The iconic Peñas Altas recreational complex remains practically closed due to the energy crisis and poor state management
There, where orchestras once played and the buzz of young people mixed with the waves breaking against the rocks, faded railings now predominate. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 20 July 2026 / The highway enters Matanzas along the coast, and before the bridges and the city skyline come into view, a building with modern lines still catches the eye. Painted blue and white, with large windows and the name of Matanzas crowning the roof in huge red letters, the gastronomic and cultural complex El Bahía retains the elegance of another era. From a distance, the photos are deceiving: it looks like a place ready to welcome tourists and families. Get closer, though, and it becomes clear that much of that splendor has been left locked behind padlocked doors.
Located in Peñas Altas, right on the coastline, El Bahía is no ordinary restaurant for the people of Matanzas. For decades it was a gathering place for family celebrations, concerts, dance nights, and dinners with one of the best views of Matanzas Bay. Today, however, the picture has gone silent.
“It’s a shame that such a beautiful place stays closed practically every day of the week. It only operates when there’s power,” Horacio, a local resident who collects empty beer and soda cans to sell to the state as raw materials, tells 14ymedio.
“It’s a shame that such a beautiful place stays closed practically every day of the week. It only operates when there’s power”
The man, his skin weathered by sun and sea salt, recalls when on weekend nights it was hard to find a spot to park an almendrón [a classic American car used as a private taxi] nearby. “Now you can walk through here and all you hear is the sea,” he says, pointing toward the ranchón continue reading
and the old Las Terrazas cabaret.
There, where orchestras once played and the buzz of young people mixed with the waves breaking against the rocks, faded railings now predominate, weeds are growing across the outdoor areas, and a decline seems to be advancing faster than any recovery plan. “That whole area needs proper maintenance. If it keeps being neglected like this, it will end up costing twice as much to fix later. I think that before this keeps falling apart, the Provincial Lodging Company should lease it to someone willing to invest here,” Horacio suggests.
On the second floor, the restaurant El Mirador offered a privileged view of the bay. From its windows, diners could watch ships entering the port while they had lunch. For years, a meal service for vulnerable people also operated there.
Photo caption: Painted blue and white, with large windows and the name of Matanzas crowning the roof in huge red letters, the gastronomic and cultural complex El Bahía retains the elegance of another era / 14ymedio
“From Monday to Saturday they used to sell us a fairly decent meal for 20 pesos, but that’s stopped too,” Horacio laments. “They tell us they can’t cook because there’s no power or gas. The head chef assured me that lunches would come back once conditions improve, but I don’t put much faith in those promises anymore.”
The ongoing blackouts plaguing Cuba’s economy have ended up reaching even a place meant precisely for leisure. The energy crisis forces the site to close whenever there’s no electricity, but the problems go well beyond power outages.
A few steps away is another Matanzas resident, who for years worked cleaning the complex’s public restrooms. Today he sells pizzas for a private business.
“Especially on Saturdays, this place used to be packed until two or three in the morning,” the man recalls. “The electricity problem has hit us hard, but so has the lack of management. If people know they can come from downtown Matanzas and find the place closed or with nothing on offer, they simply stop coming.”
Both agree that the complex’s reputation has deteriorated at the same pace as its facilities.
Both agree that the complex’s reputation has deteriorated at the same pace as its facilities. “Word has already gotten around all of Matanzas that the El Faro bar almost never has a variety of drinks and that the cocktails aren’t made the way they used to be,” adds the former employee. “Anyone with money wants to spend it somewhere worthwhile, not come here to try their luck.”
The paradox is even greater because just a few years ago the complex seemed to be starting a recovery. In October 2023, a modern Ocio Club with virtual reality equipment and video games was inaugurated there, presented by the state press as one of the main new recreational attractions to celebrate the city’s 330th anniversary. Authorities said at the time that the project would expand entertainment options for children and young people and revitalize the property.
However, the momentum appears to have quickly run out. The building, which still retains an attractive architecture and a prime seafront location, depends – like so many other things in Cuba – on an electrical supply that almost never arrives and on promises of recovery that have taken far too long to become reality.
Translated by GH
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An Ocac report reveals that suicide is the leading cause of death, with 33 cases, and warns of sentences of up to ten years for those who survive an attempt
Photo caption: Young people who try to evade military service can face sentences of up to five years in prison. / Luis Herrera/Escambray
14ymedio, Madrid, July 20, 2026 / At least 97 young people have died while performing Active Military Service (SMA) in Cuba between 2001 and 2026. The figure appears in a report from the Cuban Citizen Audit Observatory (Ocac) – an independent entity run by the think tank Cuba Siglo 21 – which also concludes that suicide is the leading cause of death among recruits and warns of an increasingly restrictive system, with little transparency and no mechanisms for accountability when a tragedy occurs.
According to the report published this Monday, drawn from a registry of cases verified by Archivo Cuba and independently cross-checked, of the 97 deaths of young recruits, 33 correspond to suicides, or 34% of the total. The report also notes an increase in reported suicides in recent years and highlights that 2025 was the year with the most cases: 22 – although the authors note that this increase may also reflect a greater ability to document and publicize these events.
The study stresses that these figures represent a documented minimum. The organization notes that the Cuban state does not publish official statistics on deaths during military service and states that there are dozens of additional cases still pending verification. Victims’ families frequently report contradictory official accounts, difficulties accessing forensic reports, and a lack of independent investigations that would reveal what actually happened.
The report also notes an increase in reported suicides in recent years and highlights that 2025 was the year with the most cases: 22
Of the 97 deaths reported since 2001, the report attributes 25 to “serious negligence,” 22 to accidents, six to lack of medical care, six to killings, two to disappearances, and in three other cases the cause of death could not be determined. In the 63 cases where age could be confirmed, the average is 18.7 years, and seven of the deceased were under 18. continue reading
Ocac also charges that, rather than seeking solutions to this alarming situation, Cuban law has toughened penalties against those who try to avoid military service. The law keeps service mandatory for men from age 17, requires registration starting at age 16, and expressly denies the right to conscientious objection. The Military Penal Code, passed in 2023, stiffened penalties for those who attempt to evade military service, with sentences of up to five years in prison, and also punishes self-harm, feigning illness, or falsifying medical documents to obtain a discharge.
The report further states that the Military Prosecutor’s Office can treat a suicide attempt as an act of desertion, with sentences exceeding ten years in prison for those who survive.
Testimonies gathered by the researchers describe extreme methods used to try to leave military service: self-inflicted wounds with weapons, swallowing sharp objects, machete wounds to the ankles and knees, or deliberately caused fractures. Several former recruits said that, for many young people, self-harm ends up being the only way out of a system they describe as oppressive and degrading. When that path doesn’t work either, the report adds, some come to see suicide as the only way out.
The Military Prosecutor’s Office can treat a suicide attempt as an act of desertion, with sentences exceeding ten years in prison for those who survive
The document argues that Cuba’s legal framework conflicts with several international commitments taken on by Havana, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Labour Organization conventions, by allowing the enlistment of minors under 18 and the use of recruits for agricultural, construction, or guard duties that, according to the authors, go beyond the strictly military nature of the service.
Ocac also warns of repeated reports of young people sent into military service despite suffering from psychological problems or illnesses incompatible with handling weapons. As an example, it cites the case of Dailier Rodríguez Tamayo, a 19-year-old who died in March of this year at a military unit in El Cotorro, Havana. The recruit had a ruling from the Naval Hospital advising against his carrying weapons due to his mental health, but he remained assigned to the unit regardless.
Another point the report highlights is the opacity surrounding recruits’ deaths, as in the case reported by Mercedes Roque, mother of Antonio Alejandro Rossi Roque, another young man who died during military service under circumstances that have still not been clarified. The woman blamed the unit’s commanders and said that “they all keep covering for each other,” while she continues to wait for a convincing explanation of her son’s death.
The absence of independent investigations and the lack of oversight mechanisms have allowed these events to be repeated for decades
The report also recalls two of the best-known tragedies of recent years: the deaths of four recruits in the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base in August 2022, and the explosion at a military warehouse in Melones, Holguín, in January 2025, which killed nine young people performing military service along with four officers.
