Translating Cuba – Page 118 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cupet Presents False Data To Hide the Oil Production Crisis in Cuba

In 2008, the Island extracted 68,493 barrels per day, 44% more than last year

Exploitation of Zarubezhneft in Boca de Jaruco, Mayabeque / Zarubezhneft

14ymedio, Havana, 11 January 2025 — Transparency when it comes to providing accurate and clear data on crude oil production remains one of the pending issues of the Cuban government. According to Osvaldo López, head of Exploration of the Cuba Petroleum Union (Cupet), the Island produced 40,000 barrels a day in 2024 – 98% of its extraction plan – but the US “blockade” allegedly prevents it from attracting foreign investment to search for new deposits.

For the expert Jorge Piñón, who worked more than 30 years in the international oil industry and analyzes the regime’s oil business step by step, the data offered by López to the State newspaper Granma on January 7 are misleading, especially in terms of the alleged effects of the embargo.

To improve its total figure, Cupet reports the production of “oil equivalent,” a technical term that includes the mixing of light hydrocarbons derived from the production of natural gas.

“Both light hydrocarbons and condensates – butane, propane, natural gasoline and naphtha that are extracted in Energas’ natural gas processing plants – are mixed with the production of extra-heavy crude oil to improve its viscosity and allow its transport via pipelines or maritime and land transport,” explains Piñón. continue reading

According to Piñón’s estimates, the real amount is 38,000 barrels of extra-heavy crude oil per day

The data that Cupet would have to provide is that of the crude oil production at the top of the oil well. According to Piñón’s estimates, the real amount is 38,000 barrels of extra-heavy crude oil per day and not, as the Government claims, 40,000.

Cuba reached its production record in 2008, when it extracted 68,493 barrels per day, according to official figures. This implies a drop of 44% in the last 16 years, says the expert. This decline cannot be attributed to the “lack of material resources and financing,” as Cupet alleges, but to the “natural decline of the oil wells in the northern strip of Cuba.” In this, too, the Government turns its back on reality.

In his interview, López also admitted that the amount of crude oil reported covers only a third of the country’s consumption. This data does coincide with the demand for 120,858 barrels per day of crude oil and liquid petroleum-derived fuels that Cuba reported in 2022, explains Piñón. Last year, due to blackouts and lack of foreign exchange to buy fuel, it is likely that the demand was much lower.

The extreme viscosity of Cuban crude oil requires a complex process of improvement to make it useful for consumption. Since 2011, Cupet has tried to get the Russian state-owned Zarubezhneft and the Federal University of Kazan to implement effective processes to improve the crude oil extracted in Boca de Jaruco, Mayabeque. In thirteen years, the project has not shown the slightest impact on national production, says Piñón.

López also said that it is “vital to discover crude oil with better quality and to find deposits off the coast.” If this is not done, it is because of the “blockade”* of the United States, he added, and because Cuba has to “fall in love” with foreign companies to invest in Cuba.

López also said that it is “vital to discover crude oil with better quality and to find deposits off the coast”

However, counters Piñón, the “embargo” did not prevent Cuba from drilling five wells in deep waters of the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico in 2012. Large companies such as Repsol (Spain), Statoil (Norway), Petronas (Malasia) and ONGC (India) were involved in the project, “with one of the most advanced platforms in the world -Scarabeo 9 – owned by the Italian ENI.”

It was a total failure. Despite the efforts, no profitable well was discovered, and those results continue to frighten investors, explains Piñón. In addition, the countries of the region compete with Cuba when it comes to “falling in love” with large companies. Compared to Guyana, Brazil or the US area of the Gulf, the Island is not an attraction.

Granma’s interview with the official also omits important data. Nothing is said about the operations of the Australian Melbana, which received permission from the Cuban government to export the oil it found in the so-called Block 9 of Matanzas.

Shipments from Russia also play an essential role in Cuba’s energy future. The Kremlin enters 2025 with a tightening of Washington’s sanctions to limit its oil business, and Havana, Piñón thinks, could take an unexpected benefit from the situation.

This week, the United States sanctioned the 180 tankers that make up the so-called “ghost fleet” of Russian oil, in addition to two companies, dozens of traders and senior officials. With its constant change of flags and records, and despite the risk of financial sanctions against shipowners or even the interception of their ships in the Caribbean, Cuba will be one of the possible destinations for that oil in search of customers at prices well below the international market.

*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the long-standing US embargo.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

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.

“We Family Members Have Been Banned From Posting on Social Media Because Enemies Take Advantage of It To Harm the Country”

The “Explosion process” at Melones is still “active” and “it is still not possible to go in,” according to the authorities.

The government reported that it has “protected” several hundred people residing in the vicinity of the facility / Facebook/Joel Queipo Ruiz

14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 10 January 2025 — The obsolete weapons stored in the military warehouse that exploded on January 7 in Melones, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre in Holguín, are still in the “process of explosions” and the experts have not yet been able to reach the site. Three days after the first detonation and with 13 people missing – most of them military service conscripts – the despair of the families is increasing.

“There are several mothers with nervous breakdowns because they are only told to be calm, but they do not make any progress in the search,” a relative of the family of one of the young soldiers told 14ymedio. “The mother of one of the boys from the military service who is missing is my friend and she is devastated. Yesterday she tried to go out on her own to the military base to look for her son and we had to stop her, but the lack of response is enormous, they only tell us that we have to wait.”

According to the head of the Communist Party in the province and member of the Central Committee, Joel Queipo Ruiz, the security forces have authorized the return of some displaced persons to houses “located at a radius distance that no longer poses any danger.” As for the “specialized actions, they continue to be carried out within the limits of a certain radius outward from the center of the place.”

Queipo, who referred to the warehouse as a “wrecked facility,” did not give a date for the search of the missing people, he said he is in contact with their relatives. The area is still dangerous for the “physical safety of any continue reading

human action,” he said. “As soon as conditions permit, the site will be accessed with all the established protective measures.”

“We are also afraid,” adds the source interviewed by 14ymedio, “because we have been told that we cannot talk about this with anyone or post anything on social media because enemies are taking advantage of what has happened to harm the country. I have my WhatsApp full of messages from our relatives who live in other parts of Holguín and I am afraid to answer them because I don’t know if something will happen to me.”

According to the source, “the officers’ families are handling this differently because many of them are very involved people, people from the government, and they know that their husband or son had chosen a job that involves risks. But the conscripts’s parents do not have that strength because they were not there because they wanted to be, they were forced. My friend’s son sometimes said that they were forced to move ammunition, but he talked about it as if everything was under control as if there was no danger.

Several accounts of failed attempts to approach the area have circulated in the official press

“I haven’t said anything to him, but I already have set up a little altar in my house with his picture and a candle. It’s not because I think he’s dead, but if he’s alive he’s also going to need that to get out of there.” She says there are two nerve-wracking issues: “not knowing if he is alive or dead and thinking, about what he could have suffered if he died and if perhaps he was trapped and it was something very painful and long.”

