Author: 14ymedio

The “summary trial” of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara will be held this week, according to a statement denounced by members of the San Isidro Movement of which the artist is a member. The first of the oral hearings relates to “the insult to the national symbols, and will be held on Wednesday, March 11 at 9 am in the Municipal Court of 10 de Octubre, at Carmen and Juan Delgado, in the Víbora neighborhood.”

Several activists and independent journalists have been subjected to a police siege on Monday to prevent them from leaving their homes. Among those affected is the 14ymedio reporter, Luz Escobar.

The declaration of Cuban intellectuals, and other nationalities that, from the Avaaz platform gathers support and solidarity with Luis Manuel Otero, has already collected more than 2,700 signatures.

Several artists resident on the Island joined in to demand the release of Otero Alcántara with texts of solidarity in social networks, including singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez who, in a comment on his blog Segunda Cita said: “The country has enough problems with its destructive enemies and other internal ones, and its malfunctioning, for there to be a scandal about freedoms every five minutes.”

“There has to be another more sensible and intelligent way to deal with these issues that are obviously being addressed. There is no week in which there is not a show like this. It is a constant mockery. And it is shameful. I those who promote these policies in prison. They are discrediting the country,” he added.

Rodriguez believes that art “or at least a conception of it with many followers” must be “a provocation.”

“Why don’t we learn?” he says. “Why do we continue with those mediocrities that are from other times and countries? We are presenting a very sad impression of backwardness, of the Middle Ages. It’s not for Cuba to be like that, a country where in the mid-twentieth century wonderful art schools were built.

“How in the 21st century are we going to put young artists into ideological retreats?” he wonders. “I think we have to stop that clearly and vigorously. Because this kind of repeated attitude is a serious political problem.”

Another supporter, most anticipated in this case, was that of singer Haydée Milanés. “I ask for his immediate liberation and that with this gesture our country can take an important step towards respect and debate among Cubans,” the singer demanded in social networks.

A few hours earlier, singer-songwriter Pedro Luis Ferrer also referred to the artist’s imprisonment. “In the midst of an environment rarefied by laws and decrees that concern us and dismay everyone (not only those who are described as “dissidents”), intransigence is once again highly harmful to the spiritual health of our society. Clemency denotes energy; oppression does not. ”

“With all the respect that this shameful situation demands, I ask that the sensible request be met and that those who should never have been imprisoned be released, since everything that is alleged against them is highly debatable. The problems of the spirituality of a people can’t be resolved with the police. When will we learn?”

Art critic Orlando Hernández also joined in solidarity. “I am against this arrest, this trial and the entire hoax that has been armed against that artist, and I respect and admire his courage. I think his is a necessary work, especially since he questions and denounces the repression against freedom of thought, of word, of creation.”

“I am against his being imprisoned for defending with his skin what we all want and need, true freedom, which is not only to move our wings inside the cage, but to fly wherever anyone wants.”

The National Plastic Arts Prize winner René Francisco, wrote that if Luis Manuel Otero is not an artist, “it is an invalidation of the teachings received in the official art history programs at the ENA and the ISA that established performance art and artistic activism in our discernment (…) an endless list of artists whose body, energy and thought have tried to break the inertia and risk their privacy outdoors in the persistent search for their emancipation.”

He also expressed his disagreement with the artist’s imprisonment and added that “he would long for the forces and sanity” of cultural institutions “to accentuate common sense and stop this alarming process.”

“Enough of putting artists in jail for fun,” Cuban reggaeton Yosvanis Sierra Hernández, known as Chocolate, wrote on his Instagram account, along with a photo of the artist and the hashtag #LibertadParaLuisma (Freedom for Luisma — (Luis Manuel)).

Last week a group of intellectuals, both Cuban and of other nationalities, signed a letter in support of the artist and denounced that “he has been the victim of a campaign of defamation and harassment orchestrated by the Cuban Government as part of its implementation of Decree 349.”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is facing a penalty of two to five years in prison for the crimes for which he is being investigated: insult the national symbols and damage to property. According to activist Michel Matos, also a producer of the San Isidro Movement, the artist was transferred to the Valle Grande prison last Wednesday as a “precautionary measure.”