The authors contrast the evolution of military service on the island with that of other Latin American countries, where mandatory conscription has been reduced or eliminated in recent decades. Cuba has gone the opposite way, strengthening criminal penalties and maintaining one of the most rigid recruitment systems in the region. The report concludes that the problem extends beyond the military sphere and also affects the rights of young people and their families. In its view, the lack of transparency, the absence of independent investigations, and the lack of oversight mechanisms have caused these events to repeat for decades without any fundamental change to the system.
Translated by GH.
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The transportation crisis and blackouts turn the trip home into another shift of endurance for healthcare workers in Matanzas
The bus designated to transport healthcare workers to different municipalities in the province should have already picked up the staff from the Maternity, Pediatric, and Faustino Pérez hospitals. However, no one knows when it will arrive.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, July 18, 2026 / At 10:30 in the morning, the sun is already beating down on the Versalles neighborhood, and the shade of a leafy tree becomes the busiest waiting room in the Public Health system in Matanzas. There, on a concrete wall, doctors, nurses, and technicians rest with the same posture as someone who has been awake far too long. Some have taken off their shoes to relieve swollen feet after 24 hours on shift. Others hold their mobile phones, hoping for news about a bus that should have left a while ago and which, once again, is nowhere to be seen.
The white coats are still on, but they are no longer a symbol of medical authority – only of exhaustion.
The bus meant to carry healthcare workers to different municipalities in the province should already have picked up staff from the Materno, Pediátrico, and Faustino Pérez hospitals. Yet no one knows when it will arrive. The scene repeats so often that few are surprised anymore. Only the level of accumulated exhaustion changes. continue reading
The delay is “a mess” that happens practically every week, one the authorities seem to have grown accustomed to ignoring
Maricela, a nurse with 31 years of experience, watches the clock with a mixture of resignation and indignation. She says the delay is “a mess” that happens practically every week, one the authorities seem to have grown accustomed to ignoring.
“Given how critical the transportation situation is, this is the only way to manage it for those of us who depend on a salary. I’m about to request a transfer to the Jovellanos Polyclinic, because with this uncertainty over whether the bus will come or not, it’s impossible to work,” she tells 14ymedio. The hours without sleep are still visible on her face.
Around her, the conversations all turn on the same subject. They are not talking about diagnoses or patients, but about missed schedules, endless routes, and broken promises. One nurse absent-mindedly checks a backpack full of belongings; another fans herself with a yellow folder while calculating how long it will take her to get home.
“Those of us who work at the Materno never know what time in the morning we’ll get out of here. It’s at our own risk,” Maricela sums up. For many, the problem doesn’t end once the bus finally shows up. A doctor who makes the trip to Limonar twice a week says the journey has become a real ordeal.
“This very day, if the bus doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to go to the taxi stand at the terminal. It’s 2,000 pesos to Jagüey Grande, an amount I can’t afford to pay more than once on my salary.” / 14ymedio
“At the hospitals themselves, there are already people off the street who, without any shame, ride comfortably seated, while those of us who are supposed to be the ones benefiting from the service have to stand, packed in like sardines,” he says. According to him, the vehicle makes stops all along the way to pick up private passengers who pay the drivers directly.
“It picks up anyone it comes across, with backpacks, sacks, or goods. Their business is pocketing the money, without caring that the contract between Public Health and Ómnibus Transmetro was meant to meet our needs, not create more problems,” he complains.
When he manages to get on, he knows he will probably spend much of the trip standing by the door, surrounded by bags and bundles that other passengers are carrying to sell in rural communities.
Breakdowns, fuel shortages, and blackouts affect the operation of state transportation and end up extending the workday well beyond official hours. After a night attending to births, pediatric emergencies, or critical patients, many healthcare workers must spend several additional hours simply getting home, or be prepared to pay a private driver to take them.
Not even Elena, a well-known nurse who has completed three international missions, can hide the discouragement and indignation the transportation crisis causes her.
“After a shift full of hardships, we don’t even have safe transportation to get back to our towns. That’s the bare minimum the Government should guarantee.”
“I’m going to do everything I can to keep just one shift a month whose departure isn’t on a Monday or a Friday, because those are the most difficult days to get transportation,” she says. She explains that many professionals from outlying municipalities no longer want to work at the provincial hospitals precisely because of the uncertainty of getting home.
“After a shift full of hardships, we don’t even have safe transportation to get back to our towns. That’s the bare minimum the Government should guarantee.”
Her motivation, she admits, has been wearing thin from all the waiting.
More than once she has thought about requesting leave and looking for any other job that would let her earn more money and live with less frustration.
She always carries cash in her purse in case she has to resort to private transportation. “Thanks to my husband, who’s self-employed,” she clarifies.
“This very day, if the bus doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to go to the taxi stand at the terminal. It’s 2,000 pesos to Jagüey Grande, an amount I can’t afford to pay more than once on my salary. If I do, how do I make it to the end of the month?”
The question hangs unanswered beneath the trees of Versalles. No one responds. Perhaps because everyone already knows the answer. It is the same one that has led so many doctors and nurses to hang up their white coats for good, worn out not only by the shortages inside the hospitals, but also by the endless wait, week after week, for a bus that almost never arrives on time.
Translated by GH.
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What Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro fails to understand is something extremely basic and obvious: to desire ‘the people’ to live as he does, if taken seriously, requires the disappearance of the system that sustains his luxuries
Raúl Castro and his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez, ‘El Cangrejo’, in a photo from 2009. / EFE / Alejandro Ernesto
14ymedio, Montreal, Karel J. Leyva, July 18, 2026 / Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (known as El Cangrejo, ‘The Crab’), Raúl Castro’s grandson, dressed in Hugo Boss, Hermès, and a steel Rolex, recently told USA Today that it pains him that the Cuban people cannot live as he does.
Criticism of his hypocrisy was not long in coming: a “revolutionary” who not only lives in luxury but flaunts it openly while the people live in the most abject misery; a mere bodyguard with communication difficulties who feels he is helping to improve the situation of a country destroyed and plunged into darkness by his most admired figures, whose initials he has engraved on his gold medallion.
Beyond the heir’s tasteless joke, beyond the moral lapse, beyond the deep revulsion his cynicism provoked, his “pain” reveals a paradox that perhaps not even he manages to grasp.
El Cangrejo does not live well despite Cuba living badly: he lives well because Cuba lives badly
El Cangrejo does not live well despite Cuba living badly: he lives well because Cuba lives badly. The misery, hunger, and darkness of the Cuban people, their physical and moral deterioration, are the very condition that makes his opulence possible. The same apparatus that lets him carry classified reports in a Ferragamo briefcase while plundering the country is the one that produces the shortages El Cangrejo claims to lament. continue reading
Beyond his absurd assumption (that it pains him that the people don’t wear Rolexes and thousand-dollar sneakers, as if that were the people’s aspiration, as if that were the standard by which to judge a nation’s wellbeing, as if his lifestyle were the measure of all things, as Protagoras would say), what El Cangrejo fails to understand is something extremely basic and obvious: wanting the people to live as he does, taken seriously, requires the disappearance of the system that sustains his luxuries and those of the entire elite that controls the country.
His “it pains me” is, in fact, a phrase with no possible referent: it points to no world that Rodríguez Castro could coherently want. And yet he said it, in an interview he gave while explicitly positioning himself as a spokesman representing the interests of the Cuban nation.
More than a confession of double standards, El Cangrejo was trying on the suit of a presentable successor before the only audience that today decides whether Cuba has a democratic transition or merely an inheritance. The message, translated, is: here is someone you can negotiate with, without touching the apparatus of oppression.
The people do not need to live like El Cangrejo. They need the system of privilege that sustains his luxuries to disappear, while millions of Cubans barely manage to survive amid scarcity
One could argue that he is at least more honest than some of his relatives, who are always in olive-green uniform, always denying their privilege, while he displays his to the entire world without the slightest remorse. But his stance is either a public-relations technique or simply the carelessness of someone accustomed to feeling and appearing superior to the rest of Cubans for the sole fact of having been born into the family that has oppressed them for decades.
If it truly pains him that the people don’t live as he does, is he willing to stop living as he lives? If his pain is genuine, would he sell his belongings to ease the hunger of the elderly, to buy electric generators? Would he sell his thick gold chain, his sneakers from the luxury French house Hermès, or his Ferragamo briefcase to relieve, even slightly, that pain? Would he also give up everything he would never dare show in front of a camera?
But there is a prior question, and a more fundamental one — the only one that determines whether his pain is sincere: would he renounce the apparatus itself (the conglomerate, the command, the place he occupies by blood rather than merit), would he accept ceasing to be the “presentable candidate,” would he give up the succession he so covets, and above all, would he disappear from the sight of Cubans forever?
