Cuban

Miguel Diaz-Canel marks anniversary of socialist revolutionary declaration under threat of US attacks.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that his country does not seek conflict with the United States but is prepared to fight if necessary, as Cuba marks the anniversary of its socialist revolutionary character amid the threat of US attacks.

Diaz-Canel struck a defiant tone on Thursday in remarks before a crowd marking the 65th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s declaration of the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution and the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs by forces aligned with the US the day after.

“The moment is extremely challenging and calls upon us once again, as on April 16, 1961, to be ready to confront serious threats, including military aggression,” Diaz-Canel said. “We do not want it, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it and, if it becomes inevitable, to defeat it.”

President Donald Trump has threatened that the US could overthrow the Cuban government, a longtime source of ire for Washington, and has ratcheted up energy restrictions meant to squeeze the island’s economy.

“We may stop by Cuba after we finish with this,” Trump said earlier this week, stating that his attention could turn to Cuba after the end of the US-Israel war on Iran.

A US energy blockade and an end to oil shipments from Venezuela after the US abducted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January have caused deteriorating conditions on the island. Fuel shortages and energy blackouts have roiled the island for weeks, heaping strain on workers and businesses.

Even before those increased restrictions, Cuba’s economy had suffered from decades of economic embargo from the US, along with economic mismanagement and political repression that prompted many Cubans to leave the country.

A vote at the United Nations in 2025 demanding an end to the US embargo passed with 165 votes in favour and seven against, including the US, Israel, Argentina, and Hungary. The resolution has been passed annually for more than 30 years.

“Cuba is not a failed state. Cuba is a besieged state,” Diaz-Canel said on Thursday. “Cuba is a state facing multidimensional aggression: economic warfare, an intensified blockade and an energy blockade.”

April 7 (UPI) — Mexican authorities arrested Remigio Valdez Lao in Cancun, identifying him as a suspected key operator of a criminal network that smuggled migrants into the United States, regional media reported.

The suspect, who goes by “El Milo,” is subject to an extradition order issued by the United States for human trafficking, drug trafficking and international smuggling offenses.

The arrest occurred Monday in one of the main tourist destinations in the Mexican Caribbean after coordinated intelligence work among the Secretariat of the Navy, the Attorney General’s Office, the Army and the National Guard, according to Mexico’s Security Cabinet.

Authorities said “El Milo” served as the operational and financial coordinator of the organization known as the Cuban-American Mafia and oversaw illegal migrant transportation routes and financial flows linked to these operations.

During the operation, agents also detained a second person, identified as Joseline “N,” and seized 38 doses of marijuana and a gray pickup truck.

According to information published by Milenio magazine and confirmed by federal authorities, the suspect was considered a priority target in Quintana Roo. El Milo was immediately transferred to Mexico City to advance the extradition process requested by U.S. authorities.

Judicial reports in the United States, notably from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, identify a structure known as the “Cuban Mafia in Quintana Roo,” dedicated to moving Cuban migrants to the United States through Mexico.

According to those investigations, the organization demanded payments of up to $10,000 per person.

Case files indicate that, if payment were not received, migrants were detained, threatened and forced to contact their relatives to obtain money.

In some cases, members of the group sent photos and videos to pressure payment. If families paid, the victims were released and sent toward the U.S. border to seek asylum.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said that this type of network operates in several countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Spain and the United States, and generates profits through human trafficking and extortion schemes.

Mexico has become a key transit country for migrants, especially Cubans, seeking to reach the U.S. southern border.

The case comes amid intensified bilateral cooperation on security matters.

In January, Mexico extradited 37 inmates linked to criminal organizations to the United States, in what analysts consider a significant step to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

Authorities have not disclosed additional details about the full structure of the network or the total scope of operations attributed to El Milo, whose legal process will continue in the coming weeks.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praises services from Cuban doctors, who often work in underserved rural areas.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has confirmed that her country will continue receiving Cuban medical workers, as part of a longstanding programme meant to build goodwill between the island and other Latin American countries.

