Count down on Cuba

[El Presidente]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/cuba-on-edge-as-us-seizure-of-oil-tanker-puts-supply-at-risk/ar-AA1SdScL

Cuba on edge as US seizure of oil tanker puts supply at risk

By Dave Sherwood and Marianna Parraga

December 13, 20255:14 AM GMT+10Updated 30 mins ago

HAVANA/HOUSTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. move this week to seize an oil tanker out of Venezuela is poised to make a bad situation worse for a crisis-stricken Cuba already struggling to source enough oil to power its ailing economy and electrical grid.

The Communist-run nation, a nearby neighbor and long-time foe of the United States, suffers daily, hours-long rolling blackouts that have decimated productivity and tested the patience of its exhausted residents.

Cuba depends on Venezuela's crude and refined products - transported to the island by small vessels and a shadow fleet of sanctioned tankers - for a large portion of its consumption, according to shipping data and analysts.

That supply chain could be severely curtailed if the single tanker seizure this week turns into a pattern of interceptions, coupled with more sanctions.

Washington, which on Thursday imposed fresh sanctions on six Venezuela-related vessels, in coming weeks is planning more interceptions of tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, sources familiar with the matter said this week.

Between January and November, Venezuela sent 27,000 barrels per day of crude and fuel to Cuba, below the 32,000 bpd of last year, according to shipping data and internal documents from state oil company PDVSA.

[El Presidente]

https://www.freshplaza.com/north-america/article/9793604/cuba-state-mango-plantation-left-unharvested/

Cuba state mango plantation left unharvested

In central Cuba, a state-run mango plantation is currently not harvesting fruit, according to information published by the independent Food Monitor Program (FMP). While the Cuban population faces limited availability of basic food products, mango fruit at the plantation is reportedly left uncollected and rotting on the ground.

FMP reported on its X account that the plantation, previously used for mango production, is affected by weed growth and a lack of maintenance. The organization attributed the situation to shortages of fertilizer, fuel, and labor, which prevented the harvest from taking place. As a result, mangoes were not collected, processed, or marketed, despite nearby communities experiencing food insecurity.

According to FMP, dozens of tons of mangoes were lost this season and never reached consumers, contributing to higher prices in different market channels. "Families are responsible for gathering and stacking the mangoes that the State does not collect, process, or market," the organization stated.

FMP noted that what could function as an organized production chain supplying markets, schools, and hospitals has instead become fragmented, with local farmers operating independently while the State retains control over large areas of land. The organization warned that prolonged abandonment is affecting long-term productivity, as trees are not pruned or grafted, invasive vegetation spreads, and land quality declines.

"The mango, one of the most representative fruits of Cuba, ends up rotting on the ground while families go hungry," FMP said, pointing to limited coordination and management within the current agricultural system.

The situation described by FMP is not limited to mangoes. A farmer in Artemisa reported that he was unable to find buyers for his pumpkin harvest, raising concerns about production planning, market access, and post-harvest coordination across multiple crops.

The cases highlighted by FMP illustrate challenges in harvesting, logistics, and market integration within Cuba's agricultural sector, with production losses occurring alongside constrained food availability for the population.

[El Presidente]

https://havanatimes.org/news/the-cuban-governments-new-plan-to-capture-more-us-dollars/

The Cuban Government’s New Plan to Capture More US Dollars

December 12, 2025

Authorizes some foreign currency transactions in the private sector

 

Private store in Cienfuegos, Cuba

Private businesses and self-employed workers will be able to use these resources to import raw materials but must deliver 20% of the balance to the Central Bank at the official exchange rate.

By 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – For the first time, the Cuban government will allow private individuals to hold foreign currency accounts and conduct business with them, a measure the sector has long called for, but which will be limited by the amount they must hand over to the state. The regulation establishes a clear difference between foreign investors and national companies. The latter are subject to an 80% retention coefficient — the amount of foreign currency income that can be retained, while the rest must be sold to the Central Bank at the official exchange rate, far below the actual street value — compared to 100% access for foreign companies.

