grid that operates with very little reserve and numerous damaged thermoelectric plants

These collapses are in addition to regional breakdowns such as the one that left western Cuba without electricity for nearly seven hours on August 1, affecting Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Havana, and Matanzas.

The recurrence of these oscillations takes on particular significance at a time when the Government is rapidly incorporating photovoltaic generation into a grid that operates with very little reserve and numerous damaged thermoelectric plants. Based on the information available, solar energy cannot be identified as the cause of Thursday’s incident, but the authorities themselves have acknowledged the problems involved in compensating for fluctuations without the anchor of the thermoelectric plants that are essential to ensuring the SEN’s stability.

Miguel Díaz-Canel admitted in March that instability was such that not all the energy available at solar farms could be used during the day. Its connection had to be increased or reduced, he explained, in order to regulate frequency and “avoid another blackout.” The president then announced the installation of battery systems intended precisely for that function.

The problem does not lie in solar energy itself, but in integrating it into a weakened grid. Traditional thermoelectric plants provide synchronous generation and help cushion sudden frequency changes, while photovoltaic farms depend on electronic inverters and their output can vary rapidly. Modern systems compensate for these fluctuations through batteries, electronic regulation, and sufficient generation reserve – elements that Cuba has only to a very limited extent.

In Cuba, where the loss of a single large unit can represent a significant share of all available generation, the margin for absorbing a disturbance is very limited

During the recovery from July’s blackout, the Director General of Electricity, Lázaro Guerra, specifically highlighted the importance of the batteries installed in El Cotorro (Havana), capable of “regulating the frequency” of the small systems that were forming before the national grid was reconnected.

Thursday’s incident now requires clarifying what happened first. Official information does not specify which line began to oscillate, what type of disturbance occurred, or whether the shutdown of Felton, Nuevitas, and Renté was the cause or the consequence of the instability. Nor has any information been provided on how much photovoltaic generation the SEN was delivering at that time.

These questions take on special relevance following the blackout in Spain and Portugal on April 28, 2025, whose investigation showed just how quickly oscillations, voltage problems, and cascading disconnections can spread through an electrical grid. In Cuba, where the loss of a single large unit can represent a significant share of all available generation, the margin for absorbing a disturbance is much smaller.

Translated by GH.

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Swiss Companies “Almost Never Manage To Collect” and Are Leaving Cuba

Trade between the two countries has collapsed and only multinationals, such as Nestlé and Roche, are holding on

Attendees at the Swiss Business Night 2026, held in Havana. / Swiss Embassy

14ymedio, Havana, August 28, 2026 / Swiss companies doing business with Cuba do not appear to share the enthusiasm of Auge, a private consultancy dedicated to business advice and development on the island. The firm recently celebrated its admission to the Swiss-Cuban Chamber of Commerce as a gateway to “new markets, alliances and opportunities,” but the organization it has just joined offers a far less promising picture of Cuba.

“When a Swiss company does business with Cuba, the state banks can issue payment orders, invoices or guarantees. But afterward, it almost never manages to collect,” said Ursin Mirer, president of this Chamber of Commerce, in a report published this Thursday by Swissinfo. The organization now has around 40 member companies, down from the 60 or 70 it once had. “Companies don’t feel protected,” Mirer summarizes.

This diagnosis contrasts with the tone Auge used when promoting its admission to the Chamber on June 10. “The world is full of opportunities. We keep weaving the network to bring them to our country,” the consultancy stated, presenting its membership as an opportunity to access B2B spaces, exchange forums and business databases that will allow it to “think big.”

“The report makes clear that the obstacles to trading with Cuba do not end in Washington”

The very headline chosen by Swissinfo, “Swiss trade in Cuba is being choked by fear of U.S. sanctions,” attributes considerable weight to Washington’s measures. European and Latin American banks, the outlet explains, avoid many operations related to the island for fear of exposure to the U.S. sanctions regime, a phenomenon known as de-risking. However, the report makes clear that the obstacles to trading with Cuba do not end in Washington.

“One of the causes lies in Cuba’s state-dominated economic system, and in the chronic shortage of foreign currency,” Swissinfo notes. That situation prevents continue reading

entities on the island from regularly meeting their debts to foreign companies. When asked what would need to change to win the business back, Mirer likewise does not mention only sanctions: “First there is legal certainty, followed by real protection for foreign companies and, finally, the currency issue.”

The numbers bear out the pessimism. Swiss exports of paper and cardboard to Cuba exceeded 2.7 million francs in 2025, but in the first half of this year they barely reached one million. Watch sales fell from 1.4 million to just over 357,000 francs (1 Swiss franc is equivalent to 1.23 dollars), and pharmaceutical sales stayed below 9,000 francs between January and June. Small and medium-sized companies, less able to withstand payment delays, have been scaling back their activity or leaving the Cuban market outright. Among the large companies that remain are Nestlé (food) and Roche (pharmaceuticals).

