• Cuba's economy expected to grow only 1% in 2025
• Economy hit by U.S. sanctions, COVID-19, and energy crisis
• Export earnings fell $900 million, imports 18% below forecast

At the end of November 2024, the number of political prisoners on the island amounted to 1,148, an increase of 34 arrests compared to the previous month.

For more than two years, Cuba has been experiencing a scenario marked by increasing repression against those who dare to question or challenge the regime. According to a recent report by the non-governmental organization Prisoners Defenders, at the end of November 2024 the number of political prisoners on the island rose to 1,148, which represents an increase of 34 arrests compared to the previous month.

In the last year the list of Cuban political prisoners has increased by 155 new cases, which gives an average of 13 new arrests per month. Prisoners Defenders emphasizes that repression has not stopped and that prisoners, all of them subjected to inhuman treatment and torture, continue to be victims of a system that persists in silencing its opponents.

Since July 2021, after the massive protests that shook the island, the Cuban regime has intensified its attack on opponents, turning Cuba into a country where dissent is paid for in prison. Throughout these three years and five months, the total number of political prisoners who have passed through Cuban prisons amounts to 1,785, according to the report. Of these, approximately 650 suffer from serious medical conditions, many of them caused or worsened by the extreme conditions of mistreatment and torture in prison.

In the month of November 2024, 34 new political prisoners entered prison. The Prisoners Defenders report highlights that 30 of these arrests occurred in response to recent spontaneous mobilizations in different regions of the country. For the most part, these demonstrations have been motivated by the demand for basic services such as electricity, water and food, conditions that have seriously deteriorated due to the economic crisis affecting the island.

Faced with the protests, despite their peaceful nature and, for the most part, localized, the regime has unleashed relentless repression.

The report also specifies the geographical distribution of the new political prisoners, mentioning especially Villa Clara, where 17 people were detained, and Santiago de Cuba, with 7 new prisoners. Arrests were also recorded in other provinces such as Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey and Pinar del Río.

Prisoners Defenders reports that detainees are subjected to extreme physical and psychological torture, including beatings, prolonged isolation and deprivation of access to food and medical care, which in some cases has led to death.

In addition to overcrowded conditions, political prisoners are subjected to degrading treatment, with no guarantees of a fair trial or access to independent defense lawyers.

The report also highlights that many of the prisoners suffer from chronic illnesses that are aggravated by prison conditions, where they are rarely provided with the necessary treatment.

You can view the additional data at Prisoners Defenders Website

HAVANA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Cubans still reeling from months of hours-long blackouts now have a new problem on their hands: fuel shortages.

Many gas stations across the island have been shuttered for days as an unusually severe shortfall has left the nation nearly devoid of gasoline and diesel, stranding motorists and sprouting seemingly interminable lines at the pump in Havana.

"We have been waiting for a fuel truck to arrive for three days," said Armando Corrales from the driver's seat of his gray Kia SUV at a gas station in the capital. "People have slept here in line so they don't lose their spot."

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In Cuba, the socialist project begun by revolutionary and former president Fidel Castro is teetering on the verge of failure. The nation is sinking deeper into crisis, with many people’s daily lives marred by shortages of food, medicine and electricity.

Cuba has been subject to sanctions for decades. Despite recent attempts at reform, the country is increasingly isolated and economically dependent. A currency reform enacted in 2021 is also causing major problems, with inflation soaring and prices skyrocketing. Food is scarce, and lines in front of the few state-run stores are getting longer and longer.

Poverty is on the rise. Even the famous ingenuity of the Cuban people is reaching its limits as they try to cope with the day-to-day effects of the crisis. Images of bygone revolutionaries are fading in the streets the capital, Havana, and all over the island. Official voices continue to broadcast the state’s ideology, but ordinary people are losing hope that things will improve.

HAVANA (AP) — After a nationwide blackout left millions without electricity for several hours in Cuba, the power grid was restored Thursday, authorities said, adding that scheduled power outages will now resume.

The latest blackout, the third one of this severity in less than two months, occurred in the early hours of Wednesday, after a breakdown at a thermoelectric plant in Matanzas province, east of Havana. The incident triggered a chain reaction, overwhelming an already strained power system.