The people do not need to live like El Cangrejo. They need the system of privilege that sustains his luxuries to disappear, while millions of Cubans barely manage to survive amid scarcity. But if that system disappeared, so too would the conditions that produced El Cangrejo. And that, precisely, is what El Cangrejo could never want.
Translated by GH
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‘The Economist’ tells the story of the ordeal facing Cuban doctors through the tale of two siblings who chose different paths: staying on the mission and leaving it
In May, the medical mission in Mexico was warned that doctors could be brought back to Cuba given the current situation. / Government of Michoacán
14ymedio, Madrid, July 17, 2026 / In the midst of the US State Department’s offensive against Cuba’s medical cooperation programs, the prestigious British weekly The Economist published an extensive report this Friday that portrays, through the cases – very distant in time from one another – of two siblings in the medical field, the human and economic fracture that this lucrative labor-export mechanism has bequeathed to the island.
The journalist, a correspondent based in Mexico, spent six months talking with about thirty Cuban doctors who have taken part in the government’s programs, at least half of whom have deserted, while the rest remain in Cuba. The story that anchors the report is that of two siblings, both doctors, who recount very different experiences, though both reflect a shared outlook: choosing a path that would lift them out of poverty, only to end up wanting to flee.
Jorge, 40, is the one who doesn’t manage to leave. He has been working since the start of this year – when he received a call from a Health Ministry official proposing it to him – in a rural enclave in Mexico. He was given only hours to pack his bags, but he didn’t hesitate. He would earn 1,700 dollars in the country, compared with the 14 dollars he receives in Cuba, where he lives with his partner, Bryan, in a province identified only as “far from Havana.” It wasn’t the first time he had done this either, but on this occasion what weighed most heavily was his exhaustion with the blackouts, with living off remittances and gifts from patients: tamales and beans. He recalls from the previous time, in Mexico City during the pandemic, how he would look at stores packed with everything. “I ate so much I felt sick,” the article states.
He now works in a remote region rife with violence, but one that lets him send all kinds of things back to Cuba: a small motorbike, a hard drive full of pirated content, and even solar panels. “I would rather be in Cuba with my family,” he says, admitting that what drives him isn’t humanitarianism but continue reading
money. He believes that is what motivates everyone, though the journalist notes that among those interviewed she found a bit of everything.
He recalls from the previous time, in Mexico City during the pandemic, how he would look at stores packed with everything. “I ate so much I felt sick,” the article states.
Jorge likes the work in Mexico. Patients appreciate him, he lives simply – he doesn’t pay rent – and he has hot water and internet, things that are impossible in Cuba. He also works fewer than 35 hours a week, since workers head home early before violence takes over the streets. Even so, he keeps turning over in his mind whether or not it’s in his interest to desert. He lives with the nagging doubt of whether, by staying calm and compliant, he is helping to prop up the regime.
In Cuba, the journalist meets Bryan, Jorge’s partner. He laughs when asked whether the doctors are slaves, as the US claims, or humanitarian heroes, as the regime portrays them. “Both things are true. Calling them ‘slaves’ is an exaggeration, especially in a country marked by slavery. Doctors should earn more, but it’s also fair that they contribute,” he says. He adds: “I’m the son of a poor Black woman who cleaned floors to make a living, but thanks to the Revolution I was able to become an engineer. I never paid a cent.”
Jorge, meanwhile, has begun to consider the idea of fleeing. But he is afraid. He recounts the insults hurled, in the brigade’s WhatsApp group, at one of the doctors who abandoned a mission. “We have a rat,” the group leader wrote, asking everyone to send in their opinions. “They wrote horrible things about him. They called him a deserter, a traitor, scum,” he says.
He has that experience within his own household. His half-sister Elisa is the other central figure in this story. She was 24 in 2013, when she joined the medical program to go to Venezuela. At that time there were about 32,000 health workers in the Barrio Adentro mission. She left immediately. “I didn’t have time to grasp how dangerous it was. I felt it was the only option,” she says. Her faith in the Revolution was far greater than Jorge’s, who was raised by their grandparents. She was influenced by her father, a state worker firmly committed to Fidelismo.
Elisa internalized “the idea that she was going to help the Venezuelan people” and left full of enthusiasm, but that wasn’t the only reason. She earned 200 dollars a month, ten times what she made in Cuba, though calm was in short supply where she was posted. Her schedule was 24 hours on duty and 24 hours off, she treated between 60 and 100 patients, and on one occasion a member of a local gang dragged in his unconscious leader, who was bleeding from a gunshot wound. “Save him or we’ll kill you,” he told her.
When she returned to Cuba on vacation she felt euphoric. She bought her mother an air conditioner, a washing machine, and a television, she had a debit card and a 30% discount on household goods purchases. She even put up a Christmas tree, her first “counterrevolutionary” act. But by the end of her vacation, back in Venezuela, she started to think. “I left Cuba with my mind caged. In Venezuela, I began to wake up,” she says.
What bothered her most was how well the Venezuelan elite lived while the population went hungry. There were also other conditions, such as the housing – the back room of a police station shared with 14 other Cubans – the curfew until six in the evening, being unable to leave the state, being unable to have relationships with local people and, of course, being unable to voice a different opinion. When her superiors discovered that a member of the group wanted to desert, they interrogated everyone. “It’s a horrible feeling. You start to distrust everyone, even your own countrymen.”
When her superiors discovered that a member of the group wanted to desert, they interrogated everyone. “It’s a horrible feeling. You start to distrust everyone, even your own countrymen.”
Elisa decided to take advantage of the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program, which was in effect between 2006 and 2016 and under which the United States allowed doctors who abandoned the island’s official missions to emigrate legally. More than 8,000 physicians did so. She left through Colombia via a dangerous route, guided by coyotes. In Cuba, her mother soon received visits from State Security, daily for three weeks. They withdrew 4,800 dollars from her bank account. Her friends insulted her on social media, her best friend stopped speaking to her, and, worst of all, so did her brother Jorge, upset because it derailed his own career.
Elisa now lives in Miami, where she works as a medical insurance broker – she chose not to have her degree validated – is married to an Iraq War veteran, and has two children. The whole family are ardent supporters of Donald Trump, even though she admits she fears for her current immigration status. She also doesn’t want to go to Cuba, afraid she would be identified as a doctor and not be allowed to leave again, amid a dire shortage of doctors and medical resources. The Economist also visited hospitals on the island and saw the collapse, amid total darkness.
In Mexico, Jorge admits he envied his sister – “She was so young when she left…” – and regrets the day he showed his contempt for her, though he still resents that she didn’t think of the rest of the family. In May, mission chiefs in Mexico warned the doctors in a video conference that they had to be ready in case they needed to return to Cuba “at any moment” because the island was “at war.” Jorge panicked and, although his colleagues assured him this was routine, he remains afraid. “I don’t want to go back,” he admits. His doubts are so great that, on one hand, he has consulted a lawyer about the possibility of staying in Mexico, but at the same time he has put his name on the list for the next mission, in 2027.
Teresa, Jorge and Elisa’s mother, lives in Cuba. The correspondent visited her there during her time on the island. The house still has the appliances bought with money from the Venezuelan mission, but the roof was torn off in a hurricane and is now covered with a tarp. She sums up her children’s story simply. “They’re good kids, but my daughter is braver than my son.”
Translated by GH.
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The limit will now be set by individual institutions, the Gaceta says, but that is already what was happening in practice
Branch of Banco Metropolitano at Belascoaín and Zanja, in Central Havana. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, July 17, 2026 / As of Monday, the maximum limit of 5,000 pesos for cash payments and withdrawals, established in Cuba two years ago, will no longer be in effect. This is set out in the special edition of the Official Gazettepublished this Friday, in a rule issued by the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC, by its Spanish acronym) containing just two provisions.
The first repeals two articles of Resolution 111, which, on August 2, 2023, amid the country’s cash shortage, imposed a 5,000-peso ceiling on bank transactions and required that, once that amount was exceeded in a single operation, cards or electronic payment channels had to be used instead.
In its statement of grounds, the BCC refers to “the economic and social changes approved” – a clear reference to the 176 measures announced with the aim of liberalizing the economy – and to the “goal of making more efficient use of available cash,” for which reason “it is necessary to amend the aforementioned Resolution 111 by suspending the established limit, until conditions in the country allow for a more flexible scheme.”
