Tag: cuba

Death In the Street: Aside From the Obvious, There’s a Big Problem In Cuba

Last week, a video of a Cuban man’s final moments went viral on X. The man, whom many guessed to be in thirties, was skin and bones and wearing a medical mask, and he’d told those nearby that he felt unwell before sitting down on a bench outside on a public sidewalk. 

While he was sitting there, he simply slumped over and died. According to witnesses, his corpse remained there for many long hours under the Havana sun. Some tried to close his eyes, providing a little dignity. Others asked for a sheet to cover him. On one version of the video, you can hear someone say, “He died there sitting… he died of hunger, from the virus and the diseases.”  (Warning: You may find the video below disturbing.)  

Last I checked, no one knows what his cause of death was, but you probably just guess from any of the number of issues currently plaguing the country and get lucky. Cuba is currently a perfect storm for a random death. 

Malnutrition. Hunger from food shortages. Many only eat by digging through the trash of others. Poverty, inflation, and repression are at their worst levels in decades, and people are stressed. An estimated 89% of them live in extreme poverty. The country that once had a stellar medical system is now filled with overwhelmed hospitals, medical supply shortages, and dilapidated facilities, while the regime exports its medical providers to other countries under its slave-like forced labor program. Garbage remains piled in the streets for weeks and months at a time, creating sanitation hazards, and blackouts are now the norm, not the exception, sometimes lasting most of the day, even in Havana. Many lack clean water.  

As if that wasn’t enough, disease is running rampant. That’s why the man was wearing a mask. What the regime — or much of the media — won’t tell you is that Cuba is currently facing at least three simultaneous epidemics right now — dengue, chikungunya, and oropouche — and while it’s impossible to access real numbers, a third or more of the entire island’s population has gotten sick. 

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness that can cause muscle and joint pain, rash, headache, vomiting, swollen glands, and, in severe cases, blood vessel damage that leads to shock, internal bleeding, and organ failure. Severe cases are typically fatal. Chikungunya is also virus spread through mosquito bites. The symptoms are similar to dengue, and while it’s rarely fatal, it can cause debilitating pain that lasts for a few days up to a few months. Oropouche is typically spread through midges, though mosquitos can spread it too, and it causes fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, and joint pain that lasts for up to a week. 

Cases of all three diseases have popped up all year and worsened in July, but they surged in September. By October, they reached “combined epidemiological crisis” levels. Flooding from Hurricane Melissa combined with the poor sanitation conditions in the country contributed to the surge. There’s not enough fuel to run the mosquito fumigation trucks. Infrastructure is in such bad shape that leaking pipes lead to stagnant water that allow for increased mosquito breeding, and there is a lack of available screens for windows and doors, but the increasing number of blackouts make it difficult to keep them closed.    

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Mexico finances the Cuban regime while Pemex sinks into debt

Between May and August of 2025, Mexico sent more than 3 billion dollars in subsidized fuels to Cuba through the state subsidiary Gasolinas Bienestar, a figure that triples the shipments recorded during the last two years of the previous administration.

This has raised serious questions about transparency, public spending priorities, and possible diplomatic risks, as some of the shipments may have been carried out using a vessel sanctioned by the United States.

Quantity, frequency, and routesIn those four months, 58 shipments of hydrocarbons – including gasoline, diesel, and crude oil – were documented leaving Mexican ports for the Caribbean island.Most of those ships departed from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, with only three leaving from Tampico, Tamaulipas.

The shipments are carried out by Gasolinas Bienestar, a Pemex subsidiary created in 2022 with the declared mission of supplying Cuba with subsidized fuel.

Use of a sanctioned vessel

One of the vessels identified on these routes was the Sandino, included in 2019 by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on its blacklist for participating in operations linked to the shipment of Venezuelan oil to Cuba.

In August, the Sandino sailed from the Pemex terminal in Laguna de Pajaritos, Veracruz, and arrived seven days later at the “Camilo Cienfuegos” refinery in Cuba.