The authorities arrested Otero Alcantara on the afternoon of March 1 to prevent him from attending the LGTBIQ ’kiss-in’ before the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, a protest against the censorship of a scene from the movie Love, Simon in which two men kissed.

The San Isidro Movement also “launched a call from its Facebook platform, under the anonymous profile Free Luisma” for a public protest on Monday. The group thanked all the initiatives to support the release of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, but explains that the “current strategy” focuses on the legal defense of the artist.

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“Very afraid of a camera or some device that recorded their rights-violating threats, they stripped me looking for devices and even took my the glasses,” said the musician.

According to his testimony, the officers spoke to him in a threatening tone: “impunity is over for you” and “enough with the talking trash about the leaders of this country,” they said. They also warned him that they could prohibit him from leaving the country, a measure that the authorities use arbitrarily and more and more frequently against anti-establishment artists, independent journalists, opponents and human rights activists.

“I don’t know if the 2,000 pesos of fine are for ’trash talking’ about the tyrants of this country for allegedly spreading undue ’enemy’ propaganda or for the crime of using Facebook live. Communism is a paranormal phenomenon,” said Gorki Águila.

He summarized his concern with an allusion to the repression of April 2003 — which came to be called “the Black Spring” — when 75 opponents and independent journalists were arrested and sentenced to long sentences: “Spring came and its black flowers opened.”

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Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is facing a penalty of two to five years in prison for the crimes for which he is being investigated: outrage toward the national symbols and damage to property. According to activist Michel Matos, also a member of the San Isidro Movement, the artist was transferred to the Valle Grande prison on Wednesday “under a precautionary measure.”

The letter denounces that Otero Alcántara has suffered “multiple forced disappearances and detentions without judicial supervision that are human rights violations” and the accusation of “property abuse,” has the purpose of allowing the artist to be treated “as a common criminal.”

The Movement refuses to participate in any attempt by the State to “persecute and defame Otero Alcántara for the sole fact of being an artist and claiming his rights,” since they believe that after his arrest there has been a strategy that fosters “terror within the artistic environment and civil society, in order to win the complicity and silence of Cuban artists.”

“We refuse to cooperate with police and judicial repression. We refuse to testify against Otero Alcantara as a person, as a citizen of civic conscience or as an artist. The persecution of Otero Alcantara affects us all as artists, as Cubans and as human beings who love freedom and who respect their colleagues. Free Luisma*!” they conclude.

The authorities arrested Otero Alcantara last Sunday afternoon to prevent him from attending the LGTBIQ ’kissing call’ protest before the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television for the censorship of a scene from the movie Love, Simon in which two men kissed.

During the arrest, curator Claudia Genlui was beaten by a police and thrown to the ground on the public street, according to testimony. She clarified to the agents that, with Otero Alcantara, they were going out to get food because the protest call had been canceled, but their explanation was not heard. In addition, her cell phone was searched without documentation or an authorization for the search.

*LuisMa(nuel)

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They also said that the film will be broadcast “in its entirety” on the same program and that it will be announced “in due course.”

“The inclusive vision of Cuban society pushes daily against cultural stereotypes. It is everyone’s duty to walk on the side of the righteous and move forward as the country that constitutionally recognizes ’the culture of Cubans to the full dignity of man,’” they conclude.

The censorship of the scene unleashed many messages of denunciation in social networks and part of the LGBTI community launched a call for a “kissing protest” in front of the ICRT building this Sunday at one in the afternoon. Several activists denounced State Security pressures after the announcement.

LGBTI activist Isbel Díaz reported on her Facebook page the arbitrary detention of Jancel Morero, a member of that community. “Our colleague and activist Jancel Moreno has been detained by State Security when he was trying to reach the Cuban Radio and Television Institute, and they have taken him to a place far away to prevent him from arriving at the protest.”

To Díaz, the apologies of the institution “once again show” that the Cuban LGBTI community is strong.

“We have on LGBTIQ community in Cuba. And our strength is in the streets, and in the courage of people like Jancel Moreno, about whom we still don’t have information. What they did on TV was not a mistake. Editing a film requires a thousand permits. It is an expression of the system, which after the reactions in social networks, hurries to put a patch on it,” she wrote.