The decision is part of a legislative package published on Thursday in the Official Gazette, through which Cuba is implementing a partial dollarization, “until economic conditions allow the Cuban peso to be reinstated as the only legal tender in the country”. In total, there are four regulations – a decree-law and three resolutions – that establish “a new mechanism for the management, control and allocation of foreign currency, with the aim of increasing foreign currency revenues and achieving a more efficient use of them.”

The measures affect all economic actors regardless of whether they are state-owned, private or cooperative, foreign or domestic, but there are some differences between them. One of the most important is the retention coefficient. There are special circumstances for state-owned companies, as many of them already had approved foreign currency financing schemes, but in the case of private companies there is a special requirement.

The 80% rate will apply to income from exports, e-commerce with payments from abroad, sales of goods and services to users and concessionaires of the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), foreign investment modalities, and entities authorized to trade in foreign currency. For all other cases listed in Article 5 of the regulation (dedicated to possible legal sources of foreign currency), 100% may be retained.

According to the government, retained foreign currency can be sold on the foreign exchange market or used for authorized payments, promoting productive linkages and import substitution.

The measure provides a solution to the demands of private individuals, who had been calling for years for a legal currency market in which to operate: its absence prevented them from legally importing the supplies that are so scarce in Cuba, encouraging the parallel market and leaving them exposed to the risk of losing their licenses, among other penalties, if they were inspected. Also, if the measure is successful, the state will be able to regain access to foreign currency that was operating illegally and therefore beyond its control. This, in turn, made it difficult for the government to make the payments it needs to finance its own expenses and pay its foreign suppliers, including the essential fuel without which the economy cannot move forward.

The regulations also govern foreign currency bank accounts, authorizing private individuals to hold them for the first time, which in turn allows them to pay for imports without having to exchange currency. This also paves the way for payments between different economic actors, facilitating the much-discussed “chain reactions”.

Another element established by the legislation is the so-called ACAD, a purchase authorization that the Government, through the Minister of Economy and Planning, will grant to companies to purchase foreign currency from the Central Bank. To obtain it, the applicant must have the national currency available. The permit is also non-transferable.

Domestic transactions – internal, as defined by the resolution – will preferably be made in pesos, except when they occur between operators in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), between wholesalers and shops (retailers) in foreign currency, and other exceptional cases that may be approved. Exporters and those operating in e-commerce may pay their domestic suppliers in foreign currency provided that this is mutually agreed, a new development that will facilitate the flow of currency without intermediaries.

As for other economic actors, the law states that foreign investors collect and pay in foreign currency and can operate domestically with both currencies. Private individuals must, as a rule, trade in pesos, but if the customer pays in foreign currency, the business owner can receive payment in that same currency, although they may choose to convert it into pesos. Agricultural producers, for their part, will receive income in their foreign currency accounts if they are recognized as exporters or import substitutes.

[riderpride]

From a tourism and national investment lens:

Spain Recommends Against Traveling to Cuba - Havana Times https://share.google/OmuglUWiphc3m9ybF

Spain Recommends Against Traveling to Cuba

December 13, 2025

“If you are not vaccinated against Chikungunya, Dengue and Hepatitis A”

Canada—traditionally the main source market for tourists to Cuba—has also drastically reduced its presence on the island this year. / September 5

The drop in tourism in the last five years has led the Government to reduce its investments in that sector, which until now was a priority.

Por 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – The Spanish Foreign Ministry issued a health alert this Friday stating that “Cuba is currently experiencing a serious epidemic, with simultaneous outbreaks of various mosquito-borne viral diseases.” Consequently, it recommends against traveling to the island if one is not vaccinated against chikungunya, dengue, and hepatitis A.

This warning comes at the worst possible time for the Cuban government, in the middle of the peak tourist season and at the end of a catastrophic year in which the number of international travelers will not even reach half of the four million registered in 2016.