Financial impact and budget comparison

The more than 3 billion dollars equate to about 60 billion Mexican pesos, approximately the same as the projected budget for the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) in 2026.

Gasolinas Bienestar has already reported losses and debt in its first year of operation, attributed to the “gifted” fuel to Cuba.

This increase in shipments occurs while Pemex faces financial and debt challenges, raising concerns about the sustainability of these subsidies.

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Report: ICE Deports Repressive Cuban Judge Formerly on Biden’s ‘Humanitarian Parole’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday deported Melody González Pedraza, a Cuban communist judge who entered the U.S. through the Biden administration’s “humanitarian parole” program, Martí Noticias reported.

González Pedraza reportedly traveled from Havana to Tampa, Florida, in late May 2024 after the administration of former President Joe Biden provided her with a U.S. flight authorization as part of the now-extinct “Humanitarian Parole” program. The initiative, launched by former President Joe Biden in January 2023, allowed up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to legally stay and work in the United States for a period of “up to two years.”

Airport authorities in Tampa reportedly refused to grant her entry due to her extensive past as a communist regime official. In response, González Pedraza requested U.S. political asylum. Martí Noticias detailed that González Pedraza lost her U.S. asylum case on May 21, 2025, and chose not to appeal the ruling issued by an immigration judge in Pompano Beach, Florida. Unnamed sources told the outlet that complaints presented by Cuban exiles against González Pedraza were key to the prosecution and subsequent deportation of the communist judge.

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), a non-government organization, included González Pedraza on its list of known Castro regime representatives. The communist judge is known for having issued excessive prison sentences to peaceful Cuban protesters and dissidents.

Days before traveling to Florida, she reportedly sentenced a group of four young Cuban men — all below the age of 30 — to four years in prison on dubious “assault” charges against local state security officials in the municipality of Encrucijada, Villa Clara. Families of the four men denounced at the time that their relatives were unjustly convicted in a sham trial in which the Castro regime did not present neither evidence nor witnesses that could corroborate the accusations.

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Cuba’s Shadow Army in Ukraine: Havana’s Silent Alliance with Moscow

In Miami, we recently spoke with a Ukrainian citizen who was blunt: “A significant number of Cubans are fighting on behalf of Russia.” His certainty echoes what is now surfacing through intelligence leaks, investigative journalism, and testimonies.

This is not hearsay alone. It fits a wider pattern: a regime under economic collapse, an ally in need of soldiers, and a recruitment network that stretches from Havana to Tula.

For the first time since Angola in the 1970s, large numbers of Cubans are again fighting in a foreign war—not under their flag, but under Russia’s.

Evidence of Cuban Fighters in Ukraine

  • Initial reports (2023): In May 2023, Russian outlets in Ryazan reported Cubans signing contracts with the Russian Army in exchange for citizenship. By summer, videos surfaced of young Cubans claiming they had been deceived into combat.
  • Recruitment networks: In September 2023, Cuba’s government announced it had uncovered a trafficking ring and arrested 17 individuals.Yet evidence of continued flows emerged soon after, raising doubts about Havana’s sincerity.
  • OSINT confirmation: RFE/RL’s investigative unit Schemes documented Cuban recruits training at Russia’s 106th Guards Airborne Division in Tula, using social media geolocation and satellite imagery.
  • Ukrainian estimates: A Ukrainian diplomat told The Wall Street Journal in February 2024 that around 400 Cubans were on the front. Another MP cited 1,500–3,000. By June 2025, El País, citing Ukraine’s GUR intelligence, reported a cumulative 20,000 recruits since 2022, with 6,000–7,000 active at any given time. These figures remain unverified by Western intelligence but indicate the scale of concern.

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Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses for the Fifth Time in a Year

Cuba’s barely functional power grid completely collapsed for the fifth time in less than a year on Wednesday, leaving the entire country without power throughout the day.

According to Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, the power grid has not been fully restored as of Thursday morning, as five provinces remain without power. In contrast, the Spanish news Agency EFE reported on Thursday that much more of Cuba is still without power.

