Translating Cuba – Page 124 – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

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.

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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.

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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.
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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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Cuba, 66 Years in the Dark

The hope for a better world was dashed, only fear remained

Fidel Castro entering Havana on January 8, 1959 / Archive

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami. 5 January 2024 — I remember as if it were today, the first of January 1959 and the days that followed. I had just turned 16 and there was a collective hysteria, as best described by the journalist and historian Enrique Encimosa in the documentary Al Filo del Machete, produced by Pedro Suarez Tintín and Luis Diaz, and by the writer Jose Antonio Albertini in his most recent publication Memoria Constante: Relatos verídicos.

At the end of 1958, the premiere of the film The Bridge Over the River Kwai was scheduled to take place at El Cloris, the most modern cinema in Santa Clara.

I don’t think there were any movie-goers in those days. Various rebel groups attacked the city, taking the war to the streets, although I do remember that a few months later the cinema and the building that housed it, the Grand Hotel, the tallest building in the interior of the country, were confiscated by the revolution.

The former owner, Orfelio Ramos, was an entrepreneur, as dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel likes to say, who had made his fortune renting out bicycles and driving local buses with such spirit and talent that he became the owner of the buses that provided urban service in the city of Santa Clara.

Most of the population participated in that carnival that mixed hope for some and fear for others.

Hysteria had gripped both men and women. To my knowledge, the majority of the population participated in that carnival that mixed hope for some and fear for others. In the end, the ironclad social control established by Fidel and Raúl Castro terrorized the population in a framework of colossal inefficiency that has led the country to unprecedented spiritual and continue reading

material misery.

The hope for a better world was dashed, and only fear remained. These contrary feelings were the result of the fanaticism of a few who, by standing out in the revolutionary whirlwind, were the protagonists of a sectarianism that was difficult to free themselves from, even if they had revolutionary credentials, as happened to the insurrectional leader Pedro Barata, a political prisoner for many years, when he testified before some thugs that the person they accused was innocent.

I remember a Castro slogan that said more or less it doesn’t matter what you did, but what you are doing, a clear message to the new and future accomplices of the destruction of the Republic that we lost.

The tension in society grew stronger every day because the arbitrary arrests and the roar of the firing squad frightened and deafened us. Arrests based on mere suspicions or unfounded accusations of collaboration with the overthrown regime were factors that encouraged opportunists or the most fearful to become accusers before the revolutionary courts, which did not seek justice but cruel revenge, concealed in a spurious judicial process.

The Revolution as a source of law, a pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic, as Dr. Ramón Barquín explained in a recent article, gave the coup de grace to civility, including the conversion of the media, even the private ones, into instruments of a thunderous propaganda that confused the citizenry beyond description, a citizenry that was gradually but constantly being transformed into a mass at the service of the Castros and a criminal accomplice.

The massive confiscation of property, without judicial process, deprived many people of well-earned family fortunes.

On the other hand, the massive confiscation of property, without judicial process, deprived many people of well-earned family patrimonies. A Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Property was hastily created, appointing incompetent administrators who destroyed the properties, a kind of precursor to the nouveau riche of today, children of the moncadistas, who today enjoy the power and wealth that their parents and grandparents appropriated.

Days and nights passed by, accumulating 66 years. Many have been accomplices of Castro’s totalitarianism. The regime has not lacked executioners who, even if they have not fired a rifle at a fellow human being, are accomplices of the numerous deaths and sufferings endured by the population.

However, to the satisfaction of men and women of dignity, there has been no shortage of compatriots willing to face the disgrace of Castroism with the painful consequences of exile, prison and firing squad, not to mention the internal exile in which many compatriots live, who, for various reasons, remain on the Island.

I am sure that Cuba and the Cubans will be free, but justice must be sought for this vast devastation of 66 years of terror.

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Who Are the 13 Missing in the Explosions at Cuba’s Military Warehouse in Holguín?

Nine are young military service recruits, most of them from that eastern province

A fan of Japanese cartoons, a future chef and a young father are among the missing / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2025 — The life stories of the 13 missing soldiers begin to emerge with the testimonies of relatives and the scraps of their biographies found on social networks. The nine young people, apparently all recruits of the Active Military Service (SMA), include a fan of Japanese cartoons, a future chef and a young father. Most are residents near the Melones base or in other Holguin municipalities.

For example, Brian Rojas Long lives in the community of Esterito, in the municipality of Banes. His aunt, Norma Rojas, said that he had recently been on a pass at home and that he had only eight months left to finish his service. His father, Lázaro, said the young man is very excited because he has been assigned to work in a hotel on the Ramón de Antilla peninsula as a chef’s assistant. “I like that,” he told his aunt during the family visit.