“But that system always has time to intimidate, to violate, to infringe on people’s rights. Censorship on Cuban TV is consistent with the decision to put equal marriage to a referendum. It is all part of the same thing. The strength of 11,000 is more than justified. And we still have a way to go,” denounced Díaz.

Díaz was referring to May 11, 2019 when State Security agents clashed with LGBTI community activists and supporters of this group who went to Havana Central Park to demonstrate in favor of diversity on the Island. At least seven people were violently arrested on that occasion.

Jancel Moreno managed to send a message on Sunday after his arrest in which he claimed that he had been taken to a place he did not know but was far from home.

Art curator Claudia Genlui Hidaldo reported live on Facebook that State Security violently arrested artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara. She also said that she was beaten by a police officer at the moment they both left the house on San Isidro Street, in order to take her cell phone.

“I have been beaten by the police. They took my phone because I was filming what was happening to Luis Manuel and a police officer beat me and threw me in the street,” she said, still upset and nervous.

Both she and Otero Alcántara had denounced that since the morning their home had been under siege with several surveillance points to prevent them from reaching 23rd and M Streets.

Although the kiss protest was canceled, a dozen activists mobilized and arrived at the entrance of the ICRT with flags of the LGBTI community.

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The police informed them that Otero Alcantara is in the detention center known as Vivac, accused of property damage.

“They told us at the national PNR address that he will be subjected to ‘abbreviated summary judgment’ and that this should take place before ten days have elapsed according to the current legal system,” explains the group in a note published on Facebook.

According to the group, the authorities have sought an accusation of greater severity than on previous occasions to increase the probability of a trial and, eventually, a subsequent conviction. In the past, the activist had been charged with the alleged crimes of aggravated contempt and outrage against national symbols which had no judicial path.

The San Isidro Movement has not taken on this situation unprepared. “We will start a campaign based on the freedom of Luis Manuel, as well as towards the fundamental freedoms of all Cubans. We will be in the streets and in the courts, and as long as we exist we will be raising our voices because the injustice that prevails is great and unacceptable. All our operational options are on the table,” they warn.

In addition, they called on all Cuban artists who want to contribute some creative idea that supports “those who defend freedom on the Island of Cuba” to join the campaign for the freedom of Otero Alcantara, and to demand support from cultural communities to “raise their voices before the injustice and the oppression that is experienced on the island, because these procedures can happen (and they do happen) to any citizen who has decided to live in freedom.”

Otero Alcántara has suffered almost twenty arrests in recent years, especially for his activism against Decree Law 349, which seeks to regulate dissemination and artistic creation, keeping control in state hands.

“This is the 17th detention of this independent artist, and they will continue… because there is one goal: to bend, to tire, to eliminate his creative spirit, his conviction, to condition his art … I really believe it impossible [for them to achieve this], at least for a long time,” Genlui explained on Facebook.

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In their presentation in Havana, the indigenous leaders explained that the Canadian Government has failed to bring to their villages the high standards of healthcare found elsewhere in that country and Cuba will be able to do so.

“We want our communities to have clinics, hospitals and other care centers, and I urge the other leaders of the ‘first nations’ to open up to this possibility of collaboration with Cuba, which we need so much,” said Daniels, who regrets that natives abandon their communities to move to big cities due to lack of support.

In an interview with the Russian agency Sputnik , Michelle Chantal Dubois, an advisor of Mohawk origin and promoter of the initiative, said that the problems of offering good quality healthcare in the indigenous villages are linked to the lack of capacity of the Canadian Government to train health services that serve these areas, so the project with Cuba, if it materializes, will cover that aspect as well.

“Even if Canada were willing to do so, it would be impossible to train a sufficient number of doctors. There are no doctors and nurses for all of Canada, […] 38% of them are foreigners and of those, a large number have been trained in Cuba,” said Dubois.

Among the problems that afflict these communities, according to Dubois, are alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide associated with poverty. “The Cuban vision of health is mainly focused on prevention. The goal is to prevent problems. This is really what we need. Cuban doctors are also sensitive to the reality of suicide, which is a serious problem in indigenous communities,” she pointed out in the interview.