The official press has circulated several stories of failed attempts to approach the area. One of them, published in the State newspaper Granma, was about the president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power of Rafael Freyre, Alexis Driggs Gómez. The leader, according to the newspaper, “bears on his forehead, between his eyes, the mark of the impact of a shard of glass from the first big explosion that occurred in the Military Unit.”

Driggs was in the area with a group of military personnel at 2 a.m. when the shock wave from one of the detonations threw them to the ground, “amid a cloud of particles, dirt and dust flying in all directions.”

Authorities have not said much about the details of the accident itself, although it is estimated that there have been at least two separate explosions on the first day, and many more in the following days. Without information on how much military material was stored at Melones it is impossible to get an accurate idea of how much more ammunition will blow up in the area.

Translated by LAR

____________

For the First Time Since 1959, Cuba Grants Land for Harvesting to a Foreign Company

Vietnam has already cooperated in rice production, but this time it will do so with a lease contract for a Vietnamese company

Vietnamese technicians in Sancti Spíritus. (Granma/Archive)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2025 — A Vietnamese company has become the first foreign entity to receive land in Cuba – initially 308 hectares (761 acres) – to plant rice on a farm in the south of the province of Pinar del Río, an unprecedented experience on the island since 1959, state media reported on Wednesday.

The project had already been announced last November, although it was not known that the lands had been handed over for usufruct (a form of leasing). It would be the same promise that the Government made to the Russians, as Boris Titov, president of the Cuba-Russia Business Council, said, in 2023.

According to Reuters, the Kremlin adviser said that the island had offered Russian businessmen the right to use the land for a period of 30 years. The conditions involved, he explained, “both long-term land leasing and duty-free import of agricultural machinery, the granting of the right to transfer profits in foreign currency, and much more. Of course, we are also waiting for the reduction of bureaucratic barriers.”

“This is a considerable figure, considering that for the cold season, Los Palacios proposed a plan of 3,500 hectares,” the newspaper said.

The Vietnamese company – for which no details have been provided – will be responsible for planting rice in the municipality of Los Palacios, some 100 kilometres southwest of Havana, for three years.

The plan intends to complete the planting of up to 1,000 hectares of rice in the first months of 2025 and the intention of the Asian firm is to expand to continue reading

5,000 hectares, added the official newspaper Granma.

“This is a considerable figure, considering that for the cold season, Los Palacios proposed a plan for 3,500 hectares,” the newspaper said.

In addition to bringing in its own specialists, the Vietnamese group will provide fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and other resources necessary for production, as well as hybrid varieties from the Vietnam, which reduce the demand for seeds from 150 kilograms per hectare to 30.

Yields of seven metric tonnes (7.7 US tons) per hectare are expected in the first year, and this will increase to eight metric tonnes per hectare in the second year.

Since last October, an experimental model was launched in Cuba with the planting of a hybrid rice seed – imported from Vietnam – in more than 15,000 hectares in various regions of the island, with the aim of increasing production and improving yield, which has been declining for several years.

Cuba requires about 700,000 metric tons of rice annually for national consumption. According to official data, the island produced less than 30,000 metric tons in 2023

Cuba requires about 700,000 metric tons of rice annually for national consumption. According to official data, the island produced less than 30,000 metric tons in 2023.

Vietnam is Cuba’s main supplier of rice, which is a vital food on the Island and on average more than 60 kilograms are consumed per person per year. This is not the first time that the Vietnam has cooperated with Cuba in rice production. It did so in La Sierpe, in Sancti Spíritus, until 2022 , when it finally decided to cancel the project, tired of Cuban inefficiency.

Vietnam and China have donated shipments of rice to Cuba in recent years to support the Island, which spends $2 billion annually on importing basic food products.

____________

In Cuba’s Cienfuegos Bus Terminal You Don’t Travel If You Don’t Pay Extra ‘On the Left’

“We have been waiting for eight days for a bus that would at least take us to Las Tunas, so that we could continue on our way as best we could.”

The waiting rooms these days are full of people who come to sign up or check their numbers. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 29 December 2025 – On December 28, Maritza is not surprised that the waiting list to travel from Cienfuegos to Guantanamo has advanced only four numbers in a week. “I warned my husband at the end of October to come and reserve the tickets, because everyone knows that after the second half of December it is almost impossible to travel to any province in the country.” Reinaldo, on the other hand, finding excuses so that his wife would not reprimand him, did not help much. In the end, both ended up sitting, luggage in hand, at the entrance to the national bus terminal waiting for a miracle to happen.

The couple had never had such a hard time leaving Cienfuegos. “When I came on November 20, there were no more seats for any city in the East. However, the same employee who gave me that information had saved three spots for a woman who was behind me in the line,” explains the husband, who then noticed the reason for the incessant calls and notes from the official.

“I don’t know how much money was being sought for each ticket, but I’m convinced that for those of us who weren’t in direct contact with him, the reservations were sold out before we asked the question,” he reflects.

The waiting room on the second floor of the terminal is currently full of people who come to sign up, check their numbers or stay for many hours until a bus arrives with an empty seat, which, at this time of year, almost continue reading

never happens.

At the entrance, travelers pile up, waiting, loaded with suitcases, for a bus with capacity to arrive. / 14ymedio

“We have been waiting for eight days for a bus that would at least take us to Las Tunas, so that we could continue on our way as best we could. Luckily, we live close by, but there are people who have spent several nights here and won’t leave until they get a ticket,” explains Maritza.

The woman, who in the long days of ’bus-hunting’ has become familiar with the atmosphere of the terminal, says that the workers who have access to the passenger lists rule the lounges. “If someone decides to protest, the employee at the ticket office says that they are waiting for extra buses to be put on, but he says that to calm things down,” she says.

The couple has also learned in recent days how to play their cards well, to look for tricks to buy tickets and to get the employees to recognize them. “The shift manager always guarantees at least three seats for those who can pay 2,000 pesos more than the original ticket price,” says Maritza, who blames the “tricks” for the fact that the waiting list does not advance.

“My wife and I would have to pay 4,000 pesos, plus the tickets, if we wanted to leave quickly. I wish we had that money, but for now we can only be patient and pray that the New Year doesn’t catch us here,” says Reinaldo.

The hygiene and services at the terminal “are not such that people would spend days here,” relying on the facilities. “The women’s bathroom is closed, there is no area to store luggage, some benches are broken and the cafeteria has no services. Added to this is the indifference of the workers. Their job is to solve the problem only for those who can pay,” adds Maritza, who admits that she feels as if she were stranded on the road and “not in a terminal.”

The noise from the street that sneaks into the premises brings the voices of private boatmen who offer trips to the capital. / 14ymedio

The noise from the street that filters into the station brings the voices of private drivers offering trips to the capital. “Two days ago, a trip to Havana was charging 6,000 pesos, but today there are taxi drivers talking about 10,000 pesos per person. They also raised the prices to 5,000 and 7,000 pesos for trips to Matanzas and Varadero,” says Maritza, attentive to the bustle of drivers and the prices in case she ever needs to go west.