There is also Yunior Hernández Rojas, originally from Holguín and father of a baby, who has been with his current partner since 2018. Rayme Rojas Rojas, 20, likes animated Japanese cartoons. In November 2023, he was seen on social networks wearing the recruit uniform. He had only six months left to complete his time as a soldier. continue reading

Some relatives have appealed to social networks in search of answers

Among the youngest, there is José Carlos Guerrero Garcia, 19, also in the SMA, son of Julio Guerrero and a resident in the municipality of Rafael Freyre. Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer is a resident of the municipality of San Andrés and is currently single. Lander José García Oliva is also from that same community, hard hit at the moment by uncertainty.

Some relatives have appealed to social networks in search of answers. A cousin of Leinier Jorge Sánchez, 18, made a desperate request on Facebook for the young man to appear alive. Yilena Roche Arcaya defined him as “one of the children who is missing in the explosion.” The young man also lives in Rafael Freyre, the municipality most marked by the tragedy. There are hardly any details about the others; Héctor Adrián Batista, another recruit, is only known to be from Las Tunas.

Among the missing officers are Major Carlos Carreño, a native of Santiago de Cuba, married and with a son, and a second non-commissioned officer, Orlebanis Tamé Torres, who has a military rank. Another is Yoennis Pérez Durán, a graduate of electrical engineering, who obtained his diploma in Moa at the Dr. Antonio Núñez Jiménez Higher Mining Metallurgical Institute in 2009. He is a follower of the Real Madrid football team.

Major Leonar Palma Matos studied at Juan José Fornet Piña de Holguín’s basic high school and has a son. Although he keeps his Facebook profile restricted, several of his childhood friends have left messages of sadness in other groups for what happened.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban Government Opens a High-End Supermarket that Only Accepts Dollars in Cash or Card

The move is a sign that “dollarization” of the economy — something Prime Minister Manuel Marrero has spoken about— is going ahead along with the end of the MLC

The new Supermercado 3ra y 70 (3rd and 70th Supermarket) is owned by Tiendas Caribe, a branch of the Cimex corporation. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 3 January 2024 — The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket, which opened on Tuesday on the ground floor of the luxurious Gran Muthu Habana hotel in Miramar, does not accept MLC (a form of digital convertible currency) much less Cuban pesos. The store is owned by Tiendas Caribe, one of the numerous offshoots of the Cuban Armed Forces all-powerful Business Administration Group (GAESA). The store accepts three forms of payment: dollars in the form of cash, foreign cards and the so-called Clásica (Classic) debit card, which is denominated dollars.

The supermarket was bustling on Thursday, two days after opening, overwhelming its visitors. The store is part of a newly built shopping center that includes numerous privately owned shops — among them a branch of the Chocolatera confectionery —most of which have yet to open.

Outside the entrance to the complex was a line of cars, similar to lines outside the city’s gas stations, whose owners were eager to park and shop. Unlike at other state-owned stores, the shelves inside the huge, clean, well-lit space were fully stocked with a variety of products.

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkouts, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. / 14ymedio

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkout counters, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. “All the beans here are canned and natural. The meats, the cheeses, the olive oil, the regular oils, tomato sauces, pickles, canned fruit, nougat, rice, coffee, yogurt, milk, ice cream, and even whole wheat bread! It’s got everything, everything,” said Lucía, who spent 6,000-pesos taxi on a taxi ride from Old Havana to get here. And she was amazed. “The checkout counters move. I have never seen that in Cuba before, not even in the Cuatro Caminos market!”

The supermarket carries Cuban-made products which are no longer available at state-owned stores. Until now, they could only be found at privately owned small and medium sized stores (MSMEs). These include items such as Cubita coffee and Estancia fruit juices; private label brands such as Clamanta and Gustó. They new store also carries “foreign” brands routinely found at Cimex stores. They include Spain’s Vima, Mexico’s Richmeat and Chile’s Sur Continente, companies that have long been established on the island. Vima, which imports apples, has been operating in Cuba since the 1990s . Small appliances such as fans (for $45) and Italian coffee makers were also among the most popular items at the store.

“I imagine that, since this is in dollars, it will last but, with this kind of operation, you never know,” said an elderly woman who was accompanied by her daughter. “The MLC stores started out like this but but now they’re empty.”

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. / 14ymedio

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. Customers include high-ranking officials, foreigners and embassy personnel as well as a picturesque group of nuns. Two of them were in the checkout line, waiting to buy fans. Two others scurried back and forth to their car, carrying a wide variety of products and foodstuffs.

“You have to take advantage of this because, before too long, it will all be gone. Just look at the MLC stores. They haven’t been stocked in a very long time,” observes a retiree carrying a basketful of chicken.