As for the second provision, the Central Bank determines that the “petty cash fund for minor payments” will be agreed upon “between the commercial banks and the economic actor
This fund, it continues, will be “managed by mutual agreement between the commercial banks and state enterprises; higher-level business management organizations; budgeted entities; non-agricultural cooperatives; agricultural cooperatives; agricultural producers; individual farmers; commercial fishermen; micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises; local development projects; self-employed workers; artists and continue reading
creators; foreign investment arrangements and associative forms created under the Law on Associations, as well as natural and legal persons if they carry out legally authorized commercial and service activities, described as covered parties under Articles 2 and 3 of the aforementioned Resolution 111.”
As for the second provision, the Central Bank determines that the “petty cash fund for minor payments” will be agreed upon “between the commercial banks and the economic actor, taking into account criteria such as: income received into the checking account for tax purposes; cash deposits made; volume and proportion of transactions carried out through Online Payment; use of the extra cash-window service; nature of the economic activity; conditions in the local area; and cash availability at those banks.”
The new resolution – which takes effect three days after its publication in the Gaceta, that is, on July 20 – in practice simply puts on paper what was already happening: depending on how much cash was available, each branch set its own, different limit. “It was almost never 5,000 pesos,” says a retiree from Nuevo Vedado, in Havana. “The last time I went to a bank, the one at Marino and Conill, they were only giving out 1,000 pesos per person, in 20-peso bills.”
In Luyanó, a neighbor says, a few weeks ago they were only handing out 500 pesos per person. And from Sancti Spíritus people report an even more dramatic figure: a 200-peso limit per person. “That doesn’t even buy a soda,” the affected resident laments.
And that is only if you’re lucky – that is, if the bank branch has a minimum amount on hand, or if it even has power, which is even rarer these days. About thirty people were crowded into the Banco Metropolitano branch at Belascoaín and Zanja, in Central Havana, this very Friday, due to the lack of electricity. “You mean there’s not going to be a limit on withdrawals anymore?” exclaimed an elderly woman upon being told of the new rule. “Not that it makes any difference to me, since there’s no cash anyway.”
Translated by GH.
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Elías recounts how, at age 16, he came to wave the national flag at the corner of Toyo, standing atop an overturned police patrol car
Elías Rizo León visiting Madrid to mark the fifth anniversary of ’11J’ (11 July 2021). / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Madrid, July 16, 2026 / Elías Rizo León was just 16 years old on 11 July 2021, but his image -holding the Cuban flag as he stood atop a police patrol car that the crowd had overturned, amid the protest at the corner of Toyo, on Calzada de 10 de Octubre – became one of the most iconic images of that historic day of protest. Five years after that social outburst, and following a clandestine flight that took him through Russia, Serbia, and Greece, Elías now lives in Alicante, awaiting a ruling on his application for international protection. Visiting Madrid to mark the fifth anniversary of July 11, we spoke with him about memory, exile, forced maturity, and the certainty that Cuba’s path to freedom is one with no turning back.
Question: Let’s go back to the day before the outburst. Who were you then? How old were you, what were you doing, and what interested you on July 10?
Answer: The day before July 11 I was just an ordinary kid. I was enjoying my adolescence with my friends, listening to music, going out, meeting up with my friends. I had just turned 16; I had celebrated my birthday only a month and four days earlier, on June 7.
Q: By then you already had a phone with internet access. How did that shape the way you saw the reality of the island?
A: Yes, I already had social media. I got my information through independent Cuban outlets, and once the internet started reaching us, I began researching on my own on websites. I started watching underground documentaries about the erased chapters of Cuban history: the executions, the life of Pedro Luis Boitel, or that of Rolando Cubela, who had been a commander in the Rebel Army. Going through that history, you realized the Revolution had betrayed itself from within. There were Cubans who were patriots, nationalists, and anti-communists, but they were all lumped together under the 26th of July Movement, which in the end turned out to be a lie. That access to information opened my eyes.
Q: Were you aware of the digital campaign that preceded the outburst, the movement under the hashtag #SOSCuba?
A: Yes, I saw it all. The international community and artists began making that hashtag go viral on Twitter to denounce the Covid-19 crisis, the humanitarian collapse, and the repression. What came up most was the collapse of the healthcare system. Seeing popular artists join in was one of the biggest drivers, because ordinary Cubans felt backed up. We thought: “Damn, if these artists are saying it, it’s because continue reading
something big is happening here.”
Seeing popular artists join in was one of the biggest drivers, because ordinary Cubans felt backed up
Q: On July 11 you decide to go out into the street. What was your initial plan, and where did you end up protesting?
A: My mother showed me the first news of what was happening and I decided to go out. My initial goal was to head to the Malecón or the Plaza de la Revolución, because that’s where the core of Castroist power sits: the Central Committee, the Politburo, the Council of State and of Ministers, and the Ministries of the Interior and of Communications. But when I went out and reached Calzada de 10 de Octubre, I ran into the people in the street and decided to stay there. Thank goodness I did, because I believe Toyo was, of all Cuba, the place where the hand-to-hand confrontation and the repression were most intense. The Cuban people there were genuinely rising up and reclaiming their rights. If I had gone to the Plaza or the Malecón, where there were far more agents, I would have been captured immediately.
Q: In the images from that day you’re seen holding a Cuban flag. Where did that flag come from, and what did it mean to carry it?
A: At protests all over the world, citizens come out with their flag. In Cuba, people manipulated by propaganda believe the flag is a
symbol of the Communist Party, an icon of obedience to the dictatorship, but that’s not so: the flag belongs to all Cubans. I was one of the few civilian protesters carrying one. When the Party cadres showed up to stage the counter-demonstration, they also brought out Cuban flags. That made me furious. But there was a fundamental difference between us: ours had the blood of the wounded protesters on it, and theirs was clean.
But there was a fundamental difference between us: ours had the blood of the wounded protesters on it, and theirs was clean
I had that flag at home, hanging in my room. I had taken it two years earlier from my secondary school. I took advantage of a day when the staff left the entrance desk unattended and made off with it; it was the one used for the morning assembly and the national anthem. When my mother showed me the protests on 11 July, I took it down and hid it under my T-shirt. She was terribly afraid something would happen to me and asked me not to “mark myself,” but in the end I took it with me anyway.
Q: Do you still have that flag?
A: It’s in Cuba. What is no longer preserved is the blood; my mother washed it out of fear and for safety’s sake. I wanted it to keep the blood from that moment so that, in a free Cuba, it could be donated to a museum. Even so, it retains immense historical value.
Q: Many of those who were out in the streets describe a feeling of euphoria, as if the regime had already fallen. Did you feel the same way?
A: We all felt exactly the same thing. We thought it was going to end that very day. Before the outburst, people tended to be very guarded out of fear of informants and State Security; there was a lot of self-censorship. But that day I saw every sector of the population — children, women, men, the elderly — united, demanding one single thing: freedom and an end to the tyranny. It was a single voice, one single voice reverberating. That is true unity, the kind that is born around freedom, not the obedience the Party demands.
It was a single voice, one single voice reverberating. That is true unity, the kind that is born around freedom, not the obedience the Party demands
Q: At what point did you realize you were in real danger?
A: I realized it when we were behind a column on Calzada de 10 de Octubre, near the intersection with Vía Blanca. There the dictatorship set up a repressive cordon with officers from the National Special Brigade (the “black wasps”) and the National Police. They marched against us, set the dogs on us, and started shooting. They fired into the air, but also toward the front. State Security confiscated almost everyone’s phones and deleted the videos of the shooting, but they used the fragments that had already been uploaded online, along with facial recognition, to identify us. Even though I was wearing a cap, a mask, and glasses, they recognized me. Three days later they were already at my house.
Q: What was it like returning home that day, and how did your family manage the fear?
A: On the way back, the people fleeing with me were already scattering. I got home and was completely honest with my parents; I told them everything I had done. I have always believed that with your parents you have to be upfront, because if you stay silent out of fear and the dictatorship comes for you, they won’t have the information they need to respond to the repression.
Things turned very ugly just a few hours after the demonstration. Miguel Díaz-Canel gave the “combat order” at four in the afternoon. We held our ground in the street until six or seven at night, but the protest dissolved as massive repressive forces began to surround us. They were coordinated by radio and walkie-talkies; we only had word of mouth, and they had already cut off our internet. From that first moment, I knew I was marked.