“This is the time of year when everyone who has a car takes advantage of the opportunity to earn a little more, although it is also true that fuel is impossible and repairs cost an arm and a leg. Many of the drivers are as shocked as we are, but they prefer to wait rather than lower the price,” says Reinaldo.

A quick movement of people towards the waiting list ticket office immediately attracts the attention of all the travelers. Reinaldo’s wife remains seated watching over the luggage, while the Reinaldo walks with a firm step towards the interior of the terminal. After a few minutes, the group of people gathered together dissolves and the information arrives first-hand. “A bus came in that is going to Holguín. At first they said there were four seats, but, in the end, there is only one,” he says, and adds resignedly: “That’s not ours either.”

____________

An NGO Registers 105 Complaints From Cuban Prisoners in December for the Violation of Their Rights

The territories with the highest number of reports were the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Havana and Camagüey

Restrictions on inmates’ communication were one of the most reported problems, especially around the Christmas period. / EFE

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 10 January 2025 – The Cuban Prison Documentation Center (CDPC) registered 105 complaints from people imprisoned in Cuba in December 2024, most of them (78) related to human rights violations, according to the monthly report of this NGO published this Thursday.

This independent platform based in Mexico noted that the most frequent forms of repression were incidents of harassment and repression (52), denial of medical care (22), poor living conditions in prison (17), and problems with food (16).

It also indicated that in the last month of 2024, 25 other forms of repression against inmates were documented, including beatings, punishment cells, restrictions on communication and denial of rights.

The territories with the highest number of reported violations were the provinces of Santiago de Cuba (18), Havana (17) and Camagüey (13), and in the prisons section, those of Boniato, in Santiago de Cuba, Combinado del Este, in Havana and the Quivicán prison, in the western province of Mayabeque, according to the report.

The CDPC also added that at least 47 inmates (6 women and 41 men) were victims of rape during that period and 18 complaints referred to problems continue reading

affecting the entire prison population of a given prison.

Frank Morales Cuesta, Yosvany Sánchez and Jorge Luis Torres Vaillant, who suffered from tuberculosis, diarrhea and malnutrition, died due to poor medical care

It denounced that prisoners Frank Morales Cuesta, Yosvany Sánchez and Jorge Luis Torres Vaillant, who suffered from tuberculosis, diarrhea and malnutrition, died due to poor medical care.

It also mentions the cases of two other inmates who died. One after being allegedly assaulted by prisoners and the other after being beaten by prison guards, according to testimonies that this NGO believes to be true.

The CDPC identified the following political prisoners: José Daniel Ferrer, Andrés Lugo Pérez, Gustavo Colás Castillo, and the common prisoner Torres Vaillant with additional allegations of repression.

He believes that communication restrictions were one of the most reported problems, especially around the Christmas period, in addition to the suspension of family visits and punishments for prisoners who reported their situation through telephone calls.

In particular, it cites political prisoners, Afro-descendants and opponents among the “most recurrent” categories of vulnerability with the highest number of violations.

____________

Cuba Closed the Year with 54 Femicides, 33 Fewer Than the Year Before

It is still a very high number when compared to Spain, where there were 47 cases with a population five times larger.

“Violence leaves marks, ignoring them leaves femicides” / YoSiTeCreo en Cuba

14ymedio, Havana, 7 January 2024 — The year 2024 closes with a significant reduction in deaths from gender-based violence. The Alas Tensas and Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTC) observatories counted 55 cases, 32 fewer than in 2023, an inventory that presents some differences with respect to the list prepared by 14ymedio for the same period, which includes 54 cases (33 fewer than a year earlier).

The first difference between the report of this newspaper and that of the independent observatories is the non-inclusion by 14ymedio of three of the cases that appear on the list of Alas Tensas and YSTC. These are the murders of a 92-year-old woman identified as María, in Lawton (Havana); of another elderly woman, Paulina Chiquitica Collazo Ramos, in Los Arabos (Matanzas); and of Edgar Aliesky Martínez Torres, a five-year-old boy assaulted in Minas (Camagüey).

In the first two cases, this newspaper considers that there were reasons were not related to gender and, as for Martínez Torres, he was murdered by his father after the minor’s mother refused to resume a romantic relationship with him, which is why 14ymedio considers it a case of vicarious violence and not a femicide.

The list of this newspaper also includes two femicides that do not appear in the platforms’ registry.

On the other hand, this newspaper list includes two femicides that do not appear in the registry of the platforms. One is Samantha Heredia, a 22-year-old nurse who was murdered on March 2 in Santiago de Cuba by her husband, Dr. Pedro Carmenate. The news was confirmed to this newspaper by an employee of the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Surgical Hospital in the continue reading

eastern capital, where the victim and the aggressor met and where the latter worked as a resident doctor.

In addition to Heredia’s case, there is also that of Naomi Téllez Wilson, 24, on November 20 in Old Havana. The young woman was beaten by her ex-partner and attacked with a knife. The alleged murderer was arrested shortly after the incident. The observatories referred to this femicide, but did not confirm it.

This newspaper also added the names of Elisbeidi Tamayo Peña and Aniuska Hernández Ginard to its registry later, which were not listed initially. The murder of Tamayo, aged 39, occurred on 11 April. Tamayo was the mother of three children and was strangled by her ex-partner in the municipality of Sibanicú, in Camagüey. After the attack, the man took his own life.

In the case of Hernández, 49 years old, also a mother of three children, she was murdered on June 4 in her home in Guantánamo by a “neighbor” with an alleged criminal record and who had served a sentence for murder.

Both the registry prepared by the observatories and that of ’14ymedio’ shed light on the behavior of cases of gender-based violence on the Island

Although they differ in the aspects mentioned, both the records prepared by the observatories and that of 14ymedio shed light on the behavior of cases of gender-based violence on the Island. The ages of the women murdered on the Island, for example, range from 15 years to 92. Although it is more common for the women to be between 30 and 40 years old, the records make it clear that all age groups are vulnerable.

The number of orphans, however, increased significantly, reaching a total of 62, 21 more than the previous year.

The months with the highest number of femicides were October and November, with eight cases each, followed by June, with seven. In most of the femicides, the aggressor was the victim’s partner or ex-partner, and in many cases, family members stated that they had a history of violence.

Although the number of femicides is much lower than that recorded in 2023 (87), the Island still has a high rate of femicides in relation to its population. The figure is significantly higher than that of Spain – with five times the population of Cuba – where there were 47 cases in 2024.