The blackout started on Wednesday at 09:14 a.m. (local time) after the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant in the province of Matanzas suddenly went offline. The independent outlet Cibercuba pointed out that the plant is the same one that caused prior mass blackouts in the country. Iván Hernández, general secretary of the Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba, further explained to Infobae that the thermal power plant is Cuba’s biggest.

“You can imagine the heat, food going bad, young children, the elderly, and bedridden people going through this… The discomfort is immense. People have nothing to eat and now even less to cook with, because most Cuban families prepare food using electrical appliances,” Hernández told Infobae.

Wednesday’s still unresolved nationwide blackout marks the fifth time in less than a year that Cuba’s derelict power grid has completely collapsed, and comes days after another massive power grid failure left Eastern Cuba without power over the weekend. Cuban figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel — who returned to the country this week following a tour of Vietnam, China, and Laos — said on a Thursday morning social media post that the power grid is generating “more than 1,000 MW” of power and that “most provinces are already connected.”

According to Granma, the Castro regime deployed a series of “microsystems” to provide power to crucial infrastructure such as hospitals and aqueducts as a temporary workaround to the non-functional power grid. Cibercuba reported on Thursday noon that one such system deployed in the Province of Granma collapsed twice. The ongoing nationwide blackout also forced hospitals to suspend surgeries and other medical procedures.

The independent outlet 14 y Medio reported that Cubans had to come up with “emergency solutions” to provide some form of comfort to children amid the blackout. One unidentified Cuban citizen explained that he had to “use my electric tricycle to charge the child’s fans.” Other citizens, the outlet detailed, have resorted to homemade wind turbines while one unidentified citizen said that wind turbines have become a “competitive” alternative to solar panels.

Cuba has a barely functional power grid after the communist Castro regime pushed it to the brink of complete ruin with decades of mismanagement and lack of due maintenance. As a result, the derelict power plants still working in the country are unable to generate enough electricity to power all of Cuba at once, forcing Cubans to endure daily blackouts.

The already years-long dramatic situation drastically worsened in October 2024, when the power grid experienced the first of so far five complete collapses that left Cuba without power for almost a week. Although the Castro regime managed to bring the power grid back online, it continued to function at an even more diminished capacity, leading to further collapses in the following months that continued throughout 2025.

The ruling communists, short of resolving the power crisis, have instead urged citizens to enact desperate “power saving” measures such as temporarily suspending all education and work activities in mid-February and requesting people bring their own power generators to banks and other state offices to provide them the requested services.

The subject of Cuba’s electricity collapse is one of the main issues on which the regime has sought increased assistance from China — which, throughout 2025, has become Cuba’s main benefactor, replacing Russia.

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A US Bank Closed Our Accounts Because I’d Visited Cuba Six Months Ago

For years, World BEYOND War and other peace groups from around the world had been attending peace conferences in Cuba. When I visited Cuba this past January it was with a visa for that purpose. I published here the remarks I made at the conference. We shouted as loudly as we could about January’s conference in websites, social media, emails, and media interviews. The notion that there could be anything wrong with it — or that some institution could punish us for it — never entered our minds.

Legally, you’re allowed to go to a peace conference in Cuba. Nobody has so much as hinted that I’ve done anything illegal. But on Thursday June 5th I got a bunch of letters in the mail telling me that on Monday June 9th the U.S. bank accounts of World BEYOND War and the private accounts of all of my family members would be closed without explanation. This was the action of a particular bank called First Citizens, with no indication of any involvement by any government. (The explanation, it would be made clear, was my visit to Cuba.)

Morally, it seems a useful thing to do — attending peace conferences in Cuba. As at similar conferences in many other countries, one can meet diplomats, authors, activists, and politicians from all over the world to discuss peace education, disarmament, negotiations, and cross-cultural understanding. Videos of the entire conferences in Cuba, like most others around the world, are posted online for all to see.