On Thursday, classes and work activities gradually returned to normal.

As for the scheduled power outages, Cuban authorities said they will continue their current practice of implementing daily, five-hour power outages by block or zone as they have been doing for the past few months.

On Oct. 18, the island suffered a significant blackout that, added to the passage of Hurricane Oscar two days later, left the island without electricity for several days.

Weeks later, Hurricane Rafael’s strong winds triggered another system-wide blackout that left the national energy system disconnected again.

Cuba’s power grid has been plagued by frequent outages in recent months, with more than half of the country experiencing power cuts during peak hours. The outages are primarily caused by fuel shortages and aging infrastructure. In many parts of the island, electricity is crucial for cooking and water pumping.

HAVANA (AP) — Non-governmental organizations monitoring Cuban prisons demanded an investigation Tuesday into the death of a man imprisoned since 2021 after being arrested for participating in historic protests against shortages and blackouts.

Authorities say 29-year-old Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas committed suicide in prison. However, relatives claim he succumbed to injuries sustained during a failed escape attempt at Combinado del Este prison in Havana, where he was serving a six-year sentence.

Guillén, a member of an opposition group called the Patriotic Union of Cuba, died on Saturday and his remains were returned to his family over the weekend.

“What we were able to find out, through various sources, is that Manuel was trying to escape from prison, and was caught in the act,” said Camila Rodríguez, representative of Justicia 11J, an NGO that keeps track of the situation of detainees in Cuba. “We will never know for sure what happened, unless they let us enter the prison and interview and reconstruct the events independently,” she added.

Cubans have been grappling with several crises in rapid succession in the past three weeks after the island’s eastern region was hit Sunday with a powerful earthquake even as the country was still reeling from two hurricanes that brought death and devastation.

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the ocean 20 miles off Pilón, a town on the southern coast of the province of Granma in eastern Cuba, shook the region on Sunday minutes before noon, leaving no casualties but at least two children, among them a five-year-old, and two adults injured, Cuban state media said.

The strong tremor followed a magnitude 5.9 earthquake earlier on Sunday morning that the United States Geological Survey said occurred 21 miles south of the nearby municipality of Bartolomé Maso, also in Granma province.

Cuba’s National Center for Seismological Research reported Monday morning that it had detected 885 tremors – including the two biggest ones - in the area in the past 24 hours. Eastern Cuba is in an active seismic zone in the Caribbean that is responsible for most of the tremors felt on the island. In 2020, the Center reported a 7.7 magnitude earthquake west southwest of Cabo Cruz, in Granma province, but it happened at sea and did not cause damage.

The country’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, urged residents in Granma to remain in open areas and follow earthquake protocols. Videos circulating on social media show panicked residents in Pilón left their houses Sunday to take refuge in the nearby mountains.

Cuban authorities have yet to provide a detailed assessment of the damage caused by the earthquakes However, images shared by state media and social media accounts show several collapsed homes, and houses, buildings and schools with cracks or crumbled walls.

Videos and photos show extensive damage in Pilón and cracks in the 1871 lighthouse in Cabo Cruz.

The earthquakes put additional strain on a population already dealing with multiple crises just days apart.

On the eve of Oct. 18, the government declared an energy emergency, citing a lack of oil and the diminished generating capacity of its old energy infrastructure as culprits of daily extended blackouts that had paralyzed the economy. The following morning a failure at a major power plant caused the entire electrical grid to collapse.

Cuba says it was generating only enough electricity to cover about one-sixth of peak demand late on Wednesday, hours after its national grid collapsed leaving millions without power.

The National Electric Union (UNE) said it was producing 533 megawatts of electricity by evening, still just a fraction of typical dinnertime demand of between 3,000 and 3,200 megawatts, leaving most Cubans in the dark as night fell across the Caribbean island.

Earlier, the communist-run government said it would prioritize returning power to hospitals and water pumping facilities. Schools and non-essential government services were closed until further notice.

Lights flickered on across parts of the capital Havana late on Wednesday. The local electric company said more than 260,000 clients had seen power restored.