____________

The Official Press Highlights the Forecasts of the Yoruba Association, Close to the Regime

With several Letters of the Year at their disposal, Cubans no longer know which ’orisha’ to trust

With official support, the Yoruba Culture Association holds numerous religious and cultural activities throughout the year. / Facebook/Yoruba Cultural Association

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 2 January 2025 — Cuban Santeros will have to decide this 2025, as in past years, which Letter of the Year they prefer to believe in. Forced by chance and probability, it is impossible for the snails thrown in Havana to offer the same prophecies as those consulted in Miami; or for the babalawos in exile, without the “theological” pressure of the Communist Party, to reveal the same truths as those who stayed on the Island.

The differences between the Letters of various groups of diviners are notable and will become even more pronounced when the “dissident” commissions, both in Cuba and abroad, publish their results. Suspiciously cautious, many babalawos hope that the first move will always be made by the Yoruba Cultural Association, and then accepted by the government and supported by the official press.

As happened last year, the Association spoke first – the meeting was held at dawn at its Havana headquarters, at Prado 615 – and Cubadebate was quick to spread the prophecies on Thursday. The year will be ruled by Changó, the warrior orisha who is associated with Santa Barbara, they say. There will be a season of “sadness and melancholy” and “vandalism and delinquency,” two almost unnecessary warnings: they are the continuation of a black year for Cubans. One of the symbols they use to sum up 2025 is eloquent: the “mass grave.”

One of the symbols they use to sum up 2025 is eloquent: the “mass grave”

The Recommendations, which tend to be the most politicized section of the Letter – and where the “retouches” demanded by the government are most evident – seem to give the orishas the go-ahead for increased surveillance and police activity. “Measures must be taken due to the intensification of continue reading

criminal acts,” they ask, in addition to “eliminating the accumulation of garbage and breeding grounds that facilitate the proliferation of epidemic diseases.”

As if it were a call for state economic caution, the Letter demands “a careful analysis of economic investments and their consequences.” They also urge greater attention to adolescents and young people, and to “care for and respect the integrity of marriage and family.” The babalawos emphasize that “because of a jar, the grave is opened.”

As if it were a call for state economic caution, the Letter demands “a careful analysis of economic investments and their consequences.

There are other details that do not invite optimism either. All kinds of diseases are predicted, particularly venereal and stomach diseases. There is a warning against eating pork – this meat “is indigestible: respect it” – and there is also a request not to steal money intended for the orishas, to reduce the consumption of alcohol and drugs, to be careful when speaking in front of children and to ask “for world peace.”

The babalawos who created the Letter, headed by the senior priest Antonio Sevilla, reminded believers that they have the support of the Board of Directors of the Association and the Councils of Senior Priests of the Republic of Cuba in all provinces and abroad, since the entity has small groups in several countries in the region, such as Mexico. The message is clear: their Letter is the legitimate one.

In a declared schism with the Association, the Miguel Febles Commission revealed this Wednesday an advance of the Letter that – as has become customary – will be published on January 4. In a handwritten page and published on their networks, they indicate that the year will be ruled not by Changó but by Odua, a powerful but lesser-known deity, who is syncretized with Jesus Christ himself.

The accompanying deity, which for the Association is Oshún, here is her antipode: Yewa, the goddess of cemeteries and the personification of death in Santeria. Despite these two ominous orishas, the Commission assures that 2025 will be a year of “advancement.”

For the exiled santeros, the regency of 2025 will not be in the hands of Changó or Odua, but of Oggún

Meanwhile, in Miami, the Kola Ifá Ocha Commission also published a preview of its Letter. For the exiled santeros, the regency of 2025 will not be in the hands of Changó or Odua, but of Oggún – the blacksmith orisha and rival of Santa Bárbara – and of Oyá, associated with the Virgin of Candelaria, and who, in Yoruba mythology, abandons Oggún for Changó.

Given such a variety of prophecies and recommendations, it will be up to each religious person to be guided by the group of priests to whom they confer the greatest authority. For Cubadebate and other official media, the bet is clear and the strategy is effective: by publishing the Letter of the Yoruba Association first, they put the others in check and take the first step in a confusion that has been repeated for years.

At the end of the day, the Cuban regime cares little about who makes the prophecy as long as it suits them. Cubadebate, which does not discriminate between religions and divination systems, also offers recommendations for the Chinese New Year on Thursday. Anyone who has lost faith in Changó, Oggún or Odua can always turn to the Wooden Snake, which predicts “creativity and adaptability”: qualities that, regardless of what they believe in, Cubans will have a great need of to get through 2025.

____________

A Sash on His Chest Does Not Make Nicolás Maduro President of Venezuela

As a good con man, he believes that this new fallacy will work out well for him and will allow him to remain in power for much longer.

Pomp is not enough to make someone the legitimate ruler of a nation. / EFE

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 11 January 2025 — Nicolás Maduro has finalized, this Friday, one of the most notorious cases of presidential hijacking in the recent history of Latin America. The sash on his chest, the swearing-in in front of the president of the National Assembly and the few leaders who attended the investiture ceremony, were part of an elaborate script that the Miraflores Palace designed for the occasion. But pomp is not enough to turn someone into the legitimate ruler of a nation. Citizen votes are the legal path to achieve this and the tenant of the Miraflores Palace does not have them. His new mandate is illegitimate, as much so as is the inauguration he carried out on January 10.

What is born from lies can never confirm the truth, it should be stressed. On a similar date, but in 2013, Venezuelan official propaganda was focused on making national and international public opinion believe that Hugo Chávez was recovering from cancer in Havana and would soon return to the country to take office as president. There was talk that he was in a “stationary” stage of his convalescence, after suffering postoperative respiratory failure that complicated his recovery. However, the testimonies and indications that have emerged a posteriori indicate that, most likely, on that January 10, twelve years ago, the military coup leader had already died or was in a state that made him incapable of being sworn in as president. The subsequent pantomime of his supposed transfer alive to Caracas and his official death in March 2013 is becoming less and less credible.

I remember that, during those days, the Cuban regime also launched a furious media campaign to reinforce the thesis of a Chávez in full capacity to lead the country. For those of us who are well acquainted with the narrative traps of Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, it smelled fishy from all sides. Maduro’s leadership of the Venezuelan nation emerged precisely from that farce; it is the direct offspring of a colossal hoax that, surprisingly, the major international media have been too lazy to investigate all this time and the majority have accepted as true that crudely retouched story.

Díaz-Canel could not be absent from the staging of this coronation because he is part of the theater

As a result of this deception, a man who has plunged the country with the largest oil reserves in the world into an unbelievable economic crisis, has forced millions of its citizens into exile and spread corruption and continue reading

clientelism throughout the nation has risen to the top position. That initial falsification is, to a large extent, the cause of the impunity with which Maduro was photographed this January smiling with the yellow, blue and red sash across his chest. Like a good swindler, he believes that this new fallacy will work out well for him, allowing him to remain in power much longer.

