Millions of Cuban residents continue to grapple with extended, daily blackouts that have upended normal life across the island, pushing the country’s national electric grid into one of the most critical phases in its recent history, according to senior energy official Vicente de la O Levy, Minister of Energy and Mines (Minem). In a public press conference, Minister de la O Levy outlined the multiple overlapping challenges driving the crisis, which first began to escalate in 2019. The top energy official pointed directly to one root cause that has created the current emergency: widespread fuel shortages directly tied to the intensification of economic and energy blockades imposed on Cuba. De la O Levy confirmed that between December 2025 and early April 2026, the country went nearly four full months without receiving any fuel shipments. The only significant delivery the nation received in that period was a 100,000-ton donation of crude oil from the Russian Federation, which arrived after months of empty docks. That single shipment offered only partial, temporary relief for the grid after being processed at Cuba’s Cienfuegos refinery into power generation fuels. It covered just part of April and the first few days of May, and by mid-May 2026, the reserve had been fully exhausted, leaving the nation once again facing an extremely challenging operating environment. The situation has been further worsened by unseasonably early high temperatures that have pushed up residential and commercial electricity demand as summer begins. Today, the National Interconnected System (SEN) relies exclusively on three types of generation: thermoelectric plants, natural gas facilities operated by Energás, and utility-scale photovoltaic solar parks. Beyond the acute fuel shortage, the grid faces a second, long-simmering challenge: widespread structural deterioration of the island’s baseline thermoelectric generation fleet. Decades of use, combined with a persistent lack of access to replacement parts due to trade restrictions, have left most plants operating with severe technological wear that causes frequent, unexpected outages. The minister noted that failures are no longer limited to core boiler systems; critical auxiliary components now also break down regularly, meaning any minor issue can take an entire plant offline. The recent unplanned shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant triggered one of the worst weeks for the grid so far this year. Shortly after that outage, operators were forced to take the Felton thermoelectric unit in Holguín offline for urgent work – what was initially reported as routine scheduled maintenance was actually emergency repairs to prevent catastrophic total failure. The Felton unit was suffering from boiler leaks and critical faults in its regenerative air converter, and continuing operations would have destroyed the unit entirely, de la O Levy explained. Every unplanned outage and maintenance shutdown adds more hours of blackouts for residents, as the grid operates with literally no backup generation capacity. Any unexpected failure immediately translates to lost power for communities. While shutting down units for repairs prolongs outages in the short term, failing to complete the work would lead to permanent loss of generation capacity, a risk the government cannot take. Solar power has emerged as a key partial alternative for Cuba, with more than 1,300 megawatts of installed photovoltaic capacity currently in operation. At peak output, solar parks can generate more than 900 megawatts, enough to power a large share of the nation’s demand. However, the inherent instability of the aging grid means operators cannot fully utilize this renewable resource, as unregulated input would cause dangerous frequency fluctuations that could collapse the entire system. Currently, solar generation is capped at an average of just 580 megawatts, a fraction of its full potential. There is progress on the horizon, however: Minister de la O Levy announced that the nation is already in the final phase of a major infrastructure project to install large-scale battery energy storage systems designed to stabilize the grid and unlock more solar generation. Technical teams are already on the ground preparing to launch the first of these new storage systems. When it comes to the distribution of power outages across the country, the grid was never engineered to operate under conditions of permanent rolling blackouts, de la O Levy noted. Energy officials implement daily rotational outages based on available generation capacity, spreading the impact across all territories, but geographic differences mean some regions face longer or more frequent outages than others. Critical infrastructure – including hospitals, water pumping stations, strategic economic facilities, and other vital services – is protected on dedicated circuits that cannot be disconnected, to avoid endangering public safety and core functions. More than 600 protected circuits consume more than 800 megawatts of the nation’s total available generation daily. Additional dedicated frequency stabilization circuits, known as DAF circuits, are also prioritized to keep the grid from collapsing entirely. Each province has a unique mix of demand, number of protected circuits, and technical infrastructure, which leads to uneven outage experiences across the country. For example, some large provincial hospitals have multiple redundant power lines that allow for rotational outages in other parts of their service area without disrupting hospital operations, while smaller or older facilities lack this redundant infrastructure, requiring more outages in surrounding communities to keep the hospital online. Upgrading this infrastructure to equalize outage impacts would require significant capital investment that the nation cannot currently access, the minister added, as the core constraint remains an overall shortage of generated power. Daily outage planning begins at midnight each day at the National Load Dispatch Center, with official estimates released to the public early each morning. But the frequency of unexpected breakdowns means plans are almost always disrupted, as even minor issues – such as a failure in a plant’s on-site water supply – can take a major generation unit offline instantly. In the current tight operating environment, every lost megawatt has a massive, immediate impact on available power. The social cost of this ongoing crisis is impossible to ignore. It has disrupted household life, slowed economic activity, hurt transportation and communications services, and strained public services, leaving the population fatigued, anxious, and uneasy. Ministry officials are actively monitoring public feedback and complaints about uneven outage distribution and fuel access issues, but de la O Levy reiterated that the fundamental problem remains a total lack of available fuel reserves: the country currently has no surplus fuel oil or diesel to draw on for power generation. Today, all power generation relies on domestically produced natural gas and domestic crude oil, and domestic production has been increased as much as possible to offset the import shortfall. Cuba is continuing to advance its long-term energy transition strategy, which aims to diversify generation sources and reduce the nation’s dependence on imported fuel. But these long-term changes require time, access to international financing, and stable technological supply chains that are currently out of reach due to ongoing trade restrictions. For now, Cuban residents are adapting their daily lives around the erratic power supply, with many households completing cooking, laundry, and other essential chores only during the early morning hours when power is most likely to be available.