Elías Rizo León holding the Cuban flag as he stands atop a police patrol car that the crowd had overturned during the July 11 protests.
Q: Your mother played a crucial role in deceiving State Security and buying you time to escape. How did she manage it?
A: When the authorities came to my house to question her, I was already hiding somewhere else. They asked her where I was and she told them I had gone outside Havana, to Santiago de Cuba. They wanted her to give them the exact address so they could summon me there, but my mother stood firm and told them: “I’m not giving you any address, because he is 16 years old, he’s a minor, and he needs the legal representation of his guardian.”
She used that same apparent trust the repressive apparatus tries to instill in you to win the agents over. She let them believe she would cooperate and would turn me in as soon as I came back, but it was all a strategy to buy time. On the very day I was supposedly due to report to the police station, I was boarding a plane bound for Russia.
If it hadn’t been for the coordination of the people who supported us inside and outside the island, my story today would be very different
Q: You spent more than a month in hiding inside Cuba before flying out. How do you remember that period?
A: It was a month or so in hiding, living like a fugitive. I even shaved my head to change my appearance; in my passport photo I’m completely bald. At that time I didn’t even have a passport, only my mother did. We had to pay for and rush paperwork at the last minute, in the middle of the bureaucratic paralysis caused by Covid. We had tremendous luck. If it hadn’t been for the coordination of the people who supported us inside and outside the island, my story today would be very different: I would be serving a sentence of somewhere between 15 and 30 years in prison, like so many other young people my age. I would have lost my life in prison for the simple act of asking for freedom.
Q: Your initial destination was Russia, where Cubans didn’t need a visa in 2021. What was the journey like from there to Spain?
A: We flew out of Varadero airport on August 25, 2021. We spent five months in Russia (with his mother, father, and sister). I kept close track of the news and warned my mother: “Russia is going to invade Ukraine, we need to leave before the war breaks out.” She worked her contacts, and in January 2022 we managed to leave for Serbia. From Serbia we crossed into Greece, where we spent two months. Since Greece is part of the Schengen area, we were able to take a direct flight to Madrid. At the airport they just checked our photo to confirm our identity. Once in Madrid, we went to an office and formally applied for political asylum, presenting press clippings, photos, and evidence of the persecution. That’s how we obtained the red asylum card for all four members of the family.
Q: What has it been like interacting with young people your age here in Spain? Do they understand what you went through?
A: Spanish young people my age are stunned when I tell them the reality of Cuba. Many of them, even if they’re not left-wing, have a romanticized or distorted view of the island; they think there are bad things, but that “at least you can get by.” When I explain what happened to me, they put themselves in my shoes, show empathy, and understand the real context, because I’m not speaking to them from ideological theory but from the human and moral suffering of what it means to struggle and be persecuted. Thanks to that, a lot of young people who didn’t used to care about politics now stand up for our cause.
The day I left my country I cried a great deal. I wanted to build my life there; my wish was to live and die in a free Cuba
Q: It’s often said that the great aspiration of Cuban youth today is to emigrate. Was that your goal before July 11?
A: No, I never wanted to leave Cuba. The day I left my country I cried a great deal. I wanted to build my life there; my wish was to live and die in a free Cuba. Forced exile is a banishment that tears away part of your soul, your culture, and your experiences. Activists and rebellious young people are put in a noose by the dictatorship, forcing us out. I know I had to leave to protect my life, but it wasn’t by choice. That’s why exile isn’t surrender, it’s transformation. Out here, you study, you educate yourself, you acquire tools for political communication, and you prepare yourself with greater strength for when the moment comes to return and rebuild the country.
Q: How do you assess the protests and pot-banging demonstrations, smaller but constant, that are happening on the island today?
A: That never used to happen. The dictatorship has driven the people to such an extreme and precarious situation that people already know protesting is the only way to at least get the power turned on or the water restored. Even so, we can’t limit ourselves to demanding basic resources. Those pot-banging protests are sparks of legitimate resistance. The dictatorship is very clever and manipulates language; it asks the people to “endure” the misery, but true political resistance is the kind used to confront and overthrow a totalitarian regime, like the French or Italian Resistance in the Second World War. The ultimate goal has to be the end of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
Q: What role does the exile community play at this stage of the struggle?
A: The best way to support Cubans inside the country is to expose the repression to multilateral bodies, to speak with human rights rapporteurs, and to demand the release of political prisoners through diplomatic channels. We also have to fight the media battle. The dictatorship accuses us of waging “cognitive warfare” or “information warfare,” but all we do is expose the truth, backed by evidence, against the Castro-regime propaganda that they fund throughout Europe and Latin America to silence the opposition.
Q: If the situation changes and Cuba becomes a democracy, under what conditions would you return?
A: I would go back, but only if the enforcers, the henchmen, and the senior communist officials are tried before the courts as they should be. I am not going back to negotiate with the enemy. We need to set up truth commissions and preserve official reports and evidence so that no one can hide behind the classic “I was just following orders.” A person of principle cannot be coerced into repressing their own people. The dictatorship must be surrounded and dismantled with the truth, since they survive on lies -because no legend can withstand the truth.
Translated by GH.
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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.
A base-level farming unit in Pinar del Río goes from producing 0.8 tons per hectare to 8, thanks above all to the supplies, they say
Vietnam has signed several agreements with the island to invest in rice cultivation. / Granma
14ymedio, Madrid, July 16, 2026 / Eliecer Silva, head of a state agricultural enterprise in Consolación del Sur, Pinar del Río, is today the unwitting protagonist of a news story on Vietnam.vn. The government portal recounts the story, originally published by Granma, of this man from Pinar del Río, originally published by Granma, whose base-level unit -Agrícola Caribe- has seen its yields multiply since it partnered with the Cuba-Vietnam rice cooperation project. What in the Cuban version is titled “Rebirth in Caribe,” Hanoi presents under a long headline extolling the Asian country’s work.
“Vietnamese experts arrive and help Cuban farmers plant rice using an ‘unusual’ method, resulting in seedlings half a meter tall that multiply yields tenfold.” Thirty-three words, no more, no less, that do a good job of summarizing the benefit of the collaboration. The Cuban base-level unit has gone from producing 0.8 tons per hectare to 8 tons per hectare.
“The Vietnamese have come to give us major help. They’ve gotten us out of a terrible bind,” says Silva. María de las Nieves Sánchez, the company’s director, describes the situation of recent years as “maddening.” “Each season, yields kept dropping; we would plan for a certain number of hectares and we wouldn’t reach it,” she notes. The low point came in 2024, with the aforementioned 0.8 t/ha. In 2025, there was little improvement: 0.9.
Agrícola Caribe then decided to join the bilateral rice project -it is the second enterprise of its kind to do so- and planted 21.7 hectares last September, on an experimental basis. The result has been like the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. The eight-ton yield had “never before been reached here,” says Sánchez. continue reading
“So far, we have 158 hectares on the flat terraces and we need to reach 295,” they report. The expansion took place in spring following the impressive results achieved, but in the upcoming dry-season campaign they hope to reach 2,000 hectares, the result of combining the 473 hectares held in usufruct by the independent producers associated with the enterprise.
Sánchez explains the arrangement to the press. The Cubans provide the land, the machinery, and the labor, while the Vietnamese provide technical advice and supplies. The latter has been essential, in the growers’ view, since they had gone years without access to the technology package -fertilizers, fuel, pesticides, and other products needed for cultivation. “We had never had this before,” they say, praising the quality of the supplies. “That’s why this rice stands almost 1.80 meters tall. You can’t even see the workers who go in there to spray.”
The partnership has also created jobs. Planting and fertilizing on this scale used to be done by plane, but the fuel shortage -amid a full-blown fuel siege- has forced it to be done by hand, with the hiring of 200 people from Alonso de Rojas. “Thanks to this project, we have work today,” says one of the workers, Osberto Pedroso.
The bilateral cooperation project between Cuba and Vietnam began in 2002 and had one of its notable chapters in La Sierpe, in Sancti Spíritus, where production was successful for years and helped many base-level units improve their yields. In 2023, however, the Asian technicians withdrew from the site, weary, according to accounts, of Cuban inefficiency. The fuel shortage and lack of labor officially finished off the partnership. At its peak there, yields reached five tons per hectare, when three tons was the norm in the area. Just one year later, production fell by 62%, and in 2025 the Vietnamese returned to resume the project, though in a more controlled manner.