“One of the companies still holding on, Nestlé, has known the problem since the early years of the Revolution”

The outlook was considerably brighter just seven months ago. During a business gathering held in late January in Havana, Harold Hoffman, vice president of the Chamber, told the state broadcaster Radio Progreso that Cuba offered opportunities because its market was “quite promising,” something Swiss business owners needed to “take advantage of.” The event aimed precisely to encourage foreign investment and expand business ties.

The Swiss Embassy itself, under whose sponsorship the Swiss Business Night was held, was somewhat more cautious at the time. The focus of that meeting was Cuba’s energy crisis, described by the diplomatic mission as a “real operational vulnerability” that affects production, raises costs and “curbs investment.” The panel was moderated by Oniel Díaz Castellanos, co-founder of Auge and a collaborator with that business circle before formally joining the Chamber.

The difficulties in convincing Swiss business owners of the merits of the Cuban market are not new either. One of the companies still holding on, Nestlé, has known the problem since the early years of the Revolution.

Before “going far” in Cuba, the challenge can be much more basic: getting paid

In October 1960, Fidel Castro’s government nationalized three food companies with significant interests belonging to the Swiss multinational. After years of negotiations, Havana and Bern reached an agreement in 1967 for 18,039,000 Swiss francs to compensate for property, rights and other interests affected by the revolutionary measures.

Switzerland committed to purchasing 40,000 tons of Cuban sugar annually for eight years, with part of that revenue used to pay off the compensation. In this way, Cuba was able to compensate those affected while simultaneously securing a buyer, obtaining foreign currency and preserving an economic link with a major foreign company.

Almost six decades later, the words have changed less than the problems. Cuba needs buyers, investment and hard currency more than ever, while foreign companies are once again demanding guarantees to get their money back. U.S. sanctions make transfers far more difficult today and explain a significant part of the deterioration, but even business representatives interested in maintaining ties with the island point to internal problems that Washington cannot solve.

Auge, meanwhile, prefers to see the glass as half full. Its new membership, the consultancy stated, will help “invigorate the way we do things” and allow its clients to worry only “about going far.” The experience of some of its new Swiss partners suggests that, before going far in Cuba, the challenge can be much more basic: getting paid.

Translated by GH

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U.S. Sanctions Reach the Bank Account of the Cuban Medical Mission in Italy

This is the account where the specialists transfer most of their salary once they receive it from Italian entities.

Cuban doctors, in an image shared on social media by Calabria Governor Roberto Occhiuto. / Facebook/Roberto Occhiuto.

14ymedio, Madrid, August 28, 2026 – The account of the Cuban Medical Services Commercialization Company (CSMC) at the Italian bank BPER has been blocked since the end of July, and everything seems to indicate that this was a decision by the institution itself to avoid exposure to possible U.S. sanctions. This was reported by Diario de Cuba in an article signed by Annarella Grimal and published this Thursday, based on several knowledgeable sources, including two members of the brigade in Calabria.

These sources, who requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, told the independent newspaper that transfers made to CSMC by the doctors have been returned and that the Commercialization Company “cannot access the deposited money” or carry out transactions from the end of July through the account the state organization holds at Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna (BPER).

According to Diario de Cuba, Calabrian healthcare entities deposit the doctors’ pay directly into their personal accounts on the 24th of each month. In a mechanism common to other missions, the specialists submit their pay statements to the mission’s officials, who calculate how much they may keep, and then, “voluntarily,” as one of the healthcare workers admitted in an interview with Associated Press last July, they hand over most of the money to the Commercialization Company.

“Of what is received for overtime, only 28.5% is theirs,” the independent newspaper asserts

In the case of Calabria, according to Diario de Cuba, the base salary stipulated by the Italy-Cuba Agreement is 4,700 euros, of which CSMC allows the healthcare worker to keep a maximum of 1,200 euros. “Of what is received for overtime, only 28.5% is theirs,” the independent newspaper asserts. The remainder must be transferred “within 24 hours” to the account at BPER that is now frozen. continue reading

As Diario de Cuba concludes, the measure “interrupts the final stage of the extraction scheme through which the Cuban state company collects most of the doctors’ salaries in Italy,” something for which these brigades have been identified by the U.S. and several international organizations as forced labor.

Faced with this setback, which Diario de Cuba dates to between July 24 and 28, the head of the Cuban Medical Mission in Italy, Luis Enrique Pérez Ulloa, “called an urgent meeting” and issued instructions on what to do next. According to one source, he “asked them to hold on to the money until a solution was found,” while another source said they were also advised to “take the money to Cuba during their vacations and hand it over there to a person assigned to collect it.”

In Italy, meanwhile, the same outlet reports, “they are investigating everything that is happening with the Cuban mission and the money transfers.” It is more than likely that the account freeze is related to the most recent U.S. sanctions against entities directly connected to the export of Cuban doctors, imposed on July 23.

At that time, not only was the Cuban Medical Services Commercialization Company placed on the blacklist, but Health Minister José Ángel Portal Miranda and the director of the Central Unit for Medical Cooperation, Gretza Sánchez Padrón were also. These sanctions, which follow the path set by the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, do not apply only to the entities and individuals named, but also to anyone who conducts transactions with them, who may likewise face sanctions.

That is why the Italian bank has decided, as a precaution, to freeze the CSMC account.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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