The indigenous chief of Manitoba believes that individuals from the national health services experience a large cultural shock and remain very few days because they are part of an elite that is not prepared to face the living conditions of the indigenous people, and they expect the opposite of what those who arrive from the Isand will expect. “Cuban doctors take the time to adapt and integrate into the communities they go to. On the contrary, Canadian doctors seem to have little interest in the aboriginal reality,” Daniels said.

From the first contacts, at the end of last year, this current campaign developed by Cuba to attract new contracts was born. On December 5, 2019, Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Health, Marcia Cobas, delivered a speech in Ottawa to representatives of the native peoples, a large market that consists of 634 communities and about 1.6 million people.

Last year, Cuba increased its presence in new parts of the continent by negotiating with countries that were not previously in its sights. The French Parliament approved a project in July to reform the health system to respond to the demands of its overseas territories, which for months had been requesting to hire Cuban doctors.

The provision authorized the territories of the French Antilles to hire doctors and health workers from outside the European Union. The promoters of the idea lamented that the great distance that separates them from Europe, together with the laws, was leaving them without medical personnel.

At the beginning of 2019, French Guyana hired one hundred Cuban doctors, under an ordinance in force since 2005.

Far from there, but in the same country, a French town in the department of Ardèche (Privas) asked to be able to bring Cuban personnel to reopen the maternity hospital that they had to close in September due to lack of staff.

Cuba’s efforts are also very focused on the Middle East, where in recent years it has maintained numerous international missions in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

This latter country was the focus of an extensive article in the British newspaper The Guardian, which visted a hospital in Doha and found that each Cuban doctor received about 1,000 dollars a month, approximately 10% of what other foreign doctors earn in the country’s hsopitals. The rest of the money paid for the Cuban doctors, betwen $4,000 and $9,000 remain in the hands of the Cuban State.

This same newspaper published a report this month dedicated to analyzing the efforts of Donald Trump Administration to put an end to the international missions, which it describes as slavery, based on the the labor and salary conditions of the professionals that serve on them. For this article, The Guardian interviewed several doctors who said they were happy to do this work although they dared to confess their discomfort with the small percentage they receive relative to what the State earns.

The impact that the breaking of the huge contracts Cuba had had with countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia especially, although also in Uruguay, is unknown.

The Plaza of the Revolution also had the Mexican option, which it tried at the end of 2018 after Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president, but it was rejected by the president himself. Another instance was Venezuela, with whom Cuba maintains collaboration in all areas, although it has withdrawn part of its medical staff in that country.

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According to the Ministry, this resolution seeks “to acheive a better transparency in sales and in the way the cash is handled, using e-commerce platforms.

Depite the new local production programs for sand and gravel and construction blocks that have received plenty of attention by the official media in the last few years, the so-called rastros are unable to meet the high demand of a country where more than 60% the housing units are in a fair or poor condition.

This situation has contributed to theft, wrongful management, the arbitrary variation of prices and shortages of the most in-demand items, such as cement, steel bars, fibre cement tiles and zinc boards.

In these outlets that sell in Cuban pesos there is usually lack of doors, windows, bathroom fixtures, paint, plastic pipeline pieces and hydrolic and sanitary connections. The situation is even worse when it comes to ceramic tiles, concrete joists and water tanks.

Another alternative is the stores that sell only in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), where they have a limited offer of construction materials at high prices. At the so-called ’shoppings’, a P350 bag of cement, used for concrete roofing and kitchen counters, is worth 6 CUC (roughly $6 US). Depite this price, which equals the wages of one week’s work for an average professional working for the government, the demand of this product is still high.

Since the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the end of the Soviet subsidies, the national cement industry has suffered decades of decadence. In 1989, 3.7 million tonnes of cement were produced in the Island but by 1993 the number had dropped to 1.04 million.

Although slightly recovered, the recent years show disturbing data; such as 2017, when a little over 1.4 million tonnes of gray cement were produced in Cuba. According to a report by the Association of Producers, the numbers are still very far from the 5.2 million achieved by the Dominican Republic that same year, and also far from the amount produced by the Island itself in 1958, with a record of 4.27 million tonnes, according to Foresight Cuba.