World BEYOND War works to abolish all war, and opposes all sides of all wars — an unusual position even at peace conferences. We are constantly working to persuade some people not to support the Russian side of a war and other people not to support the Ukrainian side. We oppose any and all war-making by the U.S., Cuba, or anyone else, without equating disparate sides or blaming victims in any actual wars. Some groups try to shut down weapons programs because the weapons don’t work well; we start with opposing those that kill the most. When Trump sends troops into Los Angeles, we don’t join the Governor of California in asking that soldiers and Marines do their work abroad; we ask people to think about whether such armed forces should invade anyone else’s city either. The nice thing about peace conferences is that we can advance these views nonviolently, disagreeing amicably.

The problem, apparently, for a U.S. bank, with Cuban peace conferences is that, as with many things in Cuba, the Cuban government is involved. The president of the country wanders into the panel sessions. While that has the potential to cause censorship, it also has the potential to educate decision makers. I’d like to see presidents wandering in at peace conferences in Washington and other capitals.

Of course, the U.S. government has been sanctioning and blockading Cuba for generations, for the stated illegal purpose of overthrowing the government but — as usual — with the result of strengthening it instead, and the actual illegal impact of impoverishing the Cuban people — whose impoverishment is then blamed on the Cuban government and used as an excuse to overthrow it. This cruelty from the North provides a handy excuse for all sorts of repression and awful governance by the Cuban government, just as with the Iranian government and several others.

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Carlos Lehder reveals: Fidel and Raúl Castro facilitated Medellín Cartel drug trafficking from Cuba in the 1980s.

Carlos Lehder, co-founder of the Medellín Cartel and former ally of Pablo Escobar, has dropped a bombshell that the left and progressives don’t want to hear: the Cuban regime, led by Fidel and Raúl Castro, was a key ally in trafficking cocaine to the United States in the 1980s.

This truth, revealed exclusively by Martí Noticias, shatters the image of Cuba as a supposed revolutionary model and exposes the corruption and cynicism of a government that conservatives have always denounced.

While progressives in the U.S. and Europe were busy praising Castro, this regime was helping flood the streets with drugs, lining their pockets and betraying their own people.

Lehder is direct in pointing out the culprits. In his memoirs and interviews, he states:

I met with Raúl Castro and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia to negotiate the logistics of these operations.

He details how Cuba opened its doors to the Medellín Cartel, setting up airstrips in Cayo Largo and charging for every kilo of cocaine that passed through the island. And he leaves no doubt about who was in charge:

Fidel Castro had to know; he was the orchestra conductor.

This isn’t gossip; it’s the testimony of a drug trafficker who lived the business from the inside and now exposes the hypocrisy of the Castros.

For Republicans, this comes as no surprise. We’ve always seen the Cuban regime as a nest of opportunists who crush their people while engaging in dirty business. While the left romanticizes Fidel and Raúl, Lehder reveals the reality:

I was allowed to use facilities in Cayo Largo, where airstrips were set up and a payment was agreed upon for each kilo of cocaine transported.

That drug made its way to the streets, killing young people, all under a government that progressives defended as a «victim» of imperialism. What irony.

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Reports: Castro Regime Propagandist Living in Florida Thanks to Biden Parole Program

Narciso Amador Fernández Ramírez, a known propagandist of Cuba’s communist Castro regime, is allegedly living in the United States thanks to the Biden-era “Humanitarian Parole” program, Cuban-American journalist Mario Pentón reported on Thursday.

The outlet Cubanet described Fernández Ramírez, 65, as a former deputy director of Vanguardia, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in the central province of Villa Clara, who also served as columnist for the state propaganda outlet Cubahora. 

The communist propagandist is known in Cuba for vehemently insulting the Cuban diaspora in the United States, branding its members as “rats,” gusanos (“maggots”), and “mercenaries.”

Most notably, Fernández Ramírez appears listed as the author of two pieces published on the official website of late murderous dictator Fidel Castro. One such piece, dated 2019, in which Fernández Ramírez is listed as an author refers to the veterans of the Bay of Pigs liberation attempt as “rats.” In another piece, dated 2017, Fernández Ramírez praised late murderous communist dictator Fidel Castro and claimed that Castro is “seated, vigilant, next to [Cuban founding Father Jose] Martí, in the sacred Olympus of the heroes of the Homeland.”