To help Maduro complete the lie, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel could not be missing; in the end, it was the regime of Fidel and Raúl Castro that was one of the managers of that original invention that placed him in the presidential chair. The Cuban leader has traveled from the Island, even in the midst of an extremely serious situation that would have made any other leader refrain from leaving his country. In the province of Holguín, 13 soldiers, nine of them young recruits of the Military Service, remain missing as of last Tuesday, after several explosions shook warehouses where ammunition and weapons are stored. The situation merits the uninterrupted presence of the first secretary of the Communist Party on the Island, but the engagement in Caracas was inescapable.

Díaz-Canel could not be absent from the staging of this coronation because he is part of the theater. Havana supported that fiction that brought Maduro to the Presidency for the first time and will continue to do everything in its power to keep him in office. This will affect Castroism not only with regards to a part of the oil supply it needs but, very probably, to its own survival.
____________

The Mysterious A&M Bazaar Opens its Third Shop in a Ruined Building in Havana

The supermarket is located where the state cafeteria Las Avenidas used to be, on Infanta and Carlos III

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, 8 January 2024 — Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. The upper storeys, where the majority of apartments continue to be inhabited, are falling apart, whilst the ground floor, which used to house the state operated cafeteria Las Avenidas – which gave its name to the building among the locals – with its prosperous, recently opened private store, is all bright and shiny new.

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. Beneath its newly painted arches there are ornamental plants and powerful air conditioning units, and there’s no sign of the ruined state of the rest of the building, which has been denounced by its residents on numerous occasions. On the contrary, it feels like another place entirely.

Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. / 14ymedio

Items of ironmongery, decor, articles for the home and white goods, along with other objects such as oriental smoking pipes, all mingle with foodstuffs, themselves also wide ranging, such as tinned foods, sauces and jams and even fresh produce, including dairy and meat. Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality.

A ’kitchen’-based toy, 1,000 pesos; a plastic container with two scouring pads, 450; two packets of incense, 900; a small pack of nuggets, more than 1,000; a tin of beans, 900; a small carton of juice, 700, and straws for 200 pesos – these are some of the products that you can find from day to day. The activity of loading and unloading is feverish. continue reading

Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality. / 14ymedio

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal that it belongs to Bazar A&M. The company, which already has two other stores in the same Havana district – on Neptuno/Lealdad and on Neptuno/Gervasio – has made the most of this third branch’s launch by opening a WhatsApp group where it announces new products and prices.

The products advertised on Sunday, the eve of the Epiphany / Three Kings day, are all toys, made in China. A toy truck fitted with beach-rakes at 2,500 pesos, a Jenga puzzle at 1,100 and a game with hoops for babies at 1,950. The company doesn’t allow public comments to be made, and someone who goes by the name of Valentina Vale is in charge; she is also the person who promotes the shops on Facebook.

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal its name: it belongs to Bazar A&M. / 14ymedio

Its owners are, beyond this detail, mysterious. In contrast to other micro, small or medium sized businesses (’mipymes’ or ’MSMEs’ in English), they don’t have a website, and, although they sell just about anything, they are registered with the Ministry of Economy and Planning as “producers of paper and cardboard goods” as their principal activity.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal as she was waiting to get into the store, pointing to the message printed on the door: “Havana lives in me” – a logo created by the authorities for the 505th anniversary of the capital and distributed to government institutions. “What you can see, is that they’ve spent quite a lot of money here…”, the woman observed.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal. / 14ymedio

Vigilance inside the store is also very noticeable. The staff don’t just visually monitor those who have made purchases, but they check the goods at the exit. “Carefully check your purchase before you leave, as we don’t do refunds”, says a notice.

Elsewhere, the buildings in which the company has established its other branches all used to be state owned, and, as has been repeated in recent years, they have been reopened without public tender and without advanced notice. The “mixed” bazaar Neptune was established in 2023 in a former clothing shop which had fallen into disrepair.

“Me and my sister used to love it, because you’d enter through a door at one side, go round the interior in a ’U’ direction and come out through another door, where there was also the stairway up to the residents’ flats on the upper floors”, María, a resident of the Cayo Hueso quarter, remembers of the old building.

Bazar A&M is, in any case, one of those establishments which have proliferated in Cuba in recent times, and, joining the list of these new “dollarized” businesses, it all in effect goes to demonstrate the end of the old convertible currency shops.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

____________

Demand Immediate Release of Rapper Nando OBDC, Charged With “Terrorism”

The artist is being held at the Villa Marista State Security detention center

Fernando Almanares Rivera recently coordinated a group exhibition in Miami called ’Forbidden Art: From Cuba’. / Facebook ’

14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2025 — This Thursday, the international organization Article 19 demanded the release of rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando OBDC, who was arrested last December 31 at his home in the Havana municipality of La Lisa. The artist, who is being held at the Villa Marista State Security detention center in the Cuban capital, is charged with “terrorism.” On the day of his arrest “there was no opportunity to document or take photographs of the event,” the Arts and Humanities project Fuego contra Fuego [Fire against Fire] said on Facebook, pointing out at the time that the “arrest was arbitrary,” since “it was carried out without a summons or judicial hearing.”

Since his capture, a week passed without his family being able to see or hear from him. His mother, Eva Rivera, was able to visit him last Tuesday. According to Martí Noticias, during the visit, the official in charge of the case told his mother that her son was being linked “to a fire that occurred in Lenin Park on December 30 and that is why he was being detained,” explained Adriana María Machado, the artist’s wife.

Since his arrest, a week passed without his family being able to see or hear from him. His mother, Eva Rivera, was able to visit him last Tuesday

“Initially they were accusing him of having links with people who wanted to carry out acts of terrorism against the Cuban state, and they (the authorities) were still sort of fabricating the charges,” Machado added. In the face of the accusations, “he maintains his innocence,” Machado told ADN Cuba.

Days before the visit, on January 3, agents of the regime searched the rapper’s home. According to the same source, they were looking for a computer or USB memory stick, but they also took photos of the paintings in the house and “they took a Cuban flag that he had.” continue reading

“Nando OBDC is a musician and visual artist with a long trajectory in the Cuban underground, which is commensurate with the intensity of the harassment by the political police,” noted the Observatory for Cultural Rights a day after his arrest.

The 35-year-old artist recently coordinated in Miami a group exhibition called Forbidden Art: From Cuba

The 35-year-old artist recently coordinated a group exhibition in Miami called Forbidden Art: From Cuba. According to the press release, the show featured artists’ work “from Cuba’s vibrant yet restricted art scene.” The invitation to the opening on December 7 even asked for donations such as food or medical supplies for political prisoners on the island. In recent years, the rapper has also collaborated with artists such as Marichal, Maykel Castillo Osorbo, David D Omni and Navy Pro, among others.

That profile has put him in the crosshairs of authorities for some time. In November 2021, Almenares Rivera was summoned to the Seventh Station of the National Revolutionary Police for his publications on social networks. The Navy Pro musician said at the time that, a month earlier, the artist had already been taken “to this same police station where he was threatened with Decree Law 35, and based on it, the officers told the artist that he could be prosecuted for making publications showing the faces of government agents.”