It has been more than a year that this product has almost disappeared from the retail chain that sells in CUCs, while in the rastros it has been limited to customers who have been granted subsidies for the restoration of their houses damaged by  hurricanes or tornados, like the one that impacted more than 3,000 houses in Havana in January 2019.

After the hit of the tornado, the government granted a 50% discount on the cost of the construction materials for those affected by the natural disaster in the neighborhoods of Luyano, Regla, Guanabacoa, and Santo Suarez, and a 70%  discount on water tanks. However, the damages were way greater than the country’s capacity to produce or import many of the materials.

“It is necessary that the rastro in the Plaza de la Revolucion district starts selling products for the people who cannot count on a subsidy, as most of the buildings, especially in the Vedado neighborhood, are more than 60 years old and need some restoration and at that rastro they always say that they only have construction materials for those receiving subsidies,” complains Maricel, an internet user who reacted to the press release about the new measure from MINCIN (Ministry of Internal Commerce, for its acromyn in Spanish) published by the state newspaper Granma.

Others, such as Yunior, hope that the new measure “eradicates the smuggling of materials and we can all acquire them according to the needs of each one.” Smuggling materials is a widespread practice and one to which families who decide to repair their home must frequently appeal. In the informal market of the Island you can find many of the products stolen from the rastros and also other diverted from the state buildings.

“Everything for construction materials,” says an ad on one of the most popular classified digital sites in the country. “We have galvanized glazed doors and windows, cement, bricks, glass blocks, large slabs and all of the best quality, the best prices and the best deal in the market. Our stock is impressive and stable, and we have transportation available,” it adds.

Customers who are in a hurry and have more economic resources turn to this informal sales network, as they tire of waiting for products to appear in the state outlets.

“They gave me a subsidy to buy sand, cement and a water tank,” says a resident from La Timba neighborhood in Havana whose roof did not withstand the rains last summer. However, they have not yet supplied all the products needed at the state sales office closest to her home. “It does not matter if it is with magnetic card or with cash money in hand, the fact is that the materials are not there,” she laments.

At the entrance door to the premises, a sign indicates: “We are closed to the public and we are only attending to victims.” Outside, a dozen informal sellers approach the frustrated customers who arrive and do not qualify for materials. With the informal sellers, payment can be in “Cuban pesos, convertibles, dollars, euros or pounds sterling,” one boasts.

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Last Thursday they hacked the web page of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), in Cuba and for some hours messages against Díaz-Canel and Fidel and Raúl Castro appeared.

“Fidel Castro is the greatest assassin the Cuban people have ever known,” at the top of the web page, along with phrases such as “we demand freedom,” and “down with the dictatorship.”

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Facebook account of “Anonymous Cuba Oficial,” a group previously unknown on the island, whose page on the social network was recently created and has only two posts.

“We decided to launch this attack against the Embassy of Spain in Cuba because of its support for the Cuban regime. If you support the communists and repressors you are our enemy,” the group wrote when it assumed responsibility for pirating the AECID website in Cuba.

Although it belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this portal is administered from the local headquarters of the AECID in Havana, attached to the Spanish embassy.

“These are the articles that the people must read so that they know the truth, in the 21st century the internet has opened the eyes of many people,” added Anonymous Cuba in its message, in relation to the publications inserted to replace the original from the Cuban portal of AECID.

“Fidel sent for Che to be killed and all the Cuban people know that,” “Raúl Castro is a murderer” and “Down With Díaz-Canel (the current Cuban president) and the Castro regime” were other phrases that appeared for hours on the website, which is currently inactive.

The group said “this is only the beginning of what awaits them” and added: “You will not escape from our hands, we are there within your system and we know everything you do, every key you press, what pages you search on the Internet, all your secrets will be revealed.”

“Freedom for the people of Cuba and our brothers,” the message ended.

The Spanish Embassy and the AECID office in Havana have declined to comment on the attack and refer inquiries to the Office of Diplomatic Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid.

This is not the first time that a digital site hosted on Cuban servers has suffered an attack. In May of last year the official newspaper Granma was hacked and on its cover photos of opponents were published being repressed by the police. The Alliance group claimed responsibility for that action and placed its logo on the cover of the official organ of the Communist Party next to Raúl Castro’s photo.