The experience does not discourage the farmers of Pinar del Río, who remain focused on their own territory. Silva takes pride in the fact that Cuban personnel handled both the planting and the fertilizing, and believes that this, together with the results, breaks the myth that Cubans cannot do the work well. “Where there is no organization and discipline in the work, there are no results, no matter what you throw at the field,” he warns.
The project -at the national level- differs from the one under way in Los Palacios, where a private company, Agri VMA, was the first foreign company to obtain a 1,000-hectare lease, with plans to reach 5,000 hectares within three years. There, too, very high results are being achieved, with more than 7.2 tons per hectare, compared with 2 to 2.5 tons for producers elsewhere on the island.
Translated by GH.
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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.
The National Electric System was restored at 7:00 a.m., an hour after Felton 1 came online, as residents predict the next collapse is close at hand
A man with his cell phone connected to the charging port of a rechargeable fan this Wednesday in Havana. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, July 15, 2026 / The National Electric System (SEN) has been connected since 7:00 a.m. this Wednesday, just over an hour after Unit 1 of the Felton thermoelectric plant in Holguín came online. The recovery from this collapse – which occurred around 11:00 a.m. Tuesday and was the third in eight days and the fifth so far this year – was the fastest of the recent incidents, despite the fuel shortage weighing down the restart.
To reconnect the SEN, past experience shows, generation must begin with easy-start sources – solar, hydroelectric and generator engines – to supply small areas known as microsystems, which are then progressively interconnected.
By early this morning, Havana had recovered all 24 substations in the capital, 100%, though this does not mean customers have service. The provincial power company reported that 68 circuits had service, benefiting 205,125 customers with a total of 211 megawatts, or 24% of residents.
Havana’s 43 hospitals and four water supply systems with five pumping stations are in better shape.
Havana’s 43 hospitals in Havana and four water supply systems with five pumps are in a better situation.
Customers have not stopped complaining, even after learning that the system was reconnected. Most remained without power, either because their circuit still had no service or because it was their turn for the scheduled outage. “All we can do is pray and have a lot of faith that it doesn’t go down again,” one user wrote. “You’ll see, the day after tomorrow. Keep praying,” another replied.
Although most expressed admiration for the enormous effort being made by electrical workers across the country, frustration with the way things are being managed runs deep. “How many minutes will it last this continue reading
time? And there are places that still haven’t found out, because the only light they’ve seen is the sun’s,” one customer lamented.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines confirmed that all Energás units were operating, while Units 3 and 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant and Felton 1 were in the process of starting up around midnight.
Minister Vicente de la O Levy, in his appearance on Tuesday, attributed the new incident to oscillations in the national grid that caused a generating unit to drop out, triggering a domino effect that disconnected several more plants until the system collapsed entirely.
The official also said the collapse of the SEN caused a new leak in the boiler of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the country’s main generating unit, and that the number of days needed to repair it would be reported in due course.
He further revealed that breakdowns are increasing in Havana because of the overload on circuits and transformers caused by the system’s instability.
According to his account, an estimated 13,000 of the capital’s 33,000 transformers are operating under overload, which is why 15 line crews from other provinces will arrive in the capital this Wednesday to help divide circuits, expand capacity and replace equipment.
Orders have also been given to double local production at the transformer factory to guarantee the supply of components.
At the end of June, Edier Guzmán Pacheco, the state utility’s director of thermal generation, presented the schedule for bringing several thermoelectric units online in July “to face the summer with better generation levels.”
The first to come online was to be Unit 5 at Mariel, on July 1, followed by Unit 6 of 10 de Octubre, in Nuevitas, on July 8 or 9; Unit 6 at Mariel, on the 15th; Unit 3 in Havana, on the 20th; and Unit 5 at Renté, on the 26th.
If the plan were met, 400 MW would have been recovered this month, but the official warned: “This should not be added in strictly arithmetic fashion to the capacity currently available, since the National Electric System remains in constant operation and there is a risk that new breakdowns will occur in other units.”
Now at the midpoint of July, the result is three total system collapses, along with the unsettling sense that it will keep happening – even as it matters less and less to people. “At this rate,” one UNE customer joked on social media, “they’ll start publishing a schedule for the SEN’s collapses.”
Translated by GH.
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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.
Mike Waltz claims in an interview that Russia and China have “intelligence posts, signals collection posts, and military officers” in Cuba
Mike Waltz in an interview with Fox News./ Screen capture / Fox news
Europa Press/14ymedio, Washington, 13 July 2026 / The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, has stated that Cuba poses “a threat to its own people” as well as to U.S. “national security,” alleging that the island harbors elements of Russian and Chinese intelligence.
“The Cuban regime not only represents a threat to its own people but also to national security, and this administration will no longer tolerate it,” the American diplomat said in an interview with Fox News.
In the same interview, Waltz pointed to “both Russian and Chinese” bases, maintaining that both countries “still have intelligence posts, signals collection posts, and military officers in Cuba.” “Right off our coast,” he added.
However, he praised the efforts of the Trump administration to reduce the alleged presence of Moscow and Beijing in the Americas: “They’re no longer in Venezuela, no longer in southern Central America… not even in the Panama Canal,” he argued, pointing to what he described as a greater Chinese and Russian presence in the region “under the Biden continue reading
administration and previous administrations.”
“They’re no longer in Venezuela, no longer in southern Central America… not even in the Panama Canal,” he argued
The UN ambassador’s remarks come amid a renewed push in Washington’s pressure campaign against Havana, under which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned this past Saturday that the Republican administration will continue to use “every tool at its disposal” to “advance” political and economic reforms in Cuba and put an end to “decades of repression and economic incompetence by its communist regime.”
In addition to the six-decade-old embargo in effect against the island, the United States has, since the start of the year, added an oil blockade that is deepening the energy problems the country has faced for years. Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, has denounced that the entire country is the target of collective punishment imposed by the White House.
Last week, Mike Waltz and Bruno Rodríguez held a tense exchange during a session of the General Assembly requested by Cuba on the “blockade” Washington imposes on the island. The U.S. asked that the session not be held and argued that, while Havana protested and sought to portray itself as a victim in this regard, hundreds of political prisoners remained locked up in the island’s prisons.
Waltz displayed images of several detainees, among them Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara – released just hours later and currently at an unknown location – to call attention to their situation.
“The Cuban people have a right to freedom,” the American diplomat said during that session. The debate ultimately went forward by a vote of 136 in favor, nine against – including the United States, Argentina, Israel, Hungary, Paraguay, and Peru – and 30 abstentions.
Translated by GH
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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.
The first multi-destination package will launch in August, integrating flights between Cancún and Havana
Cuba will link the Mayan World with Varadero beach./ ‘Cubadebate’
14ymedio, Havana, 13 July 2026/ Tourism agencies from Mexico and Havana signed a cooperation agreement that includes extending the Mayan World tourism program to the island. The initiative will combine historical, beach, and nature destinations with the goal of attracting more Mexican visitors and diversifying Cuba’s tourism offerings, at a time when the sector is going through its worst period since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re going to link the Mayan World – which in Mexico includes Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Yucatán, as well as Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador – with our beach at Varadero, but we’re also going to do it with the capital, with Havana, and bring in nature-based products. In other words, we’re going to keep expanding this experience with all the riches Cuba has to offer as a tourist destination,” said the tourism counselor at the island’s embassy in Mexico, Aleinor Zerquera, in comments to Prensa Latina.
To this end, the Taíno Tours agency, the trade name under which Havanatur operates in Mexico, reached an agreement with the local tour operators Turismo Popular and Prelasa Tours to “boost multi-destination tourism” between the two countries.
On this point, the director of the Cuban agency, Erick Gómez, said that “alliances like this one create good opportunities for all three companies.” continue reading
It will draw on the appeal of the Varadero Festival as a cultural hook to complement the Mayan World experience
The first multi-destination package will launch in August, integrating flights between Cancún and Havana, and will draw on the appeal of the Varadero Festival as a cultural hook to complement the Mayan World experience.
According to Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, the Mayan World region is visited by around 20 million international tourists a year, 70% of whom visit destinations within Mexico. It is also the country’s leading tourism hub, receiving 45% of domestic tourism and 55% of foreign tourism. Its offerings include sun-and-beach destinations, culture and history, cruises, ecotourism and adventure travel, and, more recently, medical tourism in Yucatán.