标签： Cuba
古巴
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A signature for the Homeland, sovereignty, and peace
On Wednesday, civil society delegates from multiple Cuban provinces presented formal documentation confirming broad popular backing for the ‘My Signature for the Homeland’ initiative to top Communist Party and government leaders across regional jurisdictions. This mass signature-gathering effort stands as a powerful collective demonstration of Cuban unity in opposition to the escalating U.S. economic blockade and global aggression, cementing the island nation’s commitment to forging an independent future in peace.
The formal handover of bound signature volumes followed brief political-cultural ceremonies in each participating province, with regional authorities accepting the documents that reflect the overwhelming will of the Cuban public. In Sancti Spíritus, young art instructor Yadira Bernal Nazco, speaking for local civil society groups, called on citizens to reject what she framed as relentless, extraterritorial aggression from a global power that seeks to break the Cuban people through economic deprivation and manufactured despair. She emphasized that defending national historical memory, distinct Cuban cultural identity, and full national sovereignty remains a non-negotiable priority for all residents of the island.
In the eastern province of Guantánamo, local representative Yairis Fernández Castellanos highlighted that more than 290,000 Guantanamo residents across all age groups, religious backgrounds and civil society sectors had added their names to the initiative. Fernández called the mass participation a deliberate act of moral conscience, noting that every signature carries the Cuban people’s shared commitment to justice, unshakable commitment to independence, and deep understanding that all critical national battles are won through popular unity.
Speaking for a cross-sector coalition of workers, smallholder farmers, intellectuals, athletes, students and faith-based organizations in Las Tunas province, Gustavo López Ramírez reaffirmed that Cubans will always stand ready to defend the hard-won independence secured by generations of national heroes and martyrs.
Across the entire island, final counts confirm that more than 6.2 million Cubans have added their signatures to the ‘My Signature for the Homeland’ movement. Organizers and authorities frame this unprecedented level of popular participation as a clear, unequivocal message to the international community: the Cuban people remain united in rejecting the escalating economic pressure imposed by the U.S. government that aims to choke the island’s economy and force political change.
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Cuban President denounces the impact of the blockade on the worsening energy situation in the country
On Wednesday, May 14, 2026, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who also serves as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, took to his official social media accounts to address the rapidly escalating crisis facing the island nation’s national power grid. In his public statement, he painted a stark picture of the current energy situation, confirming that peak-hour power deficits are projected to exceed 2,000 megawatts on the day of his announcement.
Díaz-Canel left no ambiguity about the root cause of the crisis, attributing the dramatic deterioration of Cuba’s energy security entirely to longstanding U.S. trade restrictions. He labeled the restrictions a “genocidal energy blockade” that Washington imposes on Cuba, noting that the U.S. actively threatens third-party nations that supply Cuban fuel imports with harsh, unjustified tariffs. As a concrete example of the blockade’s immediate impact, the president revealed that fuel shortages directly caused by American restrictions cut 1,100 megawatts of available generation capacity from Cuba’s grid on that same Wednesday alone.
To further back his claim, Díaz-Canel pointed to a marked improvement in power services across the island back in April. He explained that the arrival of just one additional fuel cargo vessel — out of the minimum eight vessels Cuba requires each month to meet domestic energy demand — was enough to cut power deficits and reduce widespread blackouts. While outages did not disappear entirely during that period, their frequency and severity were significantly mitigated, offering clear proof of how fuel access directly shapes Cuba’s energy outlook.