Her remarks on Wednesday come as the United States pressures Latin American countries to sever their ties to Cuba’s medical programme.

Sheinbaum, however, told reporters during a news conference that the agreement was a benefit to Mexico. Thousands of Cuban medical workers have deployed there since 2022 to work largely in poor, rural areas.

“We have a very good agreement that’s also been a great help to us. It’s a bilateral agreement that’s been very beneficial for Mexico,” said Sheinbaum.

“It’s hard to get Mexican doctors and specialists to go out to many rural areas where we need medical specialists, and the Cubans are willing to work there.”

In February, the US passed a law that opens the door to sanctions on countries that continue to participate in the programme.

It called for the US secretary of state to issue a report within 90 days about which countries continue to pay the government of Cuba for the “coerced and trafficked labour of Cuban medical professionals”.

The move comes amid a wider push to further isolate Cuba and topple the government in Havana, a longtime target of US ire. So far, countries including the Bahamas, Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica and Guyana have ended their participation in the Cuban medical exchange programme.

Cuba has long depicted the decades-old programme as a means of signalling solidarity with other countries. It has also become an important source of foreign revenue for the island nation, which has been under a restrictive US economic embargo since 1960.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, however, has depicted the programme as akin to forced labour.

“Basically, it’s human trafficking,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in February.

“I mean, they’re barely even being paid. Their freedom of movement is tightly restricted. And we want these countries to understand that’s what they’re participating in.”

Experts at the United Nations have also raised similar concerns, including about the confiscation of passports, which the Cuban government justifies as a means of preventing trained doctors from fleeing the country after their state-sponsored studies.

The pressure on the Cuban medical missions is part of a broader push under Trump’s second term to seek regime change on the island.

By threatening tariffs on Cuba’s trading partners, Trump has largely cut the island off from accessing the foreign oil necessary to power its electrical grid.

Trump has also said that he hopes to “take” Cuba and install a new government that will be more pliant to US demands.

The Mexican government has tried to balance its friendly relations with Cuba with the US’s demands.

In the absence of energy shipments, Sheinbaum’s government has sent vessels with humanitarian aid to the island.

HAVANA — Reggaeton boomed in a neighborhood bar in Old Havana on a recent night, when, suddenly, the music stopped and everything went dark.

The customers groaned. Another blackout.

A U.S. blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has plunged the island into its worst energy crisis in modern history. The country’s already cratering economy now teeters on the verge of collapse, with vehicles idled by a lack of gas, hospitals forced to cancel surgeries and millions living without a steady supply of electricity and water.

It is the result of a calculated pressure campaign by President Trump, whose administration is negotiating with Cuba’s leaders over the future of the communist-ruled Caribbean island.

People fed up with rolling blackouts have staged sporadic protests in recent days, banging pots and shouting slogans against the government, rare demonstrations in a country known for repressing dissent.

Some power outages hit isolated areas, but in recent weeks Cuba has experienced three island-wide blackouts. The most recent one struck Saturday night and continued into Sunday.

Two men sell food from a cart in front of the Kempinski hotel Friday night in Havana.

As Havana and Washington hash out a possible deal — which is likely to include some form of economic opening, and perhaps limited changes to Cuba’s leadership — many people here say they feel like pawns in a geopolitical game beyond their control.

Some, like those at the bar, who kept drinking in the dark after the power vanished, say they have little choice but to adjust to a life where flushing a toilet, cooking a pot of rice or riding a bus to work is now considered a luxury.

“The U.S. is trying to punish the Cuban government,” said one customer, named Rolando. “But it’s the people who are suffering.”