“’We’re going to watch you,’ ’you’re going to have to move from La Lisa,’ were some of the attacks Nando received from the officers, who also suggested putting him in a cell to beat him,” added Navy Pro.

Translated by LAR

____________

Another Former Cuban Regime Official Enters the United States

Orlando Ernesto Pérez Núñez arrived in the US through CBP One on November 19 and lives in Kentucky

Orlando Ernesto Pérez, when he was elected president of the Martí Youth Movement. / ‘Escambray’

14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2025 — The emigration of Cuban regime officials to the United States continues unabated. The most recent on the list is Orlando Ernesto Pérez Núñez, former president of the Movimiento Juvenil Martiano (MJM) [Martí Youth Movement], belonging to the Union of Young Communists (UJC). According to Martí Noticias, he arrived in the US through CBP One on November 19 and lives in Kentucky.

Pérez Núñez, who replaced Yusuam Palacios at the head of the MJM in January 2023, crossed the border from Mexico through El Paso, Texas, where he requested asylum, according to a note from the American media published this Friday.

According to an MJM official cited in the note, Pérez Núñez was no longer at the head of the organization, although his resignation from the post was not officially announced.

A year ago, in an interview with Cubadebate, the then official assured that one of his main tasks at the head of the movement was to “transmit the principles of the Cuban Revolution, and the vehicle to be effective is history.” continue reading

A year ago, in an interview with ’Cubadebate’, he said that one of his main tasks at the head of the movement was to “transmit the principles of the Cuban Revolution.”

“Another of the challenge,” he said, “is the transformation of this movement in today’s Cuba. To be able to bring it to the minds of young people, to make the José Martí Pioneers Organization a reality. The challenge is to transform the methodological documents and the processes that we develop as a movement and adapt them to the new generations.”

According to his statements, he planned to serve out his entire term, until 2028. “We want to see a strengthened, improved movement when we finish our five-year mandate, one that truly responds to the interests of today’s Cuba, of the new generations and of the UJC. That it assumes within the José Martí Cultural Society the care of children, adolescents and young people, as part of the system of institutions of the Office of the Martí Program,” he indicated. However, he did not even complete two years at the head of the organization.

Pérez Núñez did not respond to Martí Noticias’ request for comment and has deleted his social media profiles.

During 2024, more than 115 Cuban repressors and officials fled to the United States. The figure is five times higher than that reported in February 2023 by the Miami-based Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which runs a program to identify those who, having contributed to repression on the island, intend to settle in a democratic country.

Tony Costa, director of the organization, reported last August that they have “identified more than 1,000 Cuban regime repressors” living in the United States, many of whom entered “by lying.” Costa added that these former officials “have abused the immigration system to come to the United States.”

During 2024, more than 115 Cuban repressors and officials fled to the US. The figure is five times higher than that reported in February 2023

Members of the Communist Party, State Security agents, prosecutors and even judges are among the people who have recently arrived and who have been identified in the digital project Cuban Repressors.

One of the most representative cases is that of Judge Melody González Pedraza, who arrived at Tampa Airport in Florida on May 30 thanks to humanitarian parole. However, she was denied entry into the country there and decided to request political asylum. Since then, Judge González has been waiting in prison for a ruling to obtain refugee status.

The judge arrived in the United States a few days after having sentenced four young Cubans to three and four years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at property belonging to regime officials in November 2022 in Villa Clara. Two months later, from prison, González Pedraza tried to distance herself from the ruling in an interview with Diario de Cuba and said she had received instructions from the president of the Provincial Court and the president of the Security Chamber.

Another case was that of Rosabel Roca Sampedro, the former prosecutor responsible for sentences of up to four and a half years in prison for “attack and contempt” for four protesters from Camagüey during the Island-wide protests on 11 July 2021. Despite the alert launched by different organizations and the express request of three congressmen to the Department of Homeland Security to reject her request for asylum, she entered the United States on July 15. According to Martí Noticias, which had reported on the case in June, Roca Sampedro entered with a CBP One appointment at the border with Mexico in Brownsville, Texas.

Also on the list is Liván Fuentes Álvarez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power on the Isle of Youth between 2019 and 2022, who was denied entry by the United States immigration authorities last May after his humanitarian parole was revoked. On social media, he showed himself to be a staunch defender of the regime, as evidenced by official images alongside President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

One of the most high-profile cases of last year was that of Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, former first secretary of the Communist Party in Cienfuegos, who was “coordinator of the Coordination and Support Team of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.” Last August, he managed to enter the United States. He arrived at Miami International Airport – seeking to go unnoticed – in a wheelchair, wearing a mask and a cap.

____________

The United States Returns 20 Irregular Migrants to Cuba, Its First Operation in 2025

Two of the irregular migrants were transferred “to the investigative body for being suspected of committing criminal acts before leaving Cuba,” the authorities said.

The group was intercepted by the US coast guard after illegally leaving the island / X/@USCG

EFE/14ymedio, 9 January 2025 — The United States Coast Guard Service (USCG) deported a total of 20 migrants to Cuba on Thursday, in the first return operation to the Island from the US in 2025, official media reported.

The group – composed of 9 men, 7 women and 4 children – was intercepted by the US coast guard after illegally leaving the Island. Most live in Havana, according to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.

The migrants were handed over by the US coast guard at the port of Orozco, in the province of Artemisa

Two of them were transferred “to the investigative body for alleged criminal acts before leaving Cuba,” the authorities said.

In addition, the Ministry of the Interior stated that this is the second return operation of 2025, after the one reported on January 3, when 19 Cubans were returned from the Bahamas by air, making a total of 39 returned so far this year. continue reading

The migrants were handed over by the US Coast Guard in the port of Orozco

The Cuban authorities have stated that they maintain “firm” in their commitment to a “safe and orderly” migration, and they continue to warn of the danger and risks of illegal exits from the country, stressing that it is “irresponsible” to involve minors in those events.

The Governments of Havana and Washington have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants arriving by sea to US territory are returned to Cuba.

In addition, deportation flights resumed in April 2023, mainly for people considered “inadmissible” after being detained on the US border with Mexico.

In Mexico, eight Cuban rafters who were rescued last week by sailors are at the headquarters of the National Institute of Migration (INM), where they have requested advice to prevent them from being deported to the Island. The migrants, a woman and seven men, were found by the crew of the ship Catherine-Grace on a drifting raft 198 nautical miles north of Puerto Progreso.

A total of 8,261 Cubans were registered by US border authorities last October

According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), during the 2024 fiscal period, which ended on September 30, 217,615 Cubans arrived in the United States.

A total of 8,261 Cubans were registered by US border authorities last October, the first month of fiscal year 2025, and according to CBP, more than 860,000 Cuban migrants entered US territory in the last four years.