A sign at the cash register explains how customers can pay for their items. “Payment here is made using USD cards,” it reads, with logos of which cards the store accepts. At the top — above even the Mastercard and Visa logos — is Russia’s Mir card, which a woman in the checkout line was waiting to use. “It belongs to my husband,” she said, surprised to learn the store will also accept cash. Most customers, however, were paying in dollars.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket also carries Vima-brand apples. / 14ymedio

The cash registers did not, however, provide change. Instead, employees hand out small sweets, though they were not given to customers if the amount was less than five cents.

Another novel form of payment is the Classic card, which has been available to customers at this shopping center since December 7. Though senior government officials have said nothing about it, requiring consumers to pay in dollars and incentivizing them to use this card can be seen as another step towards dollarization of Cuba’s retail economy, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month in the National Assembly. Effectively, it also means the end of the MLC. continue reading

In a post on social media, Cimex describes Classic as “a financial product denominated in U.S. dollars, designed to facilitate your transactions within the country.” It can be used at the network of gas stations that take payment in dollars and at retail outlets with point-of-sale (POS) terminals. It can also be used to buy goods and services, and to import products from overseas. The card costs $5.00, or its equivalent at the “current exchange rate” in “accepted foreign currencies,” the corporation states. One dollar of the purchase price is automatically added to the buyer’s account balance. There is no “pre-set amount” or required minimum balance. Customers receive a 5% discount on each purchase but are charged a $1.00 service fee each time money is added to their accounts.

The supermarket is part of a new shopping center that includes numerous privately owned businesses. / 14ymedio

Cimex also announced that it will soon be available at CADECA foreign exchange offices and other retail outlets, including those in the Gran Muthu Hotel complex. One of the few shops now open there is a perfumery.

The supermarket is still accepting MLC for the time being , an employee tells a customer who asked about some cologne. “You can go to the perfumery if you have MLC but you’d better hurry because that’s about to change,” says the employee.

“When will that be?” asked the customer.

“I don’t think it will be long but they haven’t told us yet,” he replied.

The new 3rd and 70th stands in contrast to an old supermarket of the same name, which opened prior to 1990. Its merchandise was priced in dollars at a time when it was illegal for Cubans to have them. Initially, only diplomats and resident foreigners were allowed to shop there but, by 1993, it was open to all. Like many state-owned stores, it went into a steep decline after it became an MLC store in 202o.

Attracted by the crowed and dressed in their uniforms, some of the employees of the old store came over to check out the new one. Their irritation was all too obvious. “This is a disgrace. Everything they used to sell in the old store when it first opened is now here. There’s nothing over there and this place has everything,” one employee complained loudly.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket stands in contrast to the old pre-1990 market of the same name. / 14ymedio

“There are no empty shelves here,” said one of the employees. “All the empty shelves are over at the other store, which is falling to pieces,” responded one of her co-workers. Ironically, in late December, Cimex announced on social media that it was celebrating the anniversary of the old “diplomat’s store”

A visit on Thursday to the old store confirmed everything its employees described: poor lighting, visibly dirty shelves, scant merchandise, and the stench of rotting meat throughout. The site now mainly serves as a parking lot for customers of the new 3rd and 70th Supermarket,

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Mexico Rejects Migrants’ Request for Refuge, a Cuban Man Denounces

The Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid reports that the number of applications decreased in 2024, with 78,975, including 17,884 citizens from the Island.

In Tapachula, the National Migration Institute set up 12 checkpoints to prevent the nearly 30,000 migrants in the state from moving forward / EFE

14ymedio/EFE, Mexico City, 8 January 2025 — The Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar in Spanish)) claims that applications from migrants fell by almost 44% in 2024. According to official figures, it served 78,975 migrants that year, or 43.8% less than in 2023, when a total of 140,720 foreigners went to one of the commission’s nine offices.

For many Cubans, however, asylum applications have not really dropped, but rather Mexico is responding negatively to them. Thus, Osiel Rodriguez, reports that the Comar rejected his asylum application just as it did for at least 30 other Cubans the day he went to the office in Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala. The Mexican authorities, he tells 14ymedio, told him that “he was not a politically persecuted person” and considered that he had left the island because of “economic problems.”

Rodriguez was instead granted a safe-conduct with which he can remain in the country for a maximum of 20 days. In his account, the Cuban insists that he left because of the “persecution” he suffered and the “threats of the regime” when he made public his discontent with the situation in the country. “In Cuba, there is no freedom, they put you in jail for thinking differently.”