Cuba’s struggles long predate the oil embargo. For years, Cubans have complained of food shortages, crumbling public services and political repression. Demographers say Cuba is undergoing one of the world’s fastest population declines — a 25% drop in just four years — as birth rates fall and emigration soars.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel blames “genocidal” economic, financial and trade restrictions imposed by the United States in the decades since Fidel Castro’s army toppled the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

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1. Young people play dominoes in the streets of Old Havana. 2. A woman reacts to her granddaughter at a bar in Old Havana. (Natalia Favre/For The Times)

But many Cubans blame their own leaders for mismanaging the economy — and straying from the ideals of Castro’s revolution. They were raised to believe in an implicit social contract, which maintained that while Cubans might not have luxuries or be allowed all civil liberties, they would always have free education and healthcare, a place to sleep and enough to eat.

“The pact has failed,” said Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira, an economist at the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue in Havana.

He faults the government for soaring inflation and a misguided investment strategy that pumped money into the tourism industry while neglecting fundamental sectors like industry and healthcare.

“This is the worst moment in Cuba’s history,” he said. “But things were really bad before this.”

The Vedado neighborhood in Havana.

Life has long been challenging for Pablo Barrueto, 63, who works mornings at a construction site and now spends afternoons filling plastic jugs from a tap on the street and hauling them up narrow stairwells to neighbors who have been without water for weeks.

His two jobs barely enough cover food for him and his partner, Maribel Estrada, 55, who earns $5 monthly as a security guard at a state-run museum.

The pair, who live in a cramped studio apartment in a crumbling colonial-era building, can’t afford butter or mayonnaise, so breakfast is a piece of plain bread. Barrueto said he often goes to bed hungry. It has been years since he has tasted pork or beef.

“I work so hard,” said Barrueto, who on a recent afternoon was cooking beans in a pair of tattered jeans. “But I don’t see the fruits of my labor.”

Pablo Barrueto, center, fills water containers from a public tap after more than 17 days without running water.

Estrada has developed ulcers on her legs, but the doctor who prescribed her antibiotics said she wouldn’t be able to find them on the empty shelves of state-run pharmacies. On the black market, the medication was being sold for more than what Estrada makes in a month.

“If I lived in another country, my legs wouldn’t look like this,” she said, rolling up her pants to show the chronic sores on her calves.

Estrada said she was reaching a point where she would accept anything that would improve her life, even U.S. intervention.

“If things don’t get better, they should just hand over the country to Trump,” she said.

The U.S. has long played a major role in Cuban history, from its involvement in the island’s war of independence from Spain to the heavy hand of American companies in Cuba’s sugar industry. Washington repeatedly backed unpopular leaders who protected U.S. interests, including Batista, whose corrupt and repressive regime sparked support for the Cuban Revolution.

For decades, the island was celebrated by U.S. critics worldwide as a scrappy symbol of anti-imperialism and a utopic experiment in socialism. But in recent years, amid a government crackdown on dissent, some of that support has faded.

A man holds his ration book and cash while waiting to collect his daily bread in Havana.

The Trump administration’s bellicose new push to dominate Latin America with tariffs and military intervention has scared allies who in the past might have come to Cuba’s rescue.

Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, all led by leftists, have declined to provide emergency fuel shipments in recent months out of fear of angering Trump.

The current crisis was set in motion on Jan. 3, when the U.S. launched a surprise attack on Venezuela, killing 32 Cuban security guards stationed there — in addition to scores of Venezuelan troops and civilians — and capturing President Nicolás Maduro.

As the U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry, the impacts immediately rocked Cuba, which had long relied on subsidized oil shipments from Maduro’s regime.

Cuba’s leaders say the country has not received a single fuel shipment in three months, debilitating an economy that depends on oil to generate the electricity.

There is little relief in sight.

An employee of a MIPYME sells vegetables and other goods to a customer Friday in Havana.

A state-owned Russian oil tanker loaded with 750,000 barrels of crude is currently crossing the Atlantic. It’s unclear whether the U.S. will try to stop the ship from reaching Cuba, where the oil, once refined, could provide Havana with energy for several weeks.

At the same time, the “Nuestra América” humanitarian convoy is in the process of delivering more than 20 tons of critical supplies to Cuba, some of which will arrive by boat in the coming days.