In 2024, 93 returns were made from different countries in the region, with a total of 1,384 irregular migrants returned.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

Some Relatives of the 13 Missing From the Explosion in Cuba Criticize the Military’s Decision To Delay the Rescue

More details are known about the victims of the Melones explosion in Holguín
The alert has been extended to Sancti Spíritus, where helicopters fly over the weapon silos on the Zaza road

’Granma’ does not specify how many explosions there were in total, but in the videos spread on social networks by eyewitnesses can be seen at least two explosions that occurred during the day. / Screen capture

14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 9 January 2024 — “We are doing what we can.” The response of the authorities is invariable when approaching the relatives of the 13 soldiers who disappeared after the explosions that occurred on Tuesday at the Melones base, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre, in Holguín. As explained to 14ymedio by the aunt of one of the young recruits affected, who asks for anonymity, the local government officials themselves visit the homes but are not able to give the families concrete information.

They hope, says this same source, that the soldiers – nine recruits of the Active Military Service (SMA) and four officers – “have managed to enter a security tunnel near the site of the explosion, to which they had access.” The woman continues: “They say that when they manage to lower the temperature of the place they will look there specifically, because it’s the only hope of finding them alive.”

One of them, Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre, Alexis Driggs Gómez, as confirmed to this newspaper by several local residents.

The shock wave of the explosion that happened “impacted them all, throwing them to the floor”

Driggs Gómez himself was injured in one of the explosions, as the State newspaper Granma published this Thursday: “He carries on his forehead, between his eyes, the imprint of the impact of a glass fragment caused by the first large explosion that occurred in the Military Unit.” The text details that the municipal president, along with several military authorities, “had reached the vicinity of a burned silo, where the military chief explained to them the continue reading

magnitude of the danger that threatened the residents in the vicinity and the need for a quick evacuation.”

The shock wave of the explosion that occurred, the article continues, “hit them all, throwing them to the floor in the middle of a cloud of particles, dirt and dust flying in all directions.”

After that first explosion, “around two in the morning,” Yamilé Suárez Serrano, one of the evacuees from the hamlet of Sao Nuevo, whose home served as an “address post” in the first hours, told Granma that “the warning was set in motion,” and “later the means of transport arrived.” The first evacuated were the elderly, children and pregnant women, said the same source, who is also the mother of a People’s Power delegate in the area.

The Communist Party newspaper does not specify how many explosions there were in total, but in the videos spread on social networks by eyewitnesses can be seen at least two that occurred during the day.

On Wednesday afternoon, says the official newspaper, “a press group gained the closest possible access to the damage.” “Columns of smoke still crowned several elevations,” although “no explosions have been reported since early Wednesday morning.”

More than 490 residents in the rural constituency of Sao Redondo, according to official information, were transferred to “safe places,” as were residents of Sao Nuevo, El Cerro and the town of Melones itself. Granma sources highlighted “the creation of rural brigades” that guarded “homes with the belongings of those transferred to evacuation centers and protected the homes of family and friends, in the municipal capital and in other places.”

General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin”

The report also indicates that “surveillance is constant with the use of various means, including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).” According to sources from 14ymedio, the alert went throughout the country. In Sancti Spíritus, this Thursday “helicopters are flying over the city in the northern part, specifically over the weapon silos on the Zaza road,” says a former SMA recruit in that area. “In addition, you can see the coming and going of cars with soldiers.”

In the official press, the authorities claim that they showed “courage and responsibility” and that in the “area of greatest danger from the first moment” the “main heads of the Eastern Army and the Military Region of Holguín have been there, as well as Joel Queipo Ruiz, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first secretary of the organization in Holguín territory, also Manuel Hernández Aguilera, governor of Holguín, and members of the Defense Council of the Municipality and other local authorities.”

The head of the National Civil Defense General Staff, General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin,” without specifying why he used this term, although he added that the causes were still being investigated.

However, the opinion of family members, who vent on social networks, is very different. Jesús Antonio, uncle of Liander José García Oliva who is missing, posted,”I feel that the right thing is not being done; I feel that those children are still alive but nothing is being done to save them. They are leaving them to God’s fate, because we know that they have not tried to look for them. And what hurts the most is that they had the courage to risk them all, but now none of them want to risk it for those children, whom they forced to do the dirty work that didn’t correspond to their rank.”

Jesús Antonio says that they are still waiting for the return home of the recruits, and adds: “All parents and close or distant relatives should come together and make it come true. Tell them to stop lying and do what they have to do, which is to give their lives to try to save those whom they forced to be there.”

More commentators joined his wish, such as Yeikel del Valle, who says that his ex-brother-in-law and uncle of his daughter is also among the victims, and Camila Ching, who says: “Very true, I have the brother of a dear friend on that list and there are no answers. It is not fair to leave them to the fate of what may happen.”

Leandro Pérez Alberteriz says he is “available in case they need volunteers. Those words are very well written. My first cousin is also among the missing, and they aren’t doing anything to get them out.”

From testimonies of relatives and comments on Facebook, it is possible to reconstruct scraps of the biographies of the disappeared.

Among the nine SMA recruits are a Japanese cartoon enthusiast and a future chef, and some who were only a few months away from demobilizing. Most are residents of the vicinity of the Melones base or other Holguin municipalities.

Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre

Along with the aforementioned Leinier Jorge Sánchez and Liander José García Oliva, the list of recruits consists of Brian Lázaro Rojas Long (from the community of Esterito, in the municipality of Banes), Yunior Hernández Rojas (originally from Holguín), Rayme Rojas Rojas (born in 2004), José Carlos Guerrero García (only 19 years old), Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer (neighbor of the municipality of San Andrés), Carlos Alejandro Acosta Silva and Héctor Adrián Batista Zayas (from Las Tunas).

Among the officers is Major Carlos Carreño (from Santiago de Cuba, married and with a child), the second non-commissioned officer Orlebanis Tamé Torres, with a military degree also obtained by Yoennis Pérez Durán, a graduate of electrical engineering, as well as Major Leonar Palma Matos (also the father of a son).

Their identities were made public by the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces almost 12 hours after the event occurred, and after long hours of rumors and uncertainty.

These types of accidents are not rare in military installations such as Melones. In the first hours of the event, news was spread by mistake – even by the official press – that the damaged warehouse was the same one that in 2020 also suffered two morning explosions in Gibara, about 50 kilometers from Rafael Freyre.

In addition, in June 2017 there was a similar event, this time in Santiago de Cuba, when several explosions occurred in the municipality of Songo-La Maya, near the Ti Arriba military unit .

Then, half a thousand neighbors were evacuated for five days, without anyone giving them an explanation about the incident, which did not cause more damage than the consequences, reported by the residents, of leaving their animals abandoned for several days.

