Silence in Miraflores for the Nobel Peace Prize, Rejection on ‘Cubadebate’, and Disgust at the White House

Florida Republican Members of Congress call the award winner the “new Simón Bolivar,” while the Spanish far left calls her a “coup plotter.”

María Corina Machado and her team at a demonstration in Caracas in August of last year, following the election that was snatched from Edmundo González Urrutia. / EFE/Miguel Gutiérrez

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, October 10, 2025 –  The joy this Friday of the Venezuelan opposition, the Norwegian Committee itself and numerous democratic countries over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado contrasts with the US Administration’s disgust at Donald Trump not having received it, the indignation in the Cuban regime’s press, and the silence of some governments, such as that of Venezuela.

“Nobel Peace Academy joins the anti-Venezuela strategy and awards María Corina Machado,” headlines Cubadebate, many hours after the news broke and without even its own text, simply reproducing an article published in Almayadeen.

The article criticizes the Nobel Committee for awarding the prize to the Venezuelan “without taking into account her political background, her ties to sectors of the fascist far right, her promotion of sanctions against the Venezuelan people, and her support for foreign pressure on Venezuela.”

It criticizes the “leader” – thus, with ironic quotation marks – for “attempts at destabilization and calls to disregard the election results.”

Furthermore, it criticizes the “leader” – thus, with ironic quotation marks – for her support for the “economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on her country” and for the “attempts at continue reading

destabilization and calls to disregard the election results.”

With respect to those elections, the results of which have been challenged by independent observers and much of the international community, Cubadebate says: “The opposition she leads then claimed victory in the 2024 elections, held with the candidacy of her puppet, Edmundo González Urrutia, currently exiled in Spain after an arrest warrant was issued against him.”

Just after 3:00 p.m. this Friday, the Cuban president finally spoke out on social media. For Miguel Díaz-Canel, “the politicization, bias, and discrediting of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee has reached unimaginable limits.” The also First Secretary of the Communist Party called Machado “a person who instigates military intervention in her homeland” and took the opportunity to endorse Maduro, whom he called the “legitimate president” of Venezuela.

For his part, Steven Cheung, advisor to the President of the United States and White House Communications Director, accused the Nobel Committee on Friday of putting “politics before peace.”

“President Trump will continue to make peace deals, end wars, and save lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” Cheung added in a tweet.

According to Bloomberg, Trump himself, who has not spoken publicly, did call Machado privately. The Venezuelan leader, in an English-language message published on X, dedicated the award to the US president for his
support of the opposition’s cause. “I dedicate this award to the long-suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his determined support of our cause!” the former congresswoman wrote in her post, which included a direct dedication to the US head of state in English.

Machado maintained that the Venezuelan opposition is on the “threshold of victory” and that “today more than ever” it counts on the U.S. president, the people of Latin America, and the “democratic nations of the world” as its main allies in “achieving freedom and democracy.”

In recent weeks, President Trump had vehemently demanded the award, reiterating that he had ended several conflicts: Cambodia-Thailand, Kosovo-Serbia, Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda, Pakistan-India, Israel-Iran, Egypt-Ethiopia, and Armenia-Azerbaijan. This Thursday, he added another achievement to eight: the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, although experts point out that he has not promoted any formal peace treaty and that, in several of these conflicts, only fragile truces were reached.

Even more eloquent is the silence of Marco Rubio, who signed a letter last year to support Machado’s nomination for the Nobel Prize

Even more eloquent is the silence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who last year, as a senator, signed a letter supporting Machado’s nomination for the Nobel Prize, which was ultimately awarded today. Rubio was part of a group of eight Republican legislators who sent the letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on August 26, 2024, one month after the Venezuelan elections, in which the opposition denounced fraud by Nicolás Maduro, and requested the award for Machado.

On the other hand, several Republican congressmen from Florida, such as María Elvira Salazar and Rick Scott, did celebrate Machado’s award, calling her a “liberator” and a “new Simón Bolívar.”

Neither the Maduro government in Venezuela nor that of Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba have commented on the matter. The latest statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry regarding its oil ally was issued this Thursday, but it only alludes to the Trump administration’s deployment of ships in the Caribbean to combat drug trafficking, which Havana is attacking as an “escalation” prior to an “imminent aggression.”

“No comment,” was the response regarding Machado’s Nobel Prize from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, also an ally of the island. “We have always spoken about sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples, not only out of conviction, but because the Constitution establishes it, and I would stop there with my comment,” she added during her regular morning press conference.

“It’s not up to me, of course, to assess the decision taken by the Nobel Committee.”

In a similar vein, the Minister of the Spanish Presidency, Félix Bolaños, spoke without mentioning María Corina Machado by name: “It’s not up to me to assess, of course, the decision taken by the Nobel Committee. I do say that Spain is always a country committed to human rights, to democracy, to peace, which prevails throughout the world, and Spain worked intensively to secure the release of the person who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize during the time she was in prison, and therefore, on that subject, there is little more to say.”

Bolaños has been the only member of Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist government—for whom the Spanish Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, also claimed the Nobel Peace Prize—to comment on the award to the Venezuelan. Both Sánchez and his Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, have maintained a conspicuous silence, which has been noted by the Spanish press and the opposition.

“The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize not only honors a personal feat. It sends a decisive message to the world: the path to peace is democratic firmness, not complicity with tyranny,” wrote Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of Spain’s Popular Party, on his social media. He lashed out: “That is why Sánchez hasn’t congratulated her yet. Not only have they awakened from their dreams, but they have also been held up to the mirror of their infamy.” He added: “Spain will once again have a government that distances itself from the dark interests of Sánchez and Zapatero and defends freedom with the courage of María Corina Machado.”

The message referred to former President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the PSOE, officially the “international mediator” between Maduro and the opposition, who has been singled out for suspicion of having economic ties to the Caribbean regime.

“The truth is that to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Corina Machado, who has been trying to stage a coup d’état in her country for years, they could have given it directly to Trump or even posthumously to Adolf Hitler,” said Pablo Iglesias.

Finally, members of the far-left Podemos party, who have never hidden their sympathy for the Bolivarian leaders, have been directly aggressive. “The truth is that to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Corina Machado, who has been trying to stage a coup d’état in her country for years, they could have given it directly to Trump or even posthumously to Adolf Hitler. Next year, let Putin and Zelensky share it. If nothing else…” wrote former Spanish Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias on social media.

“The level of discredit that international institutions that aspire to represent humanity have experienced in recent years is extremely high. The Nobel Peace Prize is now being awarded to coup plotters and war criminals,” said Ione Belarra, a Podemos representative and party general secretary.

Machado has remained in hiding within her country since her last public appearance on January 9, on the eve of Maduro’s inauguration, when she led a protest in Caracas to defend González Urrutia’s claimed victory in the 2024 presidential election, as Maduro was declared the winner of that election by an electoral body controlled by officials aligned with Chavismo.

All Nobel Prizes are endowed this year with 11 million Swedish kronor (997,000 euros, 1.2 million dollars) and will be awarded on December 10 in a double ceremony: in Oslo for the Peace Prize, and in Stockholm for the rest.

The committee hopes the opposition leader will be able to travel to the Norwegian capital within two months to collect the award, although it emphasized that it is too early to say and that a “serious” security issue must first be resolved.

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Cuban Government Admits There are Cubans ‘On Their Own’ Fighting in the Ukraine War

Havana denies that there are between 5,000 and 20,000 Cuban combatants in the Russian Army.

Group of Cubans recruited to fight on the Russian side in Ukraine. / Mario Vallejo/Facebook

14ymedio bigger14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 11 October 2025 –The Cuban Foreign Ministry asserted this Saturday that it is “not participating” in the war between Ukraine and Russia, although it acknowledged that some Cubans are recruited through organizations with no ties to Havana or are participating “on their own.” “The Cuban government categorically confirms that Cuba is not part of the armed conflict in Ukraine, nor is it participating with military personnel there or in any other country,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

The statement adds that “the Cubans participating on both sides of the armed conflict have been recruited through organizations that do not reside” in Cuba, “nor have any ties to the Cuban government.” It also asserts that it has no information on the Cubans who “have participated or are participating on their own in the military forces of both sides in the war.”

“What is irrefutable is that none of them have the encouragement, commitment, or consent of the Cuban State for their actions,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

Four days ago, Cuba denounced the ‘presure’ from the US on other countries to avoid voting in favor of the resolution it presents annually at the UN against Washington’s embargo

Four days ago, Cuba denounced the “pressure” from the US on other countries to avoid voting in favor of the resolution it presents annually at the UN against Washington’s embargo. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez did not specifically mention the reason for his statements, Reuters reported, but based on an internal State Department cable to which it had access, Washington’s main argument is that Cuba “actively” supports Russia in the invasion of Ukraine, “with up to 5,000 Cubans fighting alongside Moscow’s forces.”

In this regard, Havana responded this Saturday that these are “false accusations” from the US and “a slanderous accusation continue reading

that began in 2023 by some media outlets, without providing any evidence or basis, and clearly performing an entrusted service.”

“The Cuban government, in accordance with its national legislation and international obligations, has a zero-tolerance policy for mercenarism, human trafficking, and the participation of its nationals in any armed confrontation in another country, all of which constitute crimes with very severe penalties under the national legal system,” it stated. It also added that in the last two years, 26 people have been sentenced to prison terms of between five and 14 years for the crime of mercenarism in the country.

Last July, 14ymedio published a report on the arrest of 11 Cubans in Matanzas accused of mercenarism after purchasing tickets to travel to Russia in 2024. All those detained are being investigated for their alleged intention to participate as soldiers in the service of the Russian Army in the war against Ukraine.

Among those arrested is Amaury, a former member of the Ministry of the Interior, resident in Havana, and trained as a sniper.

Among those arrested is Amaury, a former member of the Ministry of the Interior, resident in Havana, who has trained as a sniper and driver in FAR [Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces] units. Another detainee, known as Tasé, is from Baracoa and was part of a supposed mixed martial arts team. He was traveling, according to his version, to participate in a “cultural exchange” in Russia, an alibi repeated in other similar cases. All but one of the detainees have ties to the Armed Forces.

At a US Congressional hearing last September, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, gave the number of Cubans killed in the war: “40 confirmed by name.” He also estimated that 20,000 were fighting on the Russian side against Ukraine, along with 250 whose contracts had expired but who remain in Russian units.

“We have identified at least 20,000 Cubans recruited by Russia. More than 1,000 have been verified by name and contract. Many of them died without their families receiving compensation,” he stated. The data would place the island as the largest supplier of foreign fighters to Putin’s camp, after North Korea, he maintained. However, although it is unknown how many troops Pyongyang has sent to Moscow, Seoul has estimated two waves: one of 10,000 soldiers to Kursk in 2024 and another of 6,000 more this spring.
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Cuban Farmers Can Barely Guarantee Water for the Animals and Their Own Homes

Faced with the farmers’ demands, the authorities replied that “there are more important companies” to attend to first

Farmers can barely guarantee water for the animals and their own homes. / Adelante

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, October 11, 2025 — For more than two weeks, Amarilys and Gustavo have been without electricity in their home in the Cuban municipality of Florida, Camagüey. Heavy rains in late September caused serious damage to the infrastructure of the poles that bring power to the farmers associated with the Martyrs of Barbados Basic Cooperative Production Unit (UBPC). Since then “the blackout has been total and we are desperate,” the woman tells 14ymedio.

“We have complained everywhere but no one gives us a date for restoring the power,” she explains with anguish. ” All this is costing us money and health; even the animals are suffering because we don’t have electricity to pump water.” Her situation is even more dramatic because “there are two elderly people in the family. One is now bedridden and suffering a lot, because without a fan they can’t sleep, and without power, the food in the refrigerator goes bad.”

The heavy downpours of September 23 and 24, coupled with a severe local storm, put a dent in an electrical supply system that was already showing multiple failures. “We experienced severe flooding in Florida those days; people had to get their belongings to safety as best they could.” The weather has remained unstable, and this Thursday the rainfall brought “rain on top of damp,” says Amarilys, and not only from the water that fell from the sky.

“They say that the rains make it difficult to repair the fallen poles that left us without light and that there are other priorities of companies more strategic than our UBPC.” With about 25 associated families, including usufructuaries and owners, the entity specializes in milk production and sugar cane cultivation. Right now and until the end of next January, the so-called cold campaign is taking place in Florida, with crops, vegetables, rice and fruit being planted on more than continue reading

3,200 hectares of land distributed among state enterprises, cooperatives and other entities.

“The UBPC is the largest cooperative in the municipality for milk delivery and the most important in the cultivation of sugar cane”

“The UBPC is the largest cooperative in the municipality for milk delivery and the most important in the cultivation of sugar cane,” explains a family member who prefers anonymity. “Several demands have been made for the restoration of electricity, and the answer given is that there are more important companies.” The source clarifies that “the farmers are going through a hard situation because they can’t even give their animals water or recharge lamp batteries.”

“There are more than 100 people affected,” estimates the woman, who maintains close communication with relatives in the area. “The farmers have asked that as long as this situation lasts they allow them to deliver cheese [already made and easier to keep even with the lack of power] instead of milk, but they [the State] does not accept this possibility,” she explains referring to the government’s demands.

“The milk cart picks it up at 5:00 in the morning, so farmers must get up at 3:00 in the morning to milk,” she complains. “Their lamps aren’t charged so milking is a headache, because due to the rains the mud is horrible.”

Until a few years ago, the UBPC delivered the cane to the Argentina mill, but after the paralysis of that industry they began to bring the cane to the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes sugar mill. “Last year there were problems with milling for lack of water,” says Amarilys, who has several family members working in the nearby sugar factory. “Now, with these rains the fields are flooded, and it is very difficult to plant at this stage, and everyone is very upset with the lack of electricity.”

The hopes of the families affected by the long blackout are now focused on “the sun coming out, so everything is dry and the electricity company can work and bring us power.”

The hopes of the families affected by the long blackout are now focused on “the sun coming up, so everything is dry and the electric company can work and bring us power.” Expenses are high. “You have to cook only what you are going to eat that day because you can’t save anything. When I buy chicken I have to buy the small packages because the big ones would spoil, and that ends up being more expensive.”

Together with her husband, Gustavo, the woman tries to do “everything possible while there is sunlight.” When night falls “here you can’t even see your hands because the lamp batteries are now at zero.” This Saturday makes exactly 17 days since the last time the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling went on in their house. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” says Amarilys.

The weather, however, drives away the dreams of the woman and the rest of those affected. “The network of rain gauges of the National Institute for Water Resources in the province of Camagüey recorded significant rainfall accumulations during the last three days, influenced by the permanence of a trough over the territory and the transit of tropical waves to the south,” warns an update published this Saturday. The forecast is that the situation will remain very unstable in the coming days.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Maria Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Academy highlights her struggle “to achieve a just and peaceful transition”

Archive photo of the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. / EFE/Ronald Peña

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, October 10, 2025 — The Norwegian Academy has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado “for her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Norwegian committee, began the announcement at 11:00 am with these words: “The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to a courageous and committed peace advocate: a woman who keeps alive the flame of democracy in the midst of a growing darkness.”

Next, Watne, a human rights lawyer by profession, gave the name of the Venezuelan opposition leader and justified the decision, which was taken by considering Machado, 58, “a figure of unity in a political opposition that was previously divided.”

“As leader of the democratic movement in Venezuela, María Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Latin America in recent times,” the committee said.

“As leader of the democratic movement in Venezuela, María Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Latin America in recent times,”

According to the document, read during the brief but ceremonial act, the Venezuelan opposition found a point of consensus in the demand for free elections. “This is precisely the essence of democracy: our shared will to uphold the principles of popular will, even if we disagree.”

The committee has described briefly but harshly the situation in Venezuela, which it has referred to as a country that was “relatively democratic and prosperous,” which has evolved into “a brutal and authoritarian state now suffering from a humanitarian and economic crisis. The majority of Venezuelans live in extreme poverty, while a few at the top get rich. The state’s violent machinery is directed against its own citizens. Almost eight continue reading

million people have left the country. The opposition has been systematically repressed through electoral fraud, legal persecution and imprisonment.”

The committee highlighted the political work that Machado has done, first as the founder of Súmate, defending judicial independence, human rights and popular representation. “She has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people.” Despite this, she found her candidacy blocked, and it had to be taken over by Edmundo González Urrutia.

The chairman of the committee recalled how the election campaign for the presidential elections of July 2024 took place, in the midst of risks, arrests and torture, with the support of hundreds of thousands of volunteers who helped document the election result “before the regime could destroy the ballots and lie about the result.”

The text unequivocally supports the electoral victory of the Venezuelan opposition and recalls that there was support from international observers. “However, the regime refused to accept the election result and clung to power,” it adds.

From X: In the past year, #NobelPeacePrize laureate Maria Corina Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people. When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended – with words, with courage and with determination.

The Norwegian Committee, through the Venezuelan opposition, has defended democracy, which it considers “in retreat” worldwide. “Democracy is a prerequisite for lasting peace. Yet we live in a world where democracy is in decline, where more and more authoritarian regimes defy the rules and resort to violence. The iron control of power by the Venezuelan regime and its repression against the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends worldwide,” it states. Although 2024 was an eminently electoral year around the world, the committee has highlighted that these processes are becoming less and less free and fair.

“Last year, Mrs. Machado was forced to go into hiding. Despite serious threats to her life, she has remained in the country, a decision that has inspired millions of people. When authoritarians take power, it is crucial to recognize the brave defenders of freedom who rise up and resist. Democracy depends on those who refuse to keep quiet, who dare to step forward,” said Watne.

According to the committee, María Corina Machado meets the three criteria set out in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Nobel Peace Prize: uniting the opposition, not wavering in her resistance and supporting the transition to democracy.

With this decision, Machado becomes the seventh Latin American to receive the award. She is preceded by the Argentines Carlos Saavedra Lamas and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Mexican Alfonso García Robles, the Costa Rican Oscar Arias, the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú and the Colombian Juan Manuel Santos.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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

Cuban Official Accuse Private Tricycle Drivers in Cienfuegos of ‘Speculating’

According to the official newspaper ‘5 of Septiembre’, these vehicles transport 80% of the passengers in the province

Many circulate without a license to transport people. / 5 de septiembre

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, October 10, 2025 –This Friday, the official press of Cienfuegos launched a diatribe against the drivers of private electric tricycles. Although at a time of “extinction of urban buses” vehicles represent a relief in passenger transport, their presence in the province has gone out of control and spreads “disorder, chaos, speculation, scams, excessive fees to the people and collisions that can be avoided.”

For one kilometer of road, 5 of Septiembre criticizes, from Avenue 36 to the funeral home of the capital city, the drivers can charge 200 pesos per passenger, an amount that the newspaper calls “irrational,” which increases if the route extends just five more blocks. The “urban road landscape, depressed” by the lack of public transport and fuel, has been the perfect scenario for speculators to proliferate, and fares rise without any price cap.

The newspaper also wonders why, despite the number of tricycles that have been added to the city’s routes, prices do not go down. The answer, it argues, is because they agree “to charge more and more for really insignificant stretches.”

“It is known today that about 80% of the movement of people here is done thanks to these electric tricycles. From their inception, the Ministry of Transport identified them as a real possibility to move personnel, authorizing their conversion for this purpose, provided that the standards and the same requirements for each electric vehicle were met. Thus, their presence in the cities has multiplied, both legal and illegal, on and off the main arteries.”

However, what is unacceptable, the newspaper stresses, is that the streets of Cienfuegos become an “uncontrolled jungle” thanks to them

However, the newspaper stresses that what is unacceptable is that the streets of Cienfuegos become an “uncontrolled jungle” thanks continue reading

to them. “Their owners have added them to the local fauna on wheels, competing with private and state transport, in the struggle to see who gets paid more in very short stretches.”

These actions are to the detriment of citizens, it claims, “already bored by so many failed inventions that only affect their pocketbooks.” The reason for the high fares, the drivers defend, is the high price they pay not only for the vehicle but also its batteries, which are usually of poor quality and don’t last long.

As if that were not enough, 5 de Septiembre claims that many “circumvent” the traffic laws and circulate without a license to carry passengers. “There are hundreds that circulate without such a license, something that can be seen in the poor driving by some of the drivers,” adds the newspaper.

This may be due, it admits, to the “sometimes very long” delays in the technical testing of tricycles and the certification required for them to serve as public transport, which leads drivers to start driving without the necessary permits.

In many cities, as in Cienfuegos, it is the private ones that transport the largest mass of passengers daily

Sold on online platforms, mostly in dollars, the electric tricycles have been widely purchased by Cubans whose families abroad can afford to buy them. Business owners and MSMEs* also started buying them to use in the movement of goods. Recently, they have become vehicles to carry passengers with the approval of the State, which lacks the means to take care of public transport on its own.

In many cities, such as Cienfuegos, it is the private sector that transports the largest mass of passengers on a daily basis, since buses have disappeared, and the State tricycles, imported from China and distributed throughout the country in small quantities, usually do not last long or don’t suffice.

Even with the “help” of private individuals, transport in Cuba is at its worst. According to data published in September by the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), in the first half of this year, 407.9 million passengers were transported in the country, 10.2% fewer than a year earlier.

Not only does the number of people being transported by conventional means decrease but there are also fewer travelers using “alternative means,” such as animal-powered cars, bicitaxis, trucks and private cars. Between January and June 2025, there were 169.1 million, compared to 191.5 million in the same period of 2024, some 11.7% fewer.

*Translator’s note: Literally, “Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises.” The expectation is that it is also privately managed, but in Cuba this may include owners/managers who are connected to the government.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘To Resolve’, the Art of Survival in Cuba

The RAE dictionary does not yet recognize the meaning of the verb that defines life on the Island under real socialism.

Admiration does not fall on those who work hard, but on those who solve the best problems. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, José A. Adrián Torres, Malaga (Spain), 5 October 2025 — Cuba—like so many other nations—proudly displays its national symbols: the national bird, the tocororo; the national tree, the royal palm; the national flower, the white butterfly. And even a musical group, with the mordacity that comes with Creole humor, dared to add to the list what should be the national mammal: the pig.

But the island also has an emblem that no other country would dare proclaim and that doesn’t appear in civics manuals or on propaganda posters: its national verb. That verb, which isn’t conjugated in the dictionaries of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) with the precise meaning it has in Cuba, but which has explained daily life for more than three decades: To resolve.

Because if anything has characterized the average Cuban since the Special Period, it’s the need to solve problems. To resolve is not “solving a problem,” as the Academy in Madrid still insists. Solving problems, in Cuba, is finding what is missing, with ingenuity, connections, or cunning. Solving problems means putting food on the table when the state doesn’t guarantee it; it is getting gasoline in the shadow of the Cupet*; it is finding a spare part for the old Lada; it’s “inventing” whatever comes along. Solving problems isn’t a technique: it is an art of survival.

Before getting to that verb, it is worth remembering that Cuba has given the world much more than official symbols. Its music crosses borders: from Lecuona to Formell, from son to mambo, from danzón to bolero, leading to the omnipresent salsa and reggaeton that resonate on every corner today.

Its literature left universal names: Martí, Carpentier, Lezama, Padura. Even sports were patriotic: baseball, adopted on the island and transformed continue reading

into a continental passion—until the more recent arrival of soccer fans.

And in language, the island and its Caribbean neighbors added treasures that the RAE eventually accepted: huracán from Taíno; guateque for the campesina festival; maraca and bongó for instruments that are now universal; and ñángara, which already sounds like an ideological relic—although some will remain.

The verb crystallized in the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba without subsidies, and with an economic black hole.

But alongside these established contributions, the most “essential” is missing, the most genuine, the one that encapsulates the experience of several generations: To resolve. This verb crystallized in the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba without subsidies and with an economic black hole. Where there was scarcity, nothingness appeared. And with it, the obligation to invent, scrounge, and hustle. The Special Period transformed millions into acrobats of ingenuity and gave them a verb that governs their lives to this day.

An old Cuban friend, who endured those years with resignation and now lives in Miami, summed it up this way: “Cubans don’t steal, my friend; they take what’s coming to them. It’s just that they haven’t gotten it yet.” The phrase encapsulates a twisted but coherent ethic: the State promised, failed to deliver, and the citizen feels entitled to take what they need. They don’t steal: they resolve.

And among the middle-ranking “cadres,” those second-tier leaders and rank-and-file militants, another recurring justification circulated when it came to “interfering” in something: “Cadre, defense is allowed.” It was like saying: ” You can be unfaithful, but not disloyal.” My friend claims to have heard it thousands of times. Phrases like that shaped the socialist morality of the “New Man,” in which to resolve was articulated with egalitarianism and other supposed “values” of the Revolution.

This ethic has disrupted the scale of prestige. In Cuba, true prosperity lies not in a university diploma or an academic degree, but in access to the circuit of the resolvable. The social pyramid is inverted—although perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is no pyramid, but rather that there are only those at the top and those at the bottom: doctors and engineers survive on symbolic salaries, while the hotel bartender, the taxi driver who charges in dollars, or the person who handles tourism contacts earn more than a doctor in Physics. Medicine is prestigious, but tourism—and remittances and other junk—resolve, at least until recently they did. And everyone knows that.

That’s why on the island the national verb is conjugated like a calling card: “How do you resolve it?”, “Did you resolve it?”, “That guy really resolved it.” The admiration falls not on the one who works hard, but on the one who resolves it the best. It becomes a national championship of cunning, where cheating ceases to be shameful and becomes a social virtue.

The cost, of course, is high. To resolve erodes any notion of legality, merit, or professional ethics. It normalizes living on the blurred borders of what is permissible, turning “invention” into a system and precariousness into a culture. To resolve is the verb of lack, but also the shield that justifies everyday deception.

The cost, of course, is high. To resolve erodes any notion of legality, merit, or professional ethics.

The paradox is that a country that enriched Spanish with musical and Taino voices, that contributed poetry, rhythms, and universal symbols, has been reduced to a verb that the Academy doesn’t recognize with the nuance that the Cuban street brings to it. It would be fair to add:

To resolve, in Cuba: refers to the art of surviving under real socialism.

That definition would say more than many official reports. After all, dictionaries capture what people use and experience. And Cubans have been conjugating that verb in the present tense for over thirty years: “I resolve, you resolve, he resolves.” In the plural, it sounds even clearer: “You all resolve.” And those who go into exile continue to carry it with them, as a mark of origin: they resolve in Miami, Madrid, or Cancún.

Meanwhile, the island continues to present its symbols: the tocororo, the royal palm, the white butterfly, the pig as an informal emblem. But more than any other symbol, what defines Cuba today is a verb. And that verb, ironic and sad, is not to sing, not to dance, not to dream: it is to resolve.

*Cupet – for more, see here.
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For the First Time in History, One in Five US Residents is Latino

The annual increase in 2024 was two million people of Latino origin

Latino American worker Leonardo García Venegas, in Baldwin County, Alabama (USA). / EFE/Institute of Justice

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, October 8, 2025 — For the first time in history, one in five U.S. residents is of Latino origin, for a total of 68 million people, according to a report Tuesday from the Latino GDP project of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and California Lutheran University.

The study found an annual increase of two million people of Latino origin in 2024 by analyzing updated data from the Census Bureau, which reports a total of 340 million inhabitants in the United States.

This means that the Latino community grew by 2.9% from 2023 to 2024, a rate equivalent to 5.8 times the increase in the population of other origins, the report detailed.

To explain the increase, the study cited “natural population change,” which results from subtracting deaths from births, implying a cumulative growth of 3.2 million Latinos from 2020 to 2024, compared to a decrease of 1.3 million people from other demographics over the same period.

The report also noted a record year-over-year increase of 5.5% in the Latino workforce in 2024 to 35.1 million workers.

“This is an extraordinary difference of 4.5 million people. Latinos withstood the extraordinary challenges of the (COVID-19) pandemic and were responsible for maintaining the positive natural population continue reading

shift in the United States overall,” the report noted.

The report also noted a record year-over-year increase of 5.5% of the Latino workforce to 35.1 million workers in 2024, an increase of 46.5% since 2010, a growth rate 7.2 times faster than the rest of the population.

The labor force participation rate among Latinos also reached a record high of 69%.

“Time and again, we find that hard work, self-reliance, optimism, and perseverance are characteristics that underlie the strength and resilience of Latinos in the United States,” said Matthew Fienup, executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at Cal Lutheran.

These findings follow another study in April by Latino GDP, which revealed that the gross domestic product (GDP) of Latinos in the United States reached $4.1 trillion, the fifth highest in the world, ahead of India.

But this study also comes after it was revealed that the United States lost 1.4 million migrants in the first six months of the Donald Trump administration, marking the first decline in the immigrant population since the 1960s, according to a Pew Research Center report in August.

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Guantánamo, a City Turned Into a Garbage Dump

Residents fear that the epidemiological crisis affecting other provinces will spread to their city.

Garbage collection truck in the city of Guantánamo. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Guantánamo, 9 October 2025 —  “There’s garbage everywhere,” Guantánamo resident Héctor López Pérez summed up with dismay. The trash piling up everywhere has turned a city that was once considered “among the cleanest in Cuba” into a series of mountains of waste that mar its streets and threaten the health of its inhabitants.

With the epidemiological alert caused by the outbreak of dengue, chikungunya, and oropharynx in the province of Matanzas, residents of Guantánamo fear that the presence of these diseases will also gain ground in their homes. “The carts don’t come to collect the garbage,” Alain Lobaina Laserie warned 14ymedio, faced with the reality of street corners littered with waste.

Among the inhabitants of the city, which produces 1,200 cubic meters of solid waste per day, there is a widespread belief that the ‘Ordering Task‘ was the final blow to the private workers who worked with their carts collecting garbage. “They changed the payment system, with the currency exchange they implemented, and they all disappeared because their wages went down,” emphasizes Héctor López Pérez, adding: “Everything has gone up for the horses, from grass to horseshoes.” continue reading

Among the city’s inhabitants there is a widespread belief that the Ordering Task was the final blow to the private workers

Implemented in January 2021, the Ordering Task was presented as a necessary monetary and exchange rate reform that sought to eliminate the dual currency (CUC and CUP) and restructure income, prices, and subsidies. However, it ended up contributing to the devaluation of the peso, triggering inflation and fueling popular unrest.

The sector’s own executives acknowledge that “they have experienced various reorganizations,” and only this year did the municipal company convert from a budgeted unit to a business entity, a status that should give it greater flexibility in hiring staff, managing salaries, and other initiatives that can help revive the diminished workforce and purchase supplies.

Earlier this year, Rodolfo Sánchez Suárez, a hygiene specialist at the Municipal Communal Services Company, admitted to the local press that the entity only had “six tractors and three specialized garbage collection carts, and of these, only two of the former and one of the latter are operational; the remaining equipment is idle due to a lack of tires and spare parts.”

Since then, the situation has only worsened, and Guantanamo residents are trapped between the inefficiency of the Municipalities and the waste piling up everywhere. “There isn’t any, there isn’t any, and everything is just nonsense,” warns López Pérez, tired of hearing the same explanation that the country doesn’t have the foreign currency to import everything from gloves for employees to compaction trucks.

Overflowing garbage dumps in Guantánamo. / 14ymedio

For Eriberto Téllez Reinosa, the problem lies in the fact that the authorities are completely overwhelmed by a problem that has been growing in severity in recent years. “The system can no longer support” waste management in the current situation, says the man, who sees no solution through state mechanisms that have consistently demonstrated their inability to efficiently handle waste collection.

Horse-drawn carts, run by private individuals, would not solve the whole problem either. “The specialized cart not only collects waste, but also compresses it, allowing it to maximize the amount it can transport in a single trip. It is capable of collecting up to 60 cubic meters of compressed garbage, while tractors use open carts, with a loading capacity of only 17 cubic meters per trip,” warned the newspaper Venceremos last January .

At the end of August, faced with the worrisome situation, official media outlets once again addressed the issue, appealing to the “collective conscience” of Guantanamo residents and urging them not to wait for community services to do their part. “Preventing an epidemic outbreak is easier than dealing with its consequences later,” they warned, but the time for focusing on precaution seems to be over. The viruses are already here, and the consequences are being felt now.


Guantánamo, a city turned into a garbage dump / 14ymedio

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Medical students Are Removed from Their Dormitories in Matanzas to Make Room For Sick Children

  • The province is reorganizing its services to monitor the sick, while the population is reluctant to go to emergency rooms because of their condition.
  • At least three other provinces are taking action, including Havana.
The students had to leave school abruptly, according to some reports. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger

14ymedio, Matanzas, October 9, 2025 — The dormitories of the University of Medical Sciences in Matanzas have been emptied and converted into a makeshift hospital to deal with the epidemiological situation in the province. As confirmed by 14ymedio in a visit to the center, near the Faustino Pérez hospital, students have been sent home to make room for pediatric care rooms. Some were still seen around on Thursday with packages and backpacks. While they were leaving, the sick children who could not be treated in the Eliseo Noel Caamaño Provincial Pediatric Hospital, which was 100% full, were being brought by bus to the university for admission.

On social media, several people have alluded to the “abrupt expulsion” of the university students. “Now they have taken the students from Medical Sciences, whose building is next to the Hospital Faustino Pérez, to extend both the pediatric ward and the hospital itself because they are overwhelmed,” commented a woman on Facebook at the bottom of the epidemiological article published daily by Dr. Francisco Durán.

Reporter Niover Licea also published a comment from a student. “We were ordered to evict without notice. It’s disrespectful. There is no food for those who stay, and they want to solve at once what they did not prevent from the beginning. This crisis will end when we are all sick.” According to him, the university authorities asked the students to be discreet and warned them against possible reprisals for disseminating data on the health situation.

The provincial newspaper, Girón, indicated on Wednesday afternoon that the capacity of the Provincial Children’s Hospital Eliseo Noel Caamaño is at 100%. “We have a complex epidemiological scenario where arbovirosis joins other viral infections, such as rotaviruses that cause diarrhoeal diseases, which increases the demand for care,” said the center’s director, Anaelis Santana Alvarez.

The university is near the Faustino Pérez Provincial Hospital. / 14ymedio

Currently, there is a reinforcement of the distribution of patients and human resources, possibly –although it is not indicated– as a result of the dispatch of health personnel that the authorities announced last Monday. Dr. Santana stated, however, that the total occupancy of the hospital is nothing more than the result of protocols requiring compulsory admission of children under 10 years old with fever and suspected arbovirosis, “regardless of whether they present complications or not.”

The staff reinforcement plan includes, in any case, specialists and emergency room residents as well as students to assist in consultations. The hospitals of Cárdenas and Colón have been mobilized to provide care for children over age five “without warning signs,” in order to decentralize care and alleviate the burden. The Eliseo Noel Caamaño Hospital is, therefore, left with those who do present such warning signs and infants under one year, in addition to the most serious symptoms, which according to the directive have not occurred so far.

“There has been no lack of resources to care for the children, nor does the province have serious or critical arbovirosis,” he said, while categorically denying that there are cases of cholera, as has circulated on social networks. “The current diarrheal disease is caused by seasonal rotavirus.”

Julio Ernesto Hernández, director of Medical Assistance in the province, said that there are 75 beds in Matanzas to care for feverish patients and they are ready to expand by 100 more. “The fundamental thing for the population is to go to the doctor when continue reading

there are any symptoms,” he said, the same idea that had previously been highlighted by the director of the pediatric department. He expressed his confidence in the system and a vigilance that, in his opinion, works, so that there have been no deaths, while asking the families to remain calm, because the specialists are trained for their task.

The citizens’ distrust is not, in any case, in the doctors. The lack of drugs and reagents to detect the specific disease is now a cause of discomfort and disgust among the population. However, the main obstacle in this scenario is the poor hygienic condition which exists in many hospital centers and which profoundly discourages patients from seeking help.

The lack of drugs and reagents to detect specific diseases is now a cause of discomfort and disgust among the population

In this respect, households are not much better protected either. Julio Ernesto Hernández urged the population to “maintain general measures in housing, self focus, adequate intake of liquids and to watch for possible warning signs.” However, the lack of running water in countless houses, together with the garbage that floods the streets, do not create the best scenario for halting the spread of this type of disease.

“After the capital, the dirtiest city in garbage collection is Matanzas. Do not invest more money in making parks and allocate the budget to clean up the city: that is quality of life, that is vector zero. Please, are there no leaders with vision in the 21st century? The formula is easy: clean city, zero diseases,” reacted a user on the site of the newspaper Girón.

More than 100 people responded, warning that the epidemiological situation in the city has been serious for weeks and the reaction is late and precarious. “One arrives with sick children and they abuse you and leave you lying there, not to mention the poor hygiene in bathrooms and clinics,” reproached another. Many comments reveal family-wide contagion.

Although the epicenter of this panorama is Matanzas, the rest of the island is not saved, and Havana, in particular, is worried because of its its high population and density. The authorities have continued to report sanitation work, including the removal of garbage, which already has reached 90,000 cubic meters, compared with 35,000 at the weekend. The capital city is also facing a viral outbreak, and new reports are coming to this newspaper every day: patients with very high fevers, severe muscle aches and rashes.

Sources from the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Salvador Allende, better known as La Covadonga, told Cibercuba on Wednesday that a public health commission visited the center with the idea of enabling it for patients of arbovirosis

It has not been officially reported, but sources from the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Salvador Allende, better known as La Covadonga, told Cibercuba this Wednesday that a Public Health Commission visited the center with the idea of enabling it for patients with arbovirosis, similar to the Matanzas pediatric hospital, but for adults. For this, it would be necessary to close the departments of Internal Medicine, Ophthalmology, Urology, Orthopedics and Geriatrics, in which patients with dengue, chikungunya and other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes would be admitted. The six operating rooms would remain open, but outpatient consultations would be suspended if the plan is implemented.

Ciego de Ávila has also announced, in this case formally, a strengthening of surveillance for the same reason. For the time being, efforts will focus on fumigation and waste clearance, especially in the most affected areas: Morón, Ciego de Ávila and Venezuela. The decision is taken on the basis of the spread that leaves two health areas as the epicenter of the disease, the Belkis Sotomayor polyclinic in the capital city and the Morón South polyclinic.

The same strategy is planned, for now, in Bayamo, Granma province, where there are many cases of arbovirosis. There, the authorities have required the population and companies, state and private, to comply with their part in “the strategy of sanitation and disposal of sewage, weeds and landfills,” including the obligation to facilitate the entry of health personnel who carry out door-to-door searches. Otherwise, remember, there will be “the imposition of fines or other punitive measures in cases where necessary.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Unable To Compete With the Black Market, “International” Cuba’s Pharmacies Are Dollarizing

In these stores you can’t get aspirin or dipyrone, but vitamins or cough syrups are available at stratospheric prices.

Pharmacy on the ground floor of the Sevilla Hotel in Havana. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, October 9, 2025 — “Payment in dollars, starting October 1st.” This information surprised the few customers of the Sevilla Hotel pharmacy on Tuesday, the employees heard. Until just a few days ago, it was an establishment where payments could be made in freely convertible currency (MLC), but now only  fula [US dollars], foreign credit cards, or the Classic prepaid card are allowed.

According to the same workers, the same thing is happening in all the “international” pharmacies, like the one on the ground floor of the Habana Libre Hotel. Calling them pharmacies, in any case, is an exaggeration, as the selection is limited and mostly focuses on vitamin supplements.

Shoppers were even more surprised to learn that they didn’t have aspirin or dipyrone*, common medicines. As for the prices, the high prices are no longer surprising. Cough syrups range from $13 to $19, laxatives at $11, vitamins—even those manufactured in Mexico, like Troffin—at more than $20. As is often the case in other state-run continue reading

stores, the items fill the shelves even if they are of the same type.

“International” pharmacy on the ground floor of the Habana Libre Hotel. / 14ymedio

“Antibiotics, painkillers, and other necessary things like that are very easy to get ‘on the left’ . No one is going to buy those things from them,” explained a woman accustomed to this type of transaction. “They’ve come late to wanting to get dollars from selling medicines, and they know perfectly well that the black market has cornered them.”

Indeed, the list of medicines for sale on “specialized” Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups resembles a real pharmacy, at lower prices than the official ones. A young man who regularly buys his mother’s diabetes medication through these channels comments: “Those pharmacies are going to fail.”

*Note: [from the ‘web’] “Metamizole, also known as dipyrone, is a strong analgesic and antipyretic that is available in many countries but is not authorized for use in the United States. It is marketed under hundreds of brand names by numerous manufacturers globally. ‘

Translated by Regina Anavy

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For the Cuban Regime, There Is No Peace Agreement and It Mobilizes Thousands of Cubans Against Israel

The U.S. Embassy in Havana suspended its consular services today due to the demonstration led by Díaz-Canel at the ‘Anti-Imperialist Tribune’

Miguel Díaz-Canel, leading the Palestinian rally at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune this Thursday in Havana / EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, October 9, 2025 — Barely hours after US President Donald Trump announced the peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Cuban regime continued mobilizing its forces to demonstrate for Palestine this Thursday at the so-called Anti-Imperialist Tribune in Havana, in front of the US Embassy.

The sun hadn’t even risen yet when workers from the Cuban Electricity Union (UNE) and the Ministry of Energy and Mines appeared on the scene, according to their social media accounts, to “express their firm support for the Palestinian people and their just cause.” One user commented at the bottom of the post: “I started reading with hope that they were demonstrating in support of the Cuban people, and their own families who don’t have electricity. Arms crossed on the part of the UNE workers, that’s what it takes.”

On the neighborhood “cadre” channels, they announced in capital letters the “denouncement of the genocide being committed against the dignified and courageous Palestinian people” at a demonstration scheduled for four in the morning. “Let’s not be complicit, see you tomorrow at the Tribune,” it said, without mentioning the recent peace agreement reached between Israel and Hamas with the mediation of the United States and the support of numerous Arab countries.

“No, I don’t like it at all. Much less an agreement coming from the United States, which will always have ulterior motives.”

“The regime informed us late on Thursday, October 9, 2025, that access to the Embassy will be blocked due to an activity in front of the Embassy building,” the embassy reported on its social media channels, without specifying the type of “activity.” Therefore, consular services would be suspended today, as well as tomorrow, due to a local holiday, and Tuesday, October 14, due to a US holiday. The embassy requested: “Information regarding rescheduled appointments will be provided directly to applicants; please do not call the Embassy.”

The rally was attended by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, as well as other senior officials from the government and the Communist Party (PCC). The call had been made earlier this week, before it was announced Wednesday night that Israel and the terrorist group Hamas had agreed to commit to the first phase of Washington’s peace plan, which includes releasing the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of the Israeli army from certain parts of the enclave.

The Cuban regime, a traditional ally of Palestine, has not commented. The announcement of the agreement caught several attendees off guard. Many were unaware of the details of the pact, while others received the news with skepticism because it was a plan proposed by Trump, as EFE was able to verify.

“No, I don’t like it at all. Much less an agreement coming from the United States, which will always have ulterior motives. The complete intention is to take over the Strip,” Gustavo García, a 20-year-old international relations student, told the Spanish news agency.

He also asserted that if Hamas is disarmed, one of the 20 points in Trump’s peace plan, “we could already be facing the last remnants of the Palestinian resistance.” Emmanuel, 19, expressed a similar tone, acknowledging that, although the “geopolitical context” is different, he prefers the plan proposed at the UN by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which consists of creating a “Salvation Army” for the Palestinian people with military personnel from different countries.

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Cuba Loses 14 Players From the U-15 and U-10 Teams in Pursuit of the Major Leagues.

The athletes arrived in the Dominican Republic and are already training in academies.

Seven players from the U-15 team left the island and are seeking a chance in the Major Leagues in the Dominican Republic. / Pepe Morejón

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 8 October 2025 — The exodus of Cuban baseball players seems endless. Pitcher Pedro de Jesús Castillo arrived in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday. The dream of landing a contract with a Major League team has led “seven members of the U-15 national team that qualified for the 2026 World Cup in that category” to emigrate, journalist Francys Romero emphasized.

Castillo “was the pitcher who displayed the greatest velocity on the Cuban team during the U-15 World Cup, with a fastball of 88 miles per hour,” the broadcaster recalled.

Before player José Muñiz, a native of Granma province, arrived in the Dominican Republic, his performances had already earned him the title of Most Valuable Player at the World Cup Qualifiers. The athlete, considered by scouts to be one of the best players in his class, will be represented by major leaguer Alex Sánchez and will train at his academy in Santo Domingo.

At the beginning of October, the departure of the best pitcher in the U-15 category, Carlos Sarduy, was confirmed. The Matanzas native, who stands 1.87 meters tall, will present himself to academy recruiters in January with an average pitch of between 86 and 88 miles per hour.

Baseball players José Muñiz and Cristopher García are also in academies in the Dominican Republic. / Francys Romero

The players joined slugger Cristian Aguilera and infielder Damián Díaz. According to Francys Romero, the athletes are eligible to sign starting on January 15, 2027.

Cuban baseball continues to bleed while authorities fail to find a way to retain its promising players. In 2024, 19 of the 20 players from the U-15 team that participated in the 2022 World Cup for that age group, held in the state of Sonora, Mexico, broke away from the sport, considered a cultural heritage.

Yordan Rodríguez was the last of that group to travel to the Dominican Republic. Last January, the Guantanamo native formalized his contract with the Athletics, a deal that included a $400,000 bonus.

In The Dream and Reality. Stories of Cuban Baseball Emigration (1960-2018), Romero explains that the average age of baseball players leaving the island decreases each year. It was 24.4 years old in 2015; three calendar years later, it had dropped to 17.9.

This Wednesday, the departure of Aniel Oscar Ramírez, a member of the U-10 team, was also confirmed. He will train at Javier Rodríguez’s academy. Seven other players have also left the team.

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Cuban Prosecutor’s Office Seeking Six Years in Prison for a Man Accused of Hanging a Sheet With the Words “We Want Change”

Rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as ‘Nando OBDC’, is another victim of the repression denounced by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights in its September report.

Fernando Almenares Rivera, alias Nando OBDC. / Facebook

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, October 7, 2025 — After more than nine months in prison without trial, the mother of rapper Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando OBDC, managed to obtain the formal indictment. “In the end, I had to come to court to photograph them because they were never able to send them by mail,” Eva Rivera lamented to 14ymedio, to whom she showed the document, dated June 17.

In it, the Prosecutor’s Office is requesting a six-year prison sentence for the crime of “propaganda against the constitutional order.” According to the Orwellian account of the events, at the end of August last year, Almenares wrote the words “Cuba First in the streets for human rights,” “We want changes now, Cuba First,” and “Cuba First” on pieces of sheeting “using a pinkish substance,” and then hung them “between the Combinado del Este bridge and the bridge in the town of Santa Fe, Guanabacoa municipality, Havana, a busy thoroughfare at all hours of the day, where even the capital’s public transportation buses circulate.”

For the prosecution, these are “phrases with counterrevolutionary content,” placed “in a place where they could be seen by passersby, with the purpose of causing social unrest, disturbing public peace, and creating discontent among the population. Each of these phrases also highlights the objectives pursued by an organization not legally recognized in Cuban territory, thus inciting against the social order established in the country by the Constitution of the Republic.”

These are “phrases with counterrevolutionary content,” placed “in a place where they could be seen by passersby, with the purpose of causing social unrest.”

The indictment emphasizes that the artist “maintained relations” with “members of the counterrevolutionary organization Cuba Primero” — an organization to which Daniel Alfaro Frías, José Antonio Pompa López and Lázaro Mendoza García belong, who were sentenced to nine, eight and five years in prison this week — and asserts that it was that organization, through the “Cuban-American citizen Armando Labrador Coro,”who sent Nando OBDC “the sum of 200 dollars” at the beginning of September 2024.

The formal accusation contradicts the authorities’ initial version, which justified Almenares Rivera’s arrest on December 31 of last year at his home in La Lisa as being for acts of “terrorism” related to “a fire that occurred in Lenin Park on December 30,” in which he allegedly participated.

The legal document also lists the properties confiscated from the rapper, which would constitute evidence of the crime: a “blue Samsung brand cell phone with a black case,” 545 pesos that “were deposited at the disposal of the Court at the Banco Metropolitano bank branch,” and “four pieces of sheeting with counterrevolutionary texts painted on them, which are attached to the proceedings as evidence.”

The prosecutor’s petition also states that Almenares is being held in Combinado del Este prison, although he is currently in the Cuba Panamá prison in Güines, Mayabeque, designated for HIV/AIDS patients. His mother has publicly denounced his continued incarceration there, given that he does not have the condition.

“There’s tuberculosis, bedbugs, scabies, all kinds of diseases in there, and I told Fernando not to let anyone inject him because they could give him the virus,” Eva Rivera told Martí Noticias last September. She explained that the prison warden reproached her for her son’s refusal to receive the therapy given to other inmates. “The therapy they give to those patients, who have their treatment, their medicine,” Rivera clarified, claiming to have told the warden: “Under my responsibility, I don’t allow Fernando to inject himself or take any kind of therapy, because Fernando doesn’t have any kind of illness.”

At the end of July, the rapper went on a hunger strike to protest being held incommunicado in prison.

The musician’s activism had been under scrutiny by authorities for some time. In November 2021, he was summoned to the Seventh Unit of the National Revolutionary Police for his social media posts.

Last September alone there were at least 212 repressive actions against the civilian population in Cuba, of which 39 were arbitrary arrests.

Penalties and repression against freedom of expression, in a country where citizens only demand a minimum wage, have become harsher in recent years. The Madrid-based Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) reported this Tuesday that last September alone, there were at least 212 repressive actions against the civilian population in Cuba, 39 of which were arbitrary detentions.

Most of these cases were “short-term (27)” and were related to the peaceful demonstration in Gibara (Holguín) on September 13, where residents took to the streets shouting demands such as “Electricity and food!”, “The people united will never be defeated!” and “Freedom, freedom!”.

“It has been a dark month for freedom of expression, due to convictions and trials. The regime seeks to instill terror in the face of its resounding socioeconomic failure and its inability to find solutions,” the OHCHR stated.

According to the report, in September, “the Cuban regime intensified the criminalization of freedom of expression on social media and peaceful demonstration. We learned of the sentencing of Ana Ibis Trista Padilla and Jarol Varona Agüero, which condemned them to 14 and 13 years in prison, respectively, for ‘propaganda against the constitutional order’ and ‘other acts against state security.’ And for ‘propaganda against the constitutional order,’ Félix Daniel Pérez Ruiz (five years) and Cristhian de Jesús Peña Aguilera (four years) were sentenced, all for sharing on social media a call for a peaceful demonstration that, in fact, never took place,” the observatory recalled.

Since last January, there have been 2,462 repressive actions against the population in Cuba “with the aim of preventing or limiting the exercise of civil and political rights. Of these, 461 have been arbitrary arrests.”

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Pot-Banging and Street Closures in Marianao Bring Back the Power After Four Days of Blackouts

Reports collected by ‘CubaNet’ speak of two detainees and indicate that the majority of the protesters were women.

Residents of Marianao in the streets, Tuesday night. / X/Capture

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, October 8, 2025 — Dozens of people took to the streets Tuesday night in the municipality of Marianao (Havana) to demand an end to the blackouts. In a video shared on social media, residents can be seen banging on pots and pans [a cacerolazo] in the middle of a street where they have stopped traffic and set fires.

According to local residents’ accounts collected on the scene by CubaNet, the incident occurred at 51st and 88th Street in the Santa Felicia neighborhood, and the police arrived immediately. “There are two young men detained,” Karelia Ibáñez stated “Not only did they bang on pots but there was a demonstration. Nothing official was planned before the convoy arrived, so they went all out.”

A few minutes later, they also reported, power was restored to the neighborhood. “They had been turning the power on and off every 10 or 15 minutes for four days, at dawn and throughout the morning,” says Lissette de las Mercedes Quintero Flores. “They banged pots and pans all over the neighborhood, but as always, someone called the police, and a police van came.”

“For four days the power went on and off every 10 or 15 minutes, at dawn and throughout the morning”

Sami Mayde Sánchez provides more details, but agrees with many comments: “People, mainly women, burned things on the street. When I passed there were many policemen and everything was quiet, but there were still a lot of people.” For his part, Mario Miguel Lago Leyva specifies that “the demonstration left from Finlay” and then “joined together” other areas. He continues: “A police convoy and colonel arrived, a van, five patrol cars, two snitches and one citizen continue reading

who was arrested without cause. Ah, and then the mayor of the municipality. After that they turned on the power and gave a political speech of unfounded justifications.”

In recent weeks, protests have been multiplying, not only over the blackouts but also over the lack of water and garbage collection. Last week, 14ymedio recorded a cacerolazo in the middle of a blackout in the vicinity of the Ciudad Deportiva, known as an area “where the lights go out.”

Similarly, a group of women closed down Monte Street in the heart of Havana, loaded down with their children and empty buckets, expressing their anger at the lack of services. Although several police officers confronted them, moments later a water truck arrived, guarded by a patrol car.

The blackouts are not the only affliction in Marianao. Just three days ago, State television reported on the “sanitization” campaign in the municipality, for which the government has put officials of all ministries to work, and neighbors were talking to the cameras openly about their situation. “There are several problems; if there was only one, fine, but it’s the water, it’s the garbage, it’s the power,” complained Orfareina Bien Jiménez, a resident in the neighborhood of Pocitos.

“We have been without water for 36 days,” said Talía Leyé, who added “the issue of garbage, the issue of the polyclinic, that there are no medicines.” Garbage is collected every month “or every two months,” said another neighbor, Pedro Miguel González. “That’s the problem. If they collected the garbage more often, there wouldn’t be all the diseases.”

More than 27,000 inhabitants live in Marianao, reported Canal Caribe, “and the situation with the water supply is critical.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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“It Hurts Me That My People Don’t Defend Migrants” Says Cuban Businessman in Miami

Cuban businessman Mike Fernández believes the thaw with the U.S. failed because of “the fear of older Cuban leaders, who are afraid of change.”

Fernández, 73, has fought all kinds of battles and now leads the umpteenth skirmish, this time from Miami and out of respect for migrants. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, María Casas, Miami, 8 October 2025 —  From time to time, he still gets a whiff of the guava jam a neighbor used to make in his hometown of Manzanillo, even though much has happened between that childhood and the prosperous businessman Miguel Mike Fernández is today. Along the way, this 73-year-old Cuban has fought all kinds of battles and now he’s leading the umpteenth skirmish, this time from Miami and out of respect for migrants.

The pharmaceutical magnate welcomed 14ymedio to his office this Tuesday to discuss his crusade of recent months and the challenges facing the island.

14ymedio: Where does your sensitivity toward migrants come from?

Fernández: When my family left Cuba in 1964, we landed in Mexico, and the Mexicans helped us a lot. They gave us a roof over our heads and invited us to meet some nuns who provided protection and services to Cuban migrants like us. On Fridays, we went to that convent to get powdered milk, cheese, and other food items in little boxes they prepared. Six months later, we arrived in New York City, living in a very poor area. At first, I had a good time playing in the streets and attending school, but then winter came, and we realized we weren’t prepared.

A Mexican man, who was a waiter in a restaurant, gave me my first coat and a pair of snow boots that had belonged to his son. So, my life has been touched by the generosity of others from the beginning. In those difficult times, they offered me their help, and I consider it my obligation to serve those who now need me.

14ymedio. What led you to fund these billboards critical of Donald Trump and Cuban-American congressmen, which have caused so much controversy in Miami?

Fernández. As a Cuban, and living in a city with so many Cubans, it pains me to say that most of my fellow citizens have closed the door, as if to say, “I’m in, and that one who just arrived can stay out.” It pains me that my people don’t defend migrants, that they don’t protect them. That’s why I wanted those who support our representatives to realize that they’re not doing us any good by working in Washington. continue reading

“Now I’m contributing to The Dreams US organization, which helps many of these young people continue their education.” / 14ymedio

For these politicians to be elected, they have to raise money and votes. I’ve contributed a lot, and others have too. I always considered this a contract that says, “You want my money and my vote, I want your voice in Washington to represent me.” But they’re not representing us, nor are they representing us in the case of Cuba, nor are they representing us in Miami. They’re not defending the rights of the people who brought them to that position. It was important to say that publicly.

14ymedio. What was the reaction?

Fernández. At first, I didn’t say who was financing the billboards. We spent close to a million dollars, and for months no one knew. Cuban-American representatives even said they had been organized by George Soros’s leftist party, and it was then that I felt compelled to come forward so they would realize I wasn’t a leftist, a socialist, and much less a communist. I was a capitalist, a Cuban, a resident of Miami, and a taxpayer.

14ymedio. You have a letter signed by Donald Trump in your office. What does that framed document on the wall say?

Fernández. Donald Trump is not a good person. I met him years ago and I disliked him like a sore thumb, as my father would say, to the point that I got up from the table and left. I didn’t have lunch with him because of the way he treated the Central American waiter who was serving us food at his club in Palm Beach. I called him out and said, “Forgive me, Don, but that young man has already suffered so much to get here. You can’t imagine what he must have gone through in his country to be able to work at this private club. So don’t mistreat him, do me a favor. Treat him well, that kid is going to become something you can’t even imagine; this is just a stop on his life.” Trump’s response was, “He works for me,” and I got up and left.

14ymedio. And what does the letter say?

Fernández. When he first decided to run for president, he was giving speeches all over the country, and I decided to put up several billboards. One had a picture of Senator John McCain that said “our hero.” Next to it was a picture of Donald Trump that said “our snake.” From then on, I started getting these threatening letters telling me to stop. So I simply sent him a copy with the amount of my annual taxes and said, “If you want to keep sending me letters, it’s going to cost us both.” I didn’t get any more; the one on the wall was the last one.

I simply sent him a copy with the amount of taxes I pay annually and said, “If you want to keep sending me letters, it’s going to cost us both.”

14ymedio. And will all this activism you are currently displaying lead to a political career?

Fernández. I have no interest in politics. I’m doing it because my parents raised me to care for others, to be responsible for what happens around me. After a certain age, I’ve had a privileged life and feel an obligation to give back. This is costing me capital, time, and headaches.

14ymedio. Reactions and retaliation for your actions?

Fernández. About two weeks ago, I was having lunch in a restaurant, and a Cuban man came up to me, with a sour face, and said, “You’re a communist in disguise.” I stood up to shake his hand, but he wouldn’t give it to me, so I asked him if he liked fishing. When he replied that he did, I told him that if he and I were on a yacht in the middle of the sea and we came across a rowboat. The Castro brothers were on the bow. They had no water and were asking for help. There were two small children in the stern. “Would you give them water even though you knew the two old people were going to drink too?” I asked him. The man replied, “Let them all die of thirst.” I can’t be like that.

14ymedio. Aren’t you afraid?

Fernández. I’m afraid of what might happen after the attacks I’ve received, but I’m also receiving very positive calls and comments congratulating me on what I’m saying publicly.

14ymedio. You recently helped place a sculpture near La Ermita de la Caridad in Miami. Who does the piece honor?

Fernández. Every year, my family and I spend at least a month in Europe, and while visiting the Vatican, I see this sculpture of a boat filled with people. It touched me emotionally because they were of all races, from all over the world. When I returned to the United States, I tracked down the artist Timothy Schmalz, and told him I thought it would be interesting to place a piece like that in Miami, where there are so many cultures and several languages ​​spoken, a city built by migrants. The one we put up here is smaller than the one in the Vatican, and the ideal place to put it was right in that church where so many Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans go.

14ymedio. “No dogs, no Cubans,” read a sign outside the rental houses when you first arrived in Miami. And now?

Fernández. Unfortunately things are getting very hot.

Unfortunately things are getting very hot.

14ymedio. You recently withdrew funds you donated to Florida International University (FIU). Will you use those resources for any other educational initiatives?

Fernández The Florida government decided to increase the tuition paid by children of migrants not born in the U.S. Many people who were in their final years of college have been forced to drop out because they can’t afford it. It hurts a lot because that document on that wall [pointing to a couple of framed sheets of paper] is the law that was passed in 2011 in this state to charge the child of an undocumented migrant the same as a child born in this country. That was reversed this year.

I’m now contributing to The Dreams US organization , which helps many of these young people continue their education.

14ymedio. You’ve written a book, you’ve walked the Camino de Santiago five times, touched the lives of thousands of people, have five children, a multimillion-dollar business, and have cared for countless dogs throughout your life. What’s left on your personal to-do list?

Fernández. Helping others. I see my life as a book in which I write a page each day, and on that page, I have an obligation to do something for someone each day. Whether it’s a shoe salesman or a mayor. I don’t seek publicity or fame.

14ymedio. Where does this desire to serve come from?

Fernández. From my parents and my Catholic upbringing. My father taught me how to confront evil, and my mother how to be generous. The Jesuits, with whom I studied at school, told me to be a “man for others.”

14ymedio. What is your most vivid memory of your childhood in Cuba?

Fernández. Climbing onto the roof of my house at dusk, lying face up to the sky, and turning on a small radio I’d made myself out of a tobacco box, a magnet, and a speaker. Those were the happiest days of my life.

14ymedio. Any advice for those who run the Cuban economy?

Fernández. Open the doors.

14ymedio. Have you worked for that opening on the Island?

Fernández. I’ve never mentioned it, but a few years ago, I approached the US government about creating an investment fund of around $300 million for Cuba. I met with Cuban officials and told them I had no interest in investing a cent in government projects; I wanted to help private entrepreneurs. That initiative had to be approved by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and that’s where it remained, in that process. I don’t think an idea like that could prosper right now, and unfortunately, Cuba has a bad reputation for not paying its debts.

They became afraid of the words Obama spoke.

14ymedio. Why did the diplomatic thaw between Washington and Havana fail?

Fernández. I was there for Obama’s speech at the Grand Theater of Havana, and something that caught my attention was that every time he said an important phrase, the officials sitting in the audience first looked at Raúl Castro to see if he would applaud. Only if Castro applauded did they applaud back. Cuba’s future would have changed completely if they had continued to foster that relationship with the US rulers, but that process was destroyed by the fear of the older Cuban leaders, who feared change. They became afraid of the words Obama spoke.

14ymedio. On your return trips to Cuba, have you been to Manzanillo?

Fernández. Yes, I was there once in 1999 and reunited with some childhood friends. One of them still had the bicycle I gave him when my family and I had to go into exile in 1964. It was a very emotional reunion. At first, I didn’t remember much about the city, but as I got closer, the memories began to flood back, and I knew where I had to go to find those friends I’d been inseparable from.

14ymedio. It is better not to return to a place where you were happy… Would you go back to live in Cuba?

Fernández. As long as there’s no political change on the island, I don’t see a future for Cubans or for myself. I hope to be alive when that change occurs. I was in the Vietnam War, and 20 years later, I met a Vietnamese general in Washington. We started talking, and I asked him how his country had managed to establish a capitalist economy. The man pointed to a book nearby and said, “Turning the page.”

14ymedio. So Mike Fernández’s farm, with cows and horses, in Manzanillo… won’t be coming for the time being.

Fernández. No, they would confiscate my cows.

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