It was the latest in a string of countrywide blackouts of Cuba's antiquated and increasingly frail power generation system. This year, Cuba's grid fell into near-total disarray, stressed by fuel shortages, natural disaster and economic crisis.

Dwindling oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico pushed the island's obsolete and struggling oil-fired power plants into full crisis several months ago.

Hours-long rolling blackouts and severe shortages of food, medicine and water have made life increasingly hard for many Cubans, who in recent years have fled the island in record-breaking numbers.

Cuba blames U.S. sanctions, which complicate financial transactions and the purchase of fuel, for the crisis.

Today, 50 years after his death, many people still remember Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a warrior for social justice. For so many celebrities, politicians, and activists, Che Guevara is a kind of Good Samaritan who fought against oppression and tyranny. It is unfortunate, though, that these people ignore some of their idol’s defining character traits.

Che Guevara was in fact an intolerant and despicable man.

In the process of building a communist society after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 in Cuba, one of the ideas Che Guevara presented and promoted was the notion of the “new man.” This concept grew out of Guevara’s aversion to capitalism, and was first explained in his note on “Man and Socialism in Cuba“. He believed that “The individual under socialism is more complete,” and that the state should educate men and women in anti-capitalist, cooperative, selfless and non-materialistic values.

Anyone who deviated from the “new man” was seen as a ”counter-revolutionary.” The truth is, Guevara enjoyed the ritual of the firing squad and approached his task with the same glee one would have when opening a birthday present. Tradition dictates that one of the rifles used by a firing squad was filled with blanks. However, Guevara insisted that every rifle was filled with live ammunition to ensure each man in the squad knew he was an executioner.

Of course, actions speak louder than words and Guevara mastered the art of murder. While many of the executions he ordered were members of the former regime, he didn’t hesitate to kill just about anyone who got in his way. Journalists, businessmen and former colleagues who didn’t agree with him were all executed on his orders.

Che Guevara also helped establish the first Cuban concentration camp in Guanahacabibes in 1960. This camp was the first of many. From the Nazis, the Cuban government also adapted the motto at Auschwitz, “Work sets you free,” changing it to “Work will make you men.” There were unimaginable atrocities committed in the two main prisons; Santa Clara and La Cabana. Reinaldo Arenas is a Cuban writer, and he spent time in La Cabana. According to Arenas, he was arrested for his anti-authoritarian views and wrote about the appalling conditions inside. There was no bathroom, while beatings were commonplace as were executions.

Arenas also spoke of how his colleague, Herberto Padilla, had his spirit crushed in La Cabana. For 30 days, Padilla was locked in a prison, beaten and tortured until he branded himself a traitor and renounced all of his previous work which was critical of the regime. The exact number of people executed on Che’s orders is unknown, but it is probably in the thousands.

Guevara also espoused racist views. In his diary, he referred to black people as “those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing.” He also thought white Europeans were superior to people of African descent, and described Mexicans as “a band of illiterate Indians.”

In the article “My Cousin, El Che,” Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr. describes how Che Guevara enjoyed torturing animals —a trait common to serial killers. His record of murdering and torturing people is extensive. Researchers have documented 216 victims of Che Guevara in Cuba from 1957 to 1959. Suspicion was all that was needed to end a life. There was no need for trial because he said the Revolution could not stop “to conduct much investigation; it has the obligation to triumph.”

Guevara was handed the roles of Finance Minister and President of the National Bank and overall, his programs were a complete failure. Productivity dropped while absenteeism increased markedly. One of his former deputies said Guevara was: “ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” Cuba was reliant on huge money transfers from Moscow and in return, the island nation became a beachhead for Soviet nuclear weaponry. By diverting resources to industries that ultimately failed, he helped destroy the Cuban economy. In just two years, he managed to halve the nation’s sugar harvest.

Death, to Guevara, was a necessity for revolution. He had no regard for human life. Today, 50 years after his death, it is important to remember Ernesto Che Guevara as the person he was: a homophobic, racist, mass murderer willing to use any means to achieve his self-declared superior society.