David Adler, a general coordinator of Progressive International, a global leftist group that helped organize the flotilla, said he hoped the delivery of medicine, food, baby formula and solar panels would highlight the severity of Trump’s restrictions on Cuba.

“We’re beginning to come to grips with the fact that there will be mothers and children and elderly and sick people who will die simply as a result of this senseless and cruel and criminal policy,” Adler said. “Why are we inflicting such cruel punishment on a country that does not represent any threat to the United States?”

In Cuba, where many fear the prospect of no electricity come summer, with its muggy heat and swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, people are getting creative. With virtually no public transport and few drivers able to find — or afford — gas that costs more than $5 a gallon, many people have resumed riding bicycles. Others have fashioned electric-powered scooters into slow-moving taxis.

Young people talk in the street in central Havana.

One man in the small town of Aguacate made headlines after he modified his 1980 Fiat Polski to run on charcoal, the same fuel many people here are now cooking with.

Camila Hernández, who works at Havana’s airport, had hoped to celebrate her 21st birthday at home with friends, eating and dancing. “It would have been wonderful,” she said.

But it had been weeks without regular electricity in the home she shares with her parents and boyfriend. His family’s home had power — but lacked water.

To avoid yet another night sitting in the darkness, she marked her birthday by strolling to the Paseo del Prado, an iconic boulevard not far from the waterfront cooled by a light sea breeze.

Her boyfriend’s mother, Yusmary Salas, 47, said poor living conditions were testing her patience. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without planning how I will flush the toilet,” she said. She said she is hungry for change, but has no idea what shape it will take.

Trump insists he “can do whatever I want” in Cuba, and recently said he expects to have the “honor” of “taking Cuba in some form.”

Pablo Barrueto carries a water container up to his home in Old Havana.

Such talk rattles many here who grew up in a country where government buildings still bear the revolutionary motto: “Homeland or death, we will prevail.”

Salas said she hopes that whatever comes next is peaceful, and that Cubans, long a proud people, have their dignity restored. And their power restored, too.

At the darkened bar in Old Havana, workers scrambled to light candles and serve beer that, without refrigeration, would soon go warm. Someone with a battery-powered speaker hit “play” on a song, the 2004 Daddy Yankee hit “Gasolina.”

“Dáme más gasolina!” they sang together. “Give me more gasoline!”

So who is he? And why has Washington been trying to overthrow Cuba’s leaders for 65 years? Al Jazeera’s Marthe van der Wolf explains.

Miguel Diaz-Canel says discussions held to find solutions ‘through dialogue’ as Washington tightens oil blockade.

Cuban ⁠officials have ⁠held talks with the United States government to seek solutions to the crippling ⁠blockade imposed by Washington, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said, as the Trump administration’s threats to take over the Caribbean nation escalate.

“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences ‌we have between the two nations,” Diaz-Canel said in a video aired on national television on Friday.

Diaz-Canel said “international factors have facilitated these exchanges”.

He said no petroleum shipments have arrived on the island in the past three months, which he blamed on the US energy blockade.

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the US attacked the South American country and abducted President Nicolas Maduro.

Cuba’s western region was hit by a massive blackout last week, leaving millions without power.

The talks come days after President Donald Trump levelled his latest threat at Cuba, saying the White House’s plans for the Caribbean nation may include a “friendly takeover”.

‘Impact tremendous’

Diaz-Canel added that Cuba, which produces 40 percent of its petroleum, has been generating its own power but that it hasn’t been sufficient to meet demand.

He said the lack of power has affected communications, education and transportation, and that the government has had to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of people as a result.

“The impact is tremendous,” he said.

The president added that the aim was “to determine the willingness of both parties to take concrete actions for the benefit of the people of both countries”.

“And in addition, to identify areas of cooperation to confront threats and guarantee the security and peace of both nations, as well as in the region,” he said.

For decades, severe US economic sanctions on Cuba have crippled its economy and cut it off from global trade. In response, Cuba has depended on oil supplies from foreign allies, including Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.