The president also addressed recent commentary from U.S. media outlets aligned with Washington’s aggressive policy agenda toward Cuba. He noted that even these outlets, which have long backed American pressure on the island, have been forced to acknowledge the remarkable resilience of the Cuban people in the face of systemic economic pressure. Despite sweeping measures designed to cripple Cuba’s economy and energy sector, the nation has not collapsed, and remains far from what the U.S. has attempted to frame as a failed state. This forced admission, Díaz-Canel argued, indirectly confirms that Cuba’s ongoing crisis is the product of deliberate American economic warfare and targeted energy persecution, not domestic policy failure.
Díaz-Canel went on to reframe the narrative pushed by U.S. government spokespeople, who often attribute Cuban hardship to mismanagement by Havana. In reality, he explained, the crisis stems from a deliberate, perverse strategy designed to push everyday Cuban citizens to breaking point, amplifying scarcity and hardship to stoke unrest against the country’s government. He recalled that more than 60 years of economic blockade, plus 243 additional restrictive measures implemented during the Trump administration, failed to break the Cuban Revolution. This failure led the U.S. to ramp up pressure, implementing new executive orders designed to cut off all fuel supplies to the island, and penalize any third-party entity that engages in trade or investment with Cuba. The core goal of this scheme, he emphasized, is to inflict collective suffering on the Cuban people, holding them hostage to force political change.
Looking back at a brief period of eased restrictions several years ago, the Cuban president noted that this short window offered unambiguous proof of how both Cuban and American people, and bilateral trade relations, would benefit from ending the long-running draconian blockade. That potential improvement, he added, is exactly what a small clique of far-right U.S. extremists who control American policy toward Cuba fear. These actors deliberately spread misinformation about conditions on the island, and continuously push for harsher restrictions and greater threats against the Cuban people.
Closing his statement, Díaz-Canel reaffirmed Cuba’s longstanding position: the nation remains open to equal, mutually respectful dialogue with the United States, but will continue to resist external pressure and build domestic prosperity regardless. “We are increasingly convinced that we must overcome these enormous difficulties through our own collective efforts, united as a single nation, and resolute in the face of even the toughest challenges,” he said.
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Cuban Foreign Minister denounces the repercussions of a military aggression against the island
In a public warning posted to his social media channels on Tuesday, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of the country’s Political Bureau, has strongly condemned the risk of potential military aggression against his nation by the United States government, laying bare the devastating ripple effects such an attack would unleash across the Caribbean and beyond.
Rodríguez Parrilla emphasized that a U.S. military strike would not just be an act of war against a sovereign state—it would trigger a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe and an unprecedented bloodbath on Cuban soil. He pointed out that the human cost would extend beyond Cuban borders, with both Cuban and American civilians and service members losing their lives in the conflict. Critically, he noted that this high-stakes gamble is only being entertained by U.S. political leaders who do not face the personal consequence of sending their own children or family members to fight in such a war.
The foreign minister went on to stress that there is no justification, not even a flimsy pretext, that could legitimize a military attack by the global superpower against Cuba. The small island nation, he argued, poses no measurable security threat to the United States, meaning any incursion would be rooted solely in the desire of a small faction of U.S. policymakers to force a change to Cuba’s existing political system and governing structure.
Beyond the immediate human toll, Rodríguez Parrilla reiterated that any U.S. military aggression against Cuba would constitute a severe, direct threat to peace and stability across the entire Latin American and Caribbean region. He closed by reaffirming Cuba’s unwavering commitment to defending its national sovereignty against any attempt by external powers to impose their will on the Cuban people.
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What is the thermal conversion process for improving Cuban crude oil?
Against the backdrop of a tightened economic blockade that has squeezed Cuba’s fuel supplies to critical levels, a homegrown technological breakthrough developed by local petroleum researchers is offering new momentum for the island nation to capitalize on its own natural resources and advance toward long-term energy sovereignty.
The innovation, crafted by a team of scientists at Cuba’s Center for Petroleum Research (Ceinpet), centers on a thermal conversion process tailored to address the unique challenges posed by the country’s most abundant crude oil resource: heavy crude extracted from northern Cuban oil fields. To break down the impact of this new development, Cuban state newspaper *Granma* sat down for an exclusive interview with Rafael López Cordero, senior researcher and management advisor at Ceinpet, who walked through the process, its potential benefits, and its roadmap for scaling.