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“Every day Venezuelans die because of the shortage of medicines, however the dictatorship prefers to send cargo to Cuba, rather than to help its own people. This only reaffirms that Nicolás Maduro is a puppet of the Castro regime, international pressure against Havana will not stop.”

Last January it transpired that 150 BioCubaFarma specialists had to leave their jobs on the Island due to a staff cut. Although the company initially hid it, it was forced by the independent press to admit it, which made the news public through the testimony of the workers.

In a statement, BioCubaFarma admitted that “due to the real situation with the unavailability of raw materials, the levels of drug production have decreased.”

The cuts in the pharmaceutical industry began at least two years ago, causing shortages in analgesics, antibiotics, recommended medications for heart disease and insulin for diabetics.

In the early 2000s, to increase its imports, Cuba promoted the pharmaceutical industry after signing collaboration agreements with the Government of Hugo Chávez that flooded the Venezuelan pharmaceutical industry.

“Venezuela went from being a market that barely received 0.53% of the exports of medicines that left Cuba in 1998, to be the destination of 97% of the drugs produced by laboratories in Havana in 2009, and by 2014 had become the almost exclusive destination of its pharmaceutical exports”, revealed a report by 14ymedio and Armando.info.

In 15 years, Cuba received some 2.2 billion dollars in revenue from sales of medicines to Venezuela. With Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan economic crisis, which has reduced the country’s GDP by more than 40%, forced Caracas to reduce imports by 76% in the last four years.

Last year it was Cuba that sent medicines to Venezuela. In February 2019, the Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, reported the arrival of a shipment of 933 tons of medicines and medical materials from Cuba, but also from China, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and “some direct purchases” of the Ministry.

Alvarado explained last week that Venezuela has expanded epidemiological surveillance to face the possible arrival of the coronavirus in the country, but experts consulted by the EFE agency have warned that it is the worst prepared country in the region to face the disease, precisely because of the lack of medicines and supplies, the difficulties of the public health sector and the lack of diagnostic centers.

Julio Castro and Jaime Torres, both infectologists, consider that the protocol is insufficient and that strict measures are required to stop the expansion of Covid-19, which Venezuela has escaped so far.

“The only way to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading is with very strict, very massive measures, with the participation of the population, and health and safety authorities that are not easy to implement,” says Torres.

The doctor does not doubt that there are detection kits in Venezuela, but he believes that on the negative side is that there are not many diagnostic centers prepared, along with “the difficulties of the public health sector, hospital capacity, ability to provide services.”

The Venezuelan government has implemented surveillance at airports, a measure that has not proven effective and in many countries does not apply because the symptoms may go unnoticed during the incubation period.

Maduro said last week that “there are many analyses in the world that show that the coronavirus could be a strain created for the biological war against China (…) and against the peoples of the world.” Venezuela, he said, “fortunately” has a plan to deal with “this attack.”

The official Cuban press has also speculated on this hypothesis, although the partners are not the only subscribers to conspiracy theories. The US government began by minimizing the virus last January, stating that it was a common cold. Donald Trump, who said Friday that Covid-19 was a “hoax” of the Democrats to win the elections, had to change his tone the next day, after the first death in the US from the virus, and he announced new measures and restrictions.

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With all this, this newspaper confirms that it is still working on innovation and technological development, as well as being very attentive to offering a fast and pleasant experience for users, both in substance and in form.

This renovation is also aimed at readers who visit us through their cell phones, who represent almost 60% of our daily traffic, so that they can interact more effectively with our site and enhance their ability to spread our work on social networks and other internet services. Each internet user can thus become a promoter of our journalistic work.

The mobile version is still in a testing phase, so it is possible that users may have difficulty accessing some content, such as the comments area. We are sorry for the inconvenience, we promise to solve these problems as soon as possible and we invite you to give your opinion in the comment space of the web version.

Our media is still subject to censorship imposed by the Cuban authorities on national servers. However, the use of VPN services and anonymous proxies allows you to bypass this barrier.

The new mobile version, which is not an application for Android, iOS or other operating systems, is a qualitative leap in access to 14ymedio, which will be incorporating additional improvements in the coming weeks. Users should not take any additional action to navigate this version, which is automatically loaded when accessing from cell phones or tablets. We hope you like it.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.