Last 2024, three workers died in several explosions at the Ernesto Che Guevara Industrial Military Company (EMI), located in La Campana, in Manicaragua, Villa Clara. In these cases, accidents occurred when employees handled potentially dangerous explosives.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________

A Mexican Doctor Asks a Cuban Businessman to Get Him Out of a Cuba with Its Blackouts and No Food

The scholarship holder is accused of being in line with the policy of the current Government of Claudia Sheinbaum

Mexican medical students studying a specialty at the Pedro Kourí Institute in Havana. / (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 October 2024 [Note delayed translation] — Raúl Guerrero, one of the 994 doctors who received scholarships from the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) to study a specialty in Cuba, asked businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego for help to get him off the island. According to the doctor, the group had faced a power outage for almost four days, with food shortages and rising prices for everything. “Enjoy what you voted for,” replied the third richest man in Mexico, referring to the ruling Morena party.

The owner of TV Azteca said that on August 28, the same health worker called him “a debtor of the Nation” and told him to “pay what he owed.” Guerrero provoked a wave of mockery and reproaches for his contradictory attitude, which until recently was aggressive with Salinas and now is begging for his help. After the controversy, the student closed his account at X.

Businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego answer to a Mexican medical student in Cuba. / Plataforma X

The doctor’s previous comments were shared on social media, in which he showed his total agreement with the Mexican government, which was responsible for his being sent to study on the island. In May 2024, he challenged journalist Joaquín López-Dóriga to a debate. In the post, he wrote: “They no longer know how to stop AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador), we are going to have a government for the people and not full of hypocrites like you, López-Dóriga.”

In the post he wrote during the prolonged blackout that affected Cuba this weekend, Guerrero had attached a letter that the students sent to the continue reading

Mexican consul in Havana, Ignacio Cabrera Fernández, to let him know that the hospitals where they are “rotating” told them that their demands should be attended to by the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company SA or Conahcyt.

The energy crisis on the island, they complained, affects public transportation, which makes it difficult for them to reach different parts of the cities, in addition to the fact that “there is no electricity in the hospital units, which makes work difficult because supplies, medicines or procedures are minimal, more so than usual.” Given these limitations, they asked to be taken off the island between the 23rd or 24th of this month.

The so-called “Medical Specialties in Cuba” program was implemented during the Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to inject money into the Island. It is expected that this year another 601 Mexicans will join the 994 scholarship recipients to study their specialty at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana, the Ministry of Public Health or the Center for Medical-Surgical Research.

However the agreement with Mexico has not been as favorable as Cuba had hoped. In 2021, it was learned that, of 1,600 available scholarships, only 172 were covered. Once in Havana, the medical students reported unforeseen extra expenses, such as paying for internet, laundry service and lodging, in addition to being forced to manage the $1,100 for “maintenance” that Conahcyt granted each of them through an account at the Banco Popular de Ahorro.

Cuban medical student Raúl Guerrero called businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego “a debtor of the Nation.” / Plataforma X

According to official information from Conahcyt, scholarship students must also cover annual medical insurance, which ranges from 231.28 euros per year for those who are 18 years old to 3,204 euros for students up to 70 years old, although the institution does not have students of such advanced ages.

Mexico pays the Cuban government 7,800 euros annually for each student of pathological anatomy; 12,500 euros for general surgery; 7,800 euros for hygiene and epidemiology; 12,500 euros for medical genetics; 7,800 euros for geriatrics; 9,900 euros for rehabilitation medicine; 12,500 euros for intensive medicine; 9,900 euros for internal medicine; 7,800 euros for pulmonology; 12,500 euros for ophthalmology; 12,500 euros for clinical pathology; 9,900 euros for psychiatry; and 12,500 euros for traumatology and orthopedics.

____________

Like Zombies, Cuban Smokers Look for Affordable Cigarettes in the Midst of Inflation

The customers, with the anxiety of those who cannot contain themselves before the image of their desires, raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips when the saleswoman answered their questions

This Wednesday, on the boulevard of the central San Rafael Street in Centro Habana, a petite woman unfolded her box of merchandise / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 9 January 2024 — In the movie Juan de los Muertos [Juan of the Dead], the zombies who wander the streets of Havana have a lost look and a clumsy step. That fiction, which masterfully mixed humor and terror, seems to have predicted the nervous walk and the irritated faces of the smokers who roam the Cuban capital these days. Desperate and with a gesture of anguish, they are looking for cigarettes that they can afford in the midst of a rise in price, which has exceeded 1,500 pesos per pack.

This Wednesday, on the boulevard of the central San Rafael Street in Central Havana, a petite woman unfolded her merchandise in a box. The customers, with the anxiety of those who cannot contain themselves before the image of their desires, raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips when the saleswoman answered their questions: “The boxes of H are 1,000 pesos. The Upmann [strong] and the mild ones are from 300 to 600.” If the smoker doesn’t have enough money for these, the merchant offers Criollos, the worst valued and popularly known as “rompepechos” [chest breakers] at 350 pesos a pack or each cigarette of H. Upmann for 50 pesos.

“The packs of H are 1,000 pesos. The Upmann [strong] and the mild ones are from 300 to 600”

“It’s better to smoke the bills than to pay so much” lamented a sad customer who went for a pack and left with barely three cigarettes in his hand. “I haven’t even been able to sleep for days. I no more end a fight with my wife only to get into another; I can’t go on anymore,” he stammered. In other places, managed by MSMEs, the prices are even higher. In those markets a pack of Populares with filters reaches 1,600 pesos, and a pack of H. Upmann is fast on its heels with 1,500. Employees justify the escalation with the cost of buying the goods from the State or, in the case of foreign brands, of importing them. continue reading

“Most of the time we have to buy Cuban cigarettes in the stores in MLC [hard currency] or now in the ones that have opened in dollars, so we barely get anything at the current price of dollars,” says an employee of a private market on Reina Street. The young worker says that in recent days she has even come to feel afraid, “because the smokers come in, see the prices, get very upset and take it out on everyone. They usually swear and even punch the wall.”

“Most of the time we have to buy Cuban cigarettes in the stores in MLC [hard currency] or now in those that have opened in dollars”

In a country that grows tobacco and in which 24% of Cubans, from the age of 15, actively smoke, the rise in the price of cigarettes puts hundreds of thousands of consumers in check. Although some cut consumption in order not to affect personal and family finances, most reduce expenses in other areas in order to be able to pay for their addiction. “I may lack food, water and a roof over my head, but I don’t want to gamble with cigarettes,” summarized a young man sitting in Fraternity Park smoking a newly-bought pack: “It cost me 1,500 pesos, the same amount as the monthly retirement my mother receives.”

According to this Havanan, lowering cigarette prices should even become a political priority for the authorities. “They know that when people can’t smoke they go crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a protest, with smokers throwing themselves into the street,” he predicts. It is not difficult to see his premonition in some scenes from that 2011 film where some zombies, with their slow gait and their terrifying gaze, take over the esplanade in front of the Plaza de la Revolución.

Translated by Regina Anavy

____________