López Cordero explained that Cuba produces a range of crude oil grades, from light to extra-heavy, but more than 70% of the country’s domestic output comes from northern deposits of heavy crude. This variant is defined by extremely high concentrations of asphaltene compounds, which create the crude’s signature high density and viscosity, paired with elevated sulfur levels. This chemical makeup creates cascading challenges across every stage of the oil supply chain, from initial extraction all the way to refining and end use.
“These asphaltenes complicate not just refining, but also transportation, pumping, and even extraction,” López Cordero noted. When heavy crude is pulled from wells, it arrives mixed with water, requiring specialized surfactants to separate the emulsions and recover usable crude. Its extreme viscosity also makes it impossible to pump through existing pipeline infrastructure without first diluting it with solvent products to lower its thickness. Currently, these solvents come from two sources: a portion of distillate fractions produced by the Sergio Soto Refinery in Cabaiguán, which processes domestic crude, and heavy naphtha generated from processing imported crude oil – a feedstock that could otherwise be used to produce gasoline for domestic consumption.
This is where the new thermal conversion process delivers transformative change. López Cordero was careful to clarify that thermal conversion is an upgrading process, not a full refining step. While refining produces finished fuel products that meet market quality standards – from liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline to jet fuel, diesel, and asphalt – thermal conversion targets the physical properties of heavy crude to make it far more usable and valuable.
By reducing the crude’s viscosity enough to eliminate the need for solvent dilution, the process frees up all the naphtha previously used for this purpose to be redirected toward gasoline production, directly boosting the country’s available fuel supply. It also delivers secondary benefits: a modest reduction in sulfur content cuts the fuel’s environmental impact, and the upgraded crude’s improved combustion properties reduce wear on power plant equipment, extending their operational lifespans and cutting maintenance resource needs.
In its current non-catalytic form, the process upgrades crude for more efficient transportation and combustion without directly producing finished fuel derivatives that meet all national quality standards, but its operational benefits are already significant. The technology is now in the pilot scaling phase at the Sergio Soto Refinery, a location selected for its unique advantages for testing.
“Sergio Soto already processes domestic heavy crude, has all the auxiliary infrastructure we need – steam, treated water, power – and a trained staff with years of experience handling heavy crude,” López Cordero said. “We don’t have to build from scratch; we can integrate our pilot plant into the existing operational system, and the crude is already stored on site, so no extra transportation is required.”
Contrary to common misconception, the pilot plant is not intended for mass commercial production of upgraded crude. Its core mission is to collect critical engineering data: researchers will test different temperature ranges, crude emulsion injection rates, and other operational variables to map how these factors impact final product quality. Once these core parameters are finalized, the team will design modular, scalable units that can be deployed directly at wellheads across northern oil fields, bringing the upgrading process directly to the source of extraction.
The research line behind thermal conversion has been underway at Ceinpet for several years, and was paused for a period due to a range of resource and operational constraints. But the intensification of the U.S. blockade, which has worsened shortages of imported solvents and naphtha, created new urgency to advance the homegrown solution, pushing the team to leverage domestic expertise and local resources to bring the project across the finishing line.
While the technology is still in early scaling and will not resolve all of Cuba’s immediate energy challenges overnight, López Cordero emphasized that it represents a meaningful, firm step forward for the country. By enabling Cuba to maximize the value of its own domestic natural resources, the breakthrough moves the nation one critical step closer to the long-held goal of full energy sovereignty.
Ceinpet has been investigating thermal conversion technology for several years, and the project’s progress amid ongoing economic pressure highlights the role of domestic scientific innovation in building resilience for the island nation.
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Cuban tobacco is also being rolled using solar energy
For a Cuban tobacco producer in the eastern province of Las Tunas, the shift to renewable energy is more than an environmental initiative — it is a lifeline for an industry with centuries of local heritage that has struggled with crippling power instability and economic headwinds in recent years.
The Las Tunas Tobacco Collection, Processing, and Rolling Company (known locally by its Spanish acronym ABTT) now produces nearly 60 kilowatts of electricity through newly installed photovoltaic panels across its manufacturing facilities, which supply premium cigars for both domestic consumption and global export markets. While integrating renewable energy has been a core part of the company’s strategic roadmap for several years, the initiative was derailed for a period by persistent shortages of foreign currency, which blocked the purchase of critical equipment.
Before the solar rollout, chronic unreliable grid power forced frequent work stoppages across ABTT’s production workshops. Those disruptions hit output hard: at the time the transition plan was launched, the firm produced just over 400,000 export-quality cigars and nearly 1.5 million units for domestic sale, with annual revenue losses from outages topping 26 million pesos.