For the island, by contrast, this move comes at a particularly difficult time for the tourism industry. May’s figures reveal the extent of the collapse the sector has dragged through in recent months. In the fifth month of the year, only 30,883 visitors arrived on the island, a very marginal increase compared with April, which saw 332 more tourists. So far this year, Cuba has received 359,491 international travelers, 58.4% fewer than during the same period in 2025. However, breaking down the numbers, the vast majority arrived in January — 184,833 — a dismal figure for a month that traditionally used to bring in as many as half a million tourists. With the announcement of the end of refueling for international flights, most airlines began evacuating their nationals and ended up canceling routes that had become unsustainable, so the following months saw only minimal numbers of travelers arrive.
Most airlines began evacuating their nationals and ended up canceling routes that had become unsustainable
The energy blockade, which has paralyzed most flights, combined with the sanctions on Gaesa, has ended up dealing the final blow to one of the few sources of hard currency not only for the state but for hundreds of thousands of people who make their living from the sector through private businesses, from restaurants to craft shops and retail, or simple street vending.
According to a report by the National Statistics and Information Office (Onei) covering the first quarter of the year, only 1.3 out of every 10 hotel rooms in Cuba were filled at the start of the year, visitor numbers fell 48% — 298,057 compared with 573,363 the previous year — overnight stays also dropped by half — 1.8 million compared with 3.6 million — and gross revenue fell from close to 35 billion pesos (52 million dollars, at the informal exchange rate of 670 to 1) to around 20 billion. And all of this even though January was still considered a “normal” month.
The losses are not confined to hotels. The Onei report, which quarterly adds up revenue from other sectors, shows steep declines across the board. The overall figure fell from 48.4 billion to 27.9 billion pesos, but broken down, the hardest-hit sector is food service, which lost nearly half – dropping from 19 billion to just 10 billion. Next comes lodging, which fell from 14 billion to 8 billion, transportation – from 5.7 billion to 3.9 billion – and retail trade – from 2.1 billion to 1.5 billion.
Translated by GH.
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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.
Last week, the man lost his life in a failed break-in attempt. The lack of proper treatment had turned him into a danger to his neighbors and to himself
Everyone in the thirteen-story building sympathized with Miguelito’s mother, but they feared what he was capable of doing in his condition.
14ymedio, Pablo Padilla Cruz, 13 July 2026 / It was around ten o’clock at night on July 7 when a man, later identified as Miguel, fell from the sixth floor of the well-known thirteen-story old building in Matanzas while attempting to break into a neighbor’s home. According to the preliminary forensic report, the intruder tried to grab onto a protective railing on the building’s balcony, but the structure gave way, sending him plummeting to the ground floor.
When Miguelito fell he was wearing a ski mask covering his face, which initially kept neighbors from identifying him. It was his own mother who, before police investigators, confirmed the identity of the deceased.
For the community, the tragic outcome was not a surprise but something expected for a person like Miguelito: mentally ill for years, with a criminal record, and forgotten by the authorities.
“He was a problem for the neighborhood,” says one neighbor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He was someone with a mental disorder who was undergoing psychiatric treatment. About fifteen years ago he stabbed a young man in the same building several times – a young man who used to help him and even gave him work making handicrafts. One day, with no prior argument or dispute, he waited for him downstairs and stabbed him repeatedly,” he recounts.
“He was someone with a mental disorder who was undergoing psychiatric treatment. About fifteen years ago he stabbed a young man in the same building several times who used to help him”
Miguel spent eight years in prison and, once he had served his sentence, returned to the neighborhood. It was the victim who had to move away, out of fear of another attack. “I’m no judge, but someone who endangers continue reading
other people’s lives should either be given specialized help or removed from society. What you can’t do is send him back, after just a few years, to the very place where he nearly killed an innocent person,” the neighbor laments.
The alarming lack of infrastructure, medication, and follow-up protocols for people with chronic mental illness is one more open wound among the many in Cuba. The extreme shortage of antipsychotic drugs and sporadic medical supervision have left it up to families and neighbors themselves to contain patients who, during a crisis, can become very dangerous.
The island’s health system, which years ago centralized control of these cases through extended hospital stays or strict provision of treatment, no longer takes charge of them. Faced with the collapse of hospitals and pharmacies, patients with severe diagnoses of schizophrenia or psychosis end up wandering the streets or confined to homes that lack sufficient resources to care for them. The lack of adequate inpatient institutions and the absence of supervised reintegration programs turn mental health care in Cuba into a game of Russian roulette for public safety.
Odalis, the owner of the apartment Miguel tried to enter on the night of July 7, confirms the earlier account while still trying to come to terms with what happened. “I’m still shaken. His mother is a much-loved neighbor, but that young man needed urgent medical attention. He’d tried to get into my home several times that same week for different reasons, and now this happens. Nobody knew his real intentions – only that he was wearing a ski mask and had a rope and a hammer in a backpack. It’s hard to think that if he hadn’t fallen, the one who ended up dead today might have been me,” she says with sorrow.
Although a sense of helplessness can be felt throughout the building, her case is a special one, and she agrees this was foreseeable. “Ever since he stabbed Eduardito, the craftsman, we all knew – and the police did too – that he wasn’t right psychologically. All because no one treated a sick person or took him somewhere he could get help.”
“It’s not that everything bad that happened in the building was Miguelito’s fault, but he used to follow the girls around, harass them, and threaten families”
Residents say Miguel’s erratic and intimidating behavior was frequent and that early warnings were systematically ignored by law enforcement. In recent nights, Miguel, adds a third neighbor interviewed, had taken to throwing bottles from his balcony at passersby.
“We called the police and they never came,” he laments. “Just like they never came when Cecilia, a neighbor on the eleventh floor, had her door forced open and her EcoFlow unit stolen. It’s not that everything bad that happened in the building was Miguelito’s fault, but he used to follow the girls around, harass them, and threaten families. The Ministry of the Interior and the local sector chief never did a thing. Now look – if this tragedy hadn’t happened, Odalis might not be alive,” he continues.
The neighbor says all the residents deeply feel for Magalys, his mother. “She’s a lovely person, but this is like the García Márquez book: a chronicle of a death foretold. The worst part is that it could have been prevented with treatment and supervision from specialists.”
Translated by GH.
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The foreign minister designated by De la Espriella states that they will “review” Colombia’s participation in international organizations such as the UN and the OAS
Omar Bula Escobar, Colombia’s designated Minister of Foreign Affairs. / EFE/Prensa Abelardo de la Espriella
14ymedio, Madrid, July 9, 2026 / The shift in Colombia’s government under recently elected Abelardo de la Espriella is also clear in its foreign policy, with barely a month to go before he takes office. The foreign minister designated by the new president, Omar Bula, has confirmed that he will close the embassies in Havana and Managua.
“We want an efficient, proactive foreign ministry, with good relations with everyone, but without supporting governments that are completely opposed to President De la Espriella’s philosophy, as in the case of Nicaragua and Cuba. We are not going to legitimize regimes by placing an embassy there,” the designated foreign minister stated in an interview with Noticias RCN.
Asked by reporters whether they were going to cut off diplomatic relations, he said: “There will be relations – what there won’t be is embassies.” There are “several models that can be used,” he explained, but he insisted: “In any case, these are countries that are definitely on a different course, not so much because of ideology: these are dictatorships, long-standing dictatorships, and I don’t think it’s our role to legitimize them in any way.” continue reading
“These are dictatorships, long-standing dictatorships, and I don’t think it’s our role to legitimize them in any way”
Regarding Venezuela, Bula stated that they will stay “very close” to the process currently under way alongside the United States, “always with a vision oriented toward a near future in which we can work together, in favor of democracy, free enterprise, Western values, so many things that have been weakened in our country in recent years.”
“It’s a gigantic opportunity,” the designated foreign minister declared. “For me, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to imagine Colombia and Venezuela coming together, developing their resources rationally, opening up, and building solid democratic systems.”
He also stated that they will restore diplomatic ties with countries whose relationship “has been badly affected in recent years.” Urgently, he said, with the United States, but also with Israel, a state with which – before outgoing president Gustavo Petro broke off relations in May 2024 – “we had cordial relations for decades.”