The new guidelines from Madrid were released this Wednesday, after it was confirmed that the situation in Cuba has deteriorated significantly. The accumulation of garbage and the increasing number of hours without electricity—two factors that directly impact hygiene—explain the updated alert, according to sources consulted by Confidencial Digital.

According to the most recent data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), between January and September 2025, 36,788 Spanish tourists traveled to Cuba, representing a 27.1% drop compared to the same period in 2024. Canada—traditionally the leading source market for Cuba—has also drastically reduced its presence on the island this year. In the first seven months of 2025, the number of Canadian tourists who traveled to Cuba totaled 478,388, down from the 622,204 registered in the same period of 2024.

The health emergency that is now keeping tourists away is a direct result of the neglect of basic services. And that neglect, in turn, stems from an investment policy that for years prioritized tourism over agriculture, energy, health, and infrastructure.

Over the past decade, the regime has turned the tourism industry into its economic totem and its riskiest gamble. The result in 2025 is empty luxury hotels in cities where water can take weeks to arrive, beach destinations with more rooms than food in the markets, and a healthcare system lacking staff, resources, and supplies.

Official investment figures up to 2024 confirm this. While agriculture received a mere 3% of the total and public health a meager 1.9%, hotels and restaurants absorbed 10.8%, and the so-called “business services, real estate and rental activities” – a category that includes a significant portion of hotel spending – accounted for a hefty 26.6%. In other words, more than a third of national investment was earmarked for building or renovating tourism infrastructure.

The paradox is that, just now that Spain is recommending vaccination before visiting the island and even bringing a complete first-aid kit because hospitals lack medicines, the Cuban government seems to have discovered – late, very late – that perhaps it should invest more in basic services.

Data from January to October 2025 show a shift. Funding for tourism falls to 5.2%, and the real estate and business sector drops to 17.1%, while the provision of essential services for the general population—electricity, gas, and water—jumps from 12.6% to 36.7%, becoming the main recipient of investment. Transportation—key to moving goods and people in a semi-paralyzed country—also grows, from 8.5% to 10.7%.

But the inevitable question is: will this change be enough at this point? Because the figures also reveal what the government continues to fail to prioritize. In 2025, investments in agriculture—the foundation of food security—represent a mere 2.1% of the total, compared to 2024. Education falls to 0.4%, science and innovation also to 0.4%, and public health to 1.3%, percentages that are barely enough to keep buildings standing, much less to modernize or supply them.

The Spanish government also warns travelers that, although Cuban healthcare personnel are generally competent, “medical facilities suffer from a severe lack of supplies” and fall far short of Spanish standards. Furthermore, it emphasizes that foreigners are required to pay for any medical treatment immediately and that Cuban authorities may prevent them from leaving the country if any medical bills remain unpaid. The alert also stresses the need to only use bottled water due to the risk of Hepatitis A.

Today, with several countries—including the United States, Russia, and Mexico—advising travelers to think twice before visiting Cuba, the regime is trying to correct its course. But investments are like economic cycles; their effects take years to materialize. What went under funded in 2015 or 2018 is now exploding in the form of blackouts, epidemics, and shortages. And what begins to be funded in 2025 may come too late to prevent the island from continuing to lose—among many other things—one of its main sources of foreign currency.

Translated by Translating Cuba.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.

[Gemini_Man]

Just absolutely brutal.

[MrBirdman]

 

‘We are dying’: Cuba sinks into a health crisis amid medicine shortages and misdiagnosis

Hospitals are overwhelmed and fatalities are soaring. The island is suffering from combined viruses that include dengue, chikungunya, Oropouche and other respiratory diseases

Mercedes Interian is unable to hold a glass of water. If she tried, it would fall to the floor. The fever and vomiting are over, the diarrhea and headaches gone. Now that she is out of danger, what Mercedes fears most is that she will be forever stooped. Once a strong 57-year-old woman, these days she cannot take a step without leaning on a broomstick. “We are a hunchbacked people, scratching around for something to eat,” she says, her voice choking due to breathing difficulties as she lies on the sofa of her house in El Cerro, in Havana. “Nobody is okay here, this thing numbs your fingers, ankles, knees... We are an army of zombies.”