To address the crisis, parent group Tabacuba Business Group launched a full-scale energy transition across all core operations, starting with the Vidal Navas and Maniabón factories in Puerto Padre, which prioritize production for international export. Additional photovoltaic systems were added to select workshops at the Enrique Casals facility in Las Tunas municipality, another site focused on overseas sales.
Building on the early success of these first installations, the Lázaro Peña plant in Jobabo — which supplies the domestic market — is set to bring two 6-kilowatt solar panel modules online in the coming period, a change designed to reshape the facility’s energy profile and protect its consistent production output. According to Carlos Betancourt Almaguer, Development Director at ABTT, additional photovoltaic infrastructure will be rolled out incrementally across remaining workshops in the province, while contracting for new systems is already underway for other key sites, including a central tobacco sorting center and the company’s main distribution warehouse.
Beyond stabilizing production levels, Betancourt Almaguer noted that the shift has already improved workplace conditions for employees. Previously, unscheduled outages forced early shutdowns, cutting into workers’ daily wages. Now, staff arrive at the facility confident that production will proceed as planned, eliminating unexpected lost income.
The solar transition is not limited to manufacturing: the company has partnered with the Agricultural Projects Company and the Ministry of Agriculture to install solar-powered irrigation systems in 18 new seedling houses across nine independent tobacco producers’ farms. This on-farm renewable infrastructure will ensure planting can be completed on the optimal schedule, boost crop yields, and add greater reliability to the annual tobacco growing campaign.
For Las Tunas, a region with tobacco production roots stretching back to the 18th century, this widespread energy shift could mark the first step toward a broader industry recovery. After a revival of tobacco cultivation in 1993, the region saw rapid growth that cemented its status as one of Cuba’s top tobacco producing areas, hitting a peak in 2017 with a harvest of 1,276 tons of raw tobacco. In recent years, however, production has dropped sharply, with current annual output barely exceeding 100 tons. Industry leaders hope that resolving power instability through renewable energy will reverse that trend and restore the region’s historic standing in Cuban tobacco.
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The Major still rides across his plains, on his Island
Some historical dates are etched permanently into the collective consciousness of a nation, and May 11 stands as one such milestone for Cuba. On this day in 1873, at just 31 years old, Cuban independence leader Ignacio Agramonte fell in battle — but 153 years later, Cubans, especially residents of his home province of Camagüey, insist he never truly stopped riding forward for his country.
Looking back at Agramonte’s extraordinary choice in his young adulthood remains striking even in 2026. At 26, this newly married lawyer born into a privileged wealthy family walked away from every comfort and security life had given him to join a risky, uncertain war for Cuban independence. Many would have labeled his choice reckless, even foolish. But Agramonte held unshakable clarity about the moment he lived in: he knew his country needed him, and he stepped forward to confront the Spanish colonial empire of the era without hesitation.
Agramonte’s legacy extends far beyond his reputation as a fearless military commander. Over his five years of fighting, he participated in more than 100 battles, but he was also a gifted thinker, lawyer, and committed constitutionalist. He drafted the first Constitution of the Republic in Arms, and he defended the abolition of slavery with the same fierce determination that led his charges against Spanish colonial forces. Even amid the chaos of war, he remained a devoted husband, writing tender, heartfelt letters to his wife Amalia that still move readers today: “Only for you, always for you.” For Agramonte, his commitment to his country never erased his love for his family — it was the foundation of his fight.
For the people of Camagüey, Agramonte’s influence is woven into the identity of the region itself. To say one is from Camagüey is not just to state a place of birth; it is to embrace a set of values shaped by Agramonte’s example: honesty, dedication to education, and unpretentious courage. Today, that legacy is not locked away as a dusty museum relic or a static bronze monument. Instead, it acts as a mirror held up to modern Cuban youth, and it reflects Agramonte’s spirit in every young person working to move the country forward amid ongoing challenges, including decades of U.S. economic blockade.
The bronze equestrian statue of Agramonte that stands in Camagüey’s central park, sword raised and gaze fixed forward, is more than a memorial. It is a symbol of the legacy that lives on in contemporary Cubans: the students who show up to learn, the creators who build new opportunities, the workers who show up for their communities day after day. Agramonte does not demand modern Cubans follow his path to the battlefield; he calls on them to refuse indifference to injustice, and to fight today’s battles with intelligence and the same unwavering commitment he embodied 153 years ago.
As Cubans mark this anniversary, they see Agramonte not as a figure of the past, but as a guardian of the present, and a blueprint for the future. Every time a resident of Camagüey walks past the statue and looks up, they see more than cold bronze: they see a young man who answered his country’s call without hesitation, and that same spirit lives on in every young Cuban who carries that legacy