The “great pillars” on which he will base his term at the head of Colombian foreign policy, Bula mentioned, are three: “modernization, professionalization, and austerity.” In this regard, he stated that, despite it being a public service, he intends to bring his experience as an administrator to the foreign ministry and get it to function “like a company,” with “measurable results, focusing heavily on economic and technological diplomacy.”
“We know that there is also Colombian money, taxpayer money, that goes toward international cooperation. That will be the criterion: essentially a business criterion”
He expanded on this in another interview, with Blu Radio, in which he said they will examine the funds allocated to international cooperation. “We know that there is also Colombian money, taxpayer money, that goes toward international cooperation. That will be the criterion: essentially a business criterion,” he said.
In that same interview, Bula announced that a review will be carried out of Colombia’s participation in multilateral bodies such as the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS). “We are going to carry out a very thorough and rigorous analysis of our relationship with each of the international organizations. This is not about abandoning the international community, but about reviewing the agreements currently in force. Based on that analysis, we will seek to have everything serve our national interest.”
And he continued: “If at some point there is a clash of criteria between what the United Nations proposes and international agendas clash with our own agenda, we will have to analyze, from a sovereign standpoint, what serves us and what does not. At that point we will make the decision.”
Translated by GH.
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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.
This Wednesday a shortfall of 2,341 megawatts was reached – unprecedented, discounting total system collapses
Traffic light at Diez de Octubre and Avenida México, in Havana, dark due to lack of electrical power / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, July 9, 2026 / Three days after the most recent collapse of the national electrical system (SEN), it is barely noticeable that it is now connected. The continuous power cuts are announcement enough for Cubans, but they also have the authorities’ report: this Wednesday marked a new record deficit – discounting total system collapses – far surpassing the forecast.
For a peak demand of 3,100 megawatts (MW), a shortfall of 2,341 MW was recorded at 8:20 pm, “a figure higher than planned due to the failure of scheduled units to come online,” the Cuban Electric Union (Unión Eléctrica de Cuba) explains this Thursday in its daily report. This meant the absence of more than three quarters of the energy the country needed (75.5%).
Thursday’s forecast is not much better: as much as 2,260 megawatts (MW) will be missing out of the 3,200 MW that peak demand will reach, during the afternoon-evening peak hours. This will mean a shortfall affecting 71% of the entire country.
The day, in fact, has already begun dark – never more fitting a description: at six in the morning, availability was barely 880 MW against a demand of 2,730 MW. continue reading
No fewer than 11 of the 16 units the island has spread across various thermoelectric plants are shut down, whether due to breakdown or maintenance
No fewer than 11 of the 16 units the island has spread across various thermoelectric plants are shut down, whether due to breakdown or maintenance. This includes the country’s most important plant, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant (CTE) in Matanzas, and the most important ones in the east, the Felton plant in Holguín and the Renté plant in Santiago de Cuba.
If for ordinary Cubans these numbers have one translation – blackouts – for the regime they have another: possible protests. This is no small matter, with just two days remaining until the fifth anniversary of July 11, 2021. In recent days, as the energy crisis has worsened, demonstrations have multiplied.
14ymedio witnessed one of the most recent of these, this Wednesday and in broad daylight. Dozens of residents of the Havana municipality of Regla, exhausted not only by the lack of electricity but also of water, demanded answers outside the headquarters of the municipal Government and Party. Under an intense sun, this newspaper observed women with children, elderly people, men in flip-flops, mopeds, tricycles, a patrol of the Operational Guard of the Police, and several uniformed officers attempting to contain the tension.
Just yesterday the capital woke up bearing the marks of several other protests. At the corner of Belascoaín and Ánimas, in Centro Habana, ashes, stones, pieces of wood, charred cardboard, and remnants of burned trash remained on the asphalt. The images taken by 14ymedio show a street where the marks of a night of tension remain, amid widespread popular exhaustion.
Videos of pot-banging protests (cacerolazos), blocked streets, and burning trash have multiplied from various points around the city. In Centro Habana, residents took to the streets following blackouts that, according to reports circulated on social media, exceeded 80 hours. Protests were also recorded in the municipality of La Lisa, after more than 40 hours without power. In Alamar, in Habana del Este, groups of residents banged pots and pans and burned trash in the middle of the public street.
Translated by GH.
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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.
This group joins the 40 who decided not to return to the island and to sign directly with the Caribbean country
A group of the 277 Cuban specialists who were in Jamaica. /Ministerio de Salud Pública de Cuba
14ymedio, Madrid, July 6, 2026 / Jamaica’s Minister of Health, Chris Tufton, announced this weekend that around 50 Cuban nurses will return to the country to address the staffing shortage. If that number materializes, the island’s health workers joining the Jamaican system through individual contracts would approach a hundred.
The contract under which the Cuban government supplied health professionals to Jamaica broke down in March after the parties failed to agree on a renewal that would meet Washington’s demands. Cooperation between the two states went back half a century at that point, and the last signed contract had expired in 2023, but nearly 300 workers remained in the Caribbean country awaiting an extension.
Since March 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio began pressuring governments that maintained contracts with Cuba for the export of medical services to end them. Washington held – based on complaints from workers and various international organizations – that the agreements amounted to a form of labor slavery and violated workers’ rights, though the underlying goal was to cut off the clear flow of foreign currency that the export of doctors provided to the regime.
Cooperation between the two states went back half a century at that point, and the last signed contract had expired in 2023, but nearly 300 workers remained in the Caribbean country awaiting an extension
Rubio, during a visit to Kingston, tried to convince Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who initially tried to sidestep the issue, stating that his government was “very careful not to exploit Cuban doctors,” but things gradually began to shift.
Jamaica, in dire need of health workers, spent weeks trying to convince Havana to accept continue reading
new conditions that would allow it to comply with the US. The idea was to establish individual contracts that would keep the regime out of it, at least formally. But there was no way to make it work. “The Government of Jamaica has made the decision to suspend the current agreement on the deployment of medical professionals in the public health sector by the Government of Cuba,” the Foreign Ministry stated this past March.
“This comes after the two governments were unable to agree on the terms and conditions of a new technical cooperation agreement, following the expiration of the previous one in February 2023,” the statement added. Nevertheless, Kingston left the door wide open for the specialists to remain on the island.
“In the interest of continuity of the valuable service provided by the Cuban medical professionals present in the country, and for their certainty and personal wellbeing, the Government of Jamaica has expressed the willingness of the Ministry of Health and Wellness to engage these medical professionals on an individual basis, in accordance with local labor laws,” the statement added.
A total of 40 nurses decided to accept, according to what Tufton himself said shortly afterward, in an interview in May. The Health Minister put the number of Cuban specialists in the country at 278 at the time of the break. “Of that number, more than 40 decided not to return [to Cuba] and were given individual contracts. Now, they are working in the system,” he said.
“Everyone was offered a letter telling them that, if they’re interested, we would be willing to bring them back on based on their own interests, but on the basis of individual contracts. Some have expressed interest in doing so, even though they’ve returned [to Cuba]. So, yes, there is an open invitation, which we have extended, and we have information that some are interested. If they come, we would be prepared to receive them,” he added.
“So, yes, there is an open invitation, which we have extended, and we have information that some are interested. If they come, we would be prepared to receive them”
This Saturday, in stating that around 50 Cubans were set to return, Tufton added that there are professionals from other countries interested as well, including Ghana, on an individual basis, and Nigeria, India, or the Philippines, through agreements with those countries.
The breakdown of the agreement between Jamaica and Cuba opened a small rift between the two countries. While the Cuban government accused Jamaica of caving to US pressure to withdraw the medical mission, the Caribbean island’s version was that Havana ignored its proposals for direct payment and chose instead to withdraw the entire team. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade said in March that it was “disappointed” by the outcome.
Washington’s pressure has led most of the countries that contracted health workers with the Cuban state to end their agreements. This is the case with Honduras, Guatemala, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guyana, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. For now, Mexico, several Persian Gulf countries, and the Italian region of Calabria are holding out.
Translated by GH.
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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.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 20 July 2026 / The highway enters Matanzas along the coast, and before the bridges and the city skyline come into view, a building with modern lines still catches the eye. Painted blue and white, with large windows and the name of Matanzas crowning the roof in huge red letters, the gastronomic and cultural complex El Bahía retains the elegance of another era. From a distance, the photos are deceiving: it looks like a place ready to welcome tourists and families. Get closer, though, and it becomes clear that much of that splendor has been left locked behind padlocked doors.