Cuba today is indeed a country of sick citizens who do not know exactly what they are suffering from. All they know is that they are being infected by “the virus” – a sinister ghost that has drifted across the entire island, wiping out its inhabitants. First come the high fevers, then red spots develop, or else peeling skin. Vomiting, diarrhea and headaches are inevitable. The hands and knees swell. Victims can barely stand on their feet, and there are those who have not walked again even after the worst is over. A limp indicates a virus survivor. Citizens who drag their legs or complain about achy joints have likely also been hit. According to Maidelys Solano, 38, who was ill at home in Bayamo along with her two children, her father and nephews, every morning in every Cuban neighborhood, people are saying, “It hurts here, it hurts there, today I am a little better, or I could not get out of bed. That’s how all the neighbors are, it’s what they repeat daily.”

Almost all families in Cuba have had someone sick at home due to the country’s epidemiological crisis. The disease is in fact a combination of several mosquito-borne viruses, a model of “combined arboviruses” that includes dengue, Oropouche and chikungunya, as well as other respiratory viruses such as H1N influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and Covid-19. According to figures published by the Ministry of Public Health, 5,717 new cases of chikungunya were reported in the last week, bringing the number of patients suffering from it to 38,938. As for dengue, the ministry said the disease remains active in the country’s 14 provinces and 113 municipalities.

An alarming 33 deaths were reported at the beginning of the week which the government was forced to recognize, including 21 minors – the demographic most affected by these arboviruses along with the elderly. “There are many one-month-old children who have died, and also those between two and four years of age, as well as other young people, because the vomiting and diarrhea dehydrates them and they arrive at the hospital already in a state of collapse,” a worker at the Institute of Hematology and Immunology of El Vedado told El PAÍS on condition of anonymity.

Cuban officials, who are always reluctant to acknowledge any catastrophe, have been refusing to accept that there is a health crisis, insisting that these are common diseases for the islanders, accustomed to the summer heat and torrential tropical downpours. “They are neither new, nor are they rare or unknown,” Public Health Minister José Ángel Portal Miranda said in October. He then tried to dismiss speculation arising from the countless reports of deaths: “No one can hide an epidemic or the dead,” he claimed.

 

[MrBirdman]

Trump administration has also ended the reunification program for Cuban-Americans. Will lead to deportation back to Cuba for many in US waiting for a visa and will break up some families. Pretty heartless given the state of things in Cuba.

Trump nixes program helping reunite Cuban and Haitian families | Miami Herald

[CrazyIvan]

So sad.

 

[ha_banos]

Don't think it's directly Cuba related but seeing ads on the London underground warning about chikungunya. It's like things are lining up. Weird.

[WestCoastSmokin]

Sounds like something that won’t be going away any time soon. Very unfortunate. 

[El Presidente]

Cuba's communist party postpones congress, citing economic crisis

HAVANA

A worker shows a wad of Cuban pesos in Havana, Cuba, Dec. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)

The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) has postponed its ninth congress, scheduled for April, because of the economic crisis gripping the nation, state media announced Sunday.

Congresses in the one-party, communist-run Caribbean island nation take place once every five years, except under exceptional circumstances.

The decision to delay the event to an unspecified later date was made Saturday after former president Raul Castro, through a letter, proposed a postponement.

The 94-year-old Castro retired as president and the party's first secretary in April 2021 but still wields political influence.

Castro's proposal was made public by President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cubadebate reported on its website.

In his letter, Castro stressed that party congresses should be held within the scheduled time frames, but he advised that the ninth congress be postponed in order to "devote 2026 to recovering in every way possible."

The central committee approved the decision unanimously, according to Cubadebate.

Cuba, with a population of 9.7 million, has been mired in a severe economic crisis for five years due to the combined effects of tightened US sanctions, the low productivity of its centrally planned economy, the collapse of tourism, and the failure of monetary reforms.