Osiel Rodriguez is desperate to go to the U.S.: “Whatever it takes, paying a coyote or in a convoy, but I have to be at the border at Piedras Negras on the 16th and be able to cross before Trump is sworn in.”

He said he has not been able to log in to the CBP One application. “It’s crashing, I keep trying, but I don’t know if I will be able to log in.”

Donald Trump warned that he will toughen immigration laws from day one of his term in office. One of the measures is to close the CBP One continue reading

application. Since its implementation, also in January 2023, until last December, more than 904,500 people have been able to schedule their appointments to appear at the border.

In Tapachula, the National Migration Institute set up 12 checkpoints to prevent the nearly 30,000 migrants in the state from moving forward. “They are closing the roads, holding us and returning us to Tapachula,” denounces Guatemalan Tonatiuh Gomez. “They don’t want trouble when Trump becomes president, that’s what the soldiers say.”

Local authorities claim that the concern in Chiapas is to tackle human trafficking networks. This Tuesday 30 video surveillance cameras were uninstalled on the Hidalgo and Suchiate border, which criminal groups used to monitor migrants to “extort and kidnap them,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a brief statement.

Meanwhile, in the United States, civil rights and immigrant organizations criticized the Laken Riley Act, approved Tuesday by the lower chamber of the new Congress, considering that it will facilitate President-elect Donald Trump’s massive deportation plan and eliminate due process for those charged with non-violent crimes.

The initiative, if passed this Friday by the Senate, will strengthen Trump’s position, who takes office this coming January 20, to unleash mass deportations and will allow racial discrimination when it comes to punishing non-violent crimes, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stressed on Wednesday.

The bill requires immigration authorities to detain undocumented migrants accused of committing theft and other non-violent crimes so they can be deported.

Translated by LAR

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Cuba Will Not Allow Tragedy To Spoil the Celebration of the 66th Anniversary of the Revolution

At the beginning of 2025, the explosion in Holguín has gotten in the way of so much paraphernalia

Every January, the same tiresome sequence of commemorations, freedom caravans and official evocations is repeated in Cuba. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 8 January 2025 — Lovers of ritual, and anchored to symbolic acts, dictatorships are given to organizing ahead of time and in a rigid manner a script of celebrations, public events and media coverage on anniversaries and founding dates. Nothing can make them deviate from this protocol projected to aggrandize their power and show themselves eternal. Every January, in Cuba, the same tiresome sequence of commemorations, caravans of freedom and official evocations of that January of 1959 when Fidel Castro took power on the Island is repeated. But at the beginning of 2025, tragedy has gotten in the way of so much paraphernalia.

Throughout Tuesday, Cubans have been following the news that, in dribs and drabs, came out from the vicinity of the weapons and ammunition warehouse in the community of Melones, belonging to the municipality of Rafael Freyre, in Holguín. In the military enclave, a series of explosions put the neighbors on alert and forced the Ministry of the Armed Forces to publish a note in which it limited itself to briefly reporting the explosions. As the day progressed and the testimonies and images taken by residents in the area reached the social networks, concern grew that the incident was much more serious than the authorities admitted and that it was far from being controlled.

Shortly afterwards, the number of 13 people missing at the military base began to be mentioned in the streets, but the official press continued to give priority to the events planned to commemorate the January 1959 anniversary. Nothing could interrupt what was planned for the day: showing a smiling Miguel Díaz-Canel surrounded by young communists in La Plata, echoing the ceremony for the anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police and closely following the pathetic caravan that travels through the provinces, imitating the route that the bearded men in olive green made 66 years ago. continue reading

The drama had no place in this scheme of self-satisfaction. The possible victims of the explosions did not fit into the operetta created to boast of having controlled a country and its millions of inhabitants for more than six decades, of having completely destroyed the economy of a nation and having forced hundreds of thousands of its children into exile. Nothing could tarnish the days of festivities. Therefore, the update on the incident and the names of the missing officers and soldiers were relegated to the end of the main newscast and as for President Díaz-Canel, it took him almost 24 hours to make a mention of what happened on his social networks.

But tragedy does not choose the time or the place, even though it seems to have been infatuated in these lands for years.

But tragedy does not choose the time or the place, even if it seems to have been infatuated in these lands for years. The analogies are inevitable. The pain of those days of the fire at the Supertankers in Matanzas is repeated, the collective affliction left by the explosion at the Saratoga hotel and the terrifying images of a crashed plane near Havana airport that claimed 112 lives. Once again, suffering is installed in Cuban homes and secrecy tries to hide it, to reduce it to a mere incident that does not deserve the major front pages or the first minutes of the news.

Dictatorships cannot stand desolation ruining their celebration, or the suffering of others forcing them to cut short long-planned celebrations.

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