Pentón reported that Fernández Ramírez has resided in Homestead, Florida, since March 2024 after he became a beneficiary of “humanitarian parole,” a now-extinct and fraud-riddled program launched in 2023 by the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden that allowed up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitiaians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans per month to request entry to the United States by means of a “sponsor,” granting them legal stay and work permits for a period of “up to two years.”

“He is waiting for a green card to apply for benefits such as Social Security and Medicare. He, who was the most unconditional communist in Villa Clara, is now enjoying his old age in the country he despised so much,” a source told Pentón on condition of anonymity.

According to Pentón, Fernández Ramírez presently lives in Homestead with his wife Elizabeth Leal and their daughter, who already resided in the United States.

“A simple Google search was enough to know that this man was a propagandist for the Communist Party of Cuba. That makes him ineligible for immigration benefits,” Florida-based immigration attorney Ismael Labrador told Pentón.

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Sweden leads the offensive in the EU to curb financial support for the Cuban Regime.

The Swedish Government’s has taken the decision to review the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with the Cuban regime and cut funding to Havana.

The Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) between the European Union (EU) and Cuba was signed in 2016 and aimed to normalize and strengthen diplomatic and economic relations between the two parties. Its main objectives were to promote dialogue on political issues, human rights, and economic development while enhancing cooperation in areas like trade, investment, sustainable development, and governance.

However, Sweden insists that it is not a good idea to have European funds diverted to support a regime that tramples on human rights.

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LA Mayor Karen Bass’ past in communist Cuba revealed… as insiders say her political career is ‘over’

She rose from being a doctor’s assistant to running one of the largest cities in America. 

But today, embattled Karen Bass, 71, is a lightning rod for anger over her handling of historic wildfires that turned huge swaths of Los Angeles into a charred hellscape.

And now her alleged missteps have imperiled her political career and further damaged her crumbling reputation with millions of Angelenos. 

Last night, in yet another on-air embarrassment, she was taken to task in front of millions by none other than President Trump. 

He admonished her for her poor handling of the fires disaster, telling her to use her power appropriately to get people the help they need.  

So far, 27 victims are known to have perished in the fires, fanned by dangerous Santa Ana winds, as authorities continue to sift through mile after mile of horrific devastation searching for human remains.

‘I don’t think she’ll ever be reelected… I think her political career is over,’ former LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley tells DailyMail.com of the city’s 43rd mayor.

‘The perception of her from residents at this point is such that she can no longer effectively lead the city of Los Angeles. She’s lost the public’s trust and importantly, their respect.’

Cooley, who served as DA from 2000 to 2012, states that there is an understandable wave of sentiment to have Bass ejected from the Mayor’s office but that such a move would be an uphill battle.

He added there was already a wave of city-wide antipathy towards Bass before the historic fires which he blames on her decision to prioritize DEI issues rather than focusing on hiring qualified candidates to key departments.

Moreover, he adds that Bass’ focus on her two signature issues – keeping LA a sanctuary city and the ceaseless homeless crisis – have bee a major detriment to the city and its residents.

‘She’s operating against the law when it comes to sanctuary cities, and the other issues of homelessness – she has not accomplished her goals, and it has been a failure,’ said Cooley.

Before becoming Madam Mayor, Bass served six terms as a Democrat in Congress and was a potential running mate in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for president. She entered Congress in 2010 and was chair of Congressional Black Caucus.

Meanwhile, the current wildfire disaster is only the latest controversy to damage Bass.

She praised Fidel Castro and had close associations with Cuba in her youth, traveling to the country in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade and seeing the communist leader speak.

In 2016, when Castro died, she referred to him as ‘commandante en jefe’ (commander-in-chief) saying his passing was a ‘great loss to the people of Cuba.’ She also reportedly gave a eulogy for a senior member of the Communist Party USA.

‘And now you have the fires that destroyed (the city) and there is mismanagement. People feel that she let them down. To a certain extent, some people feel the city was set up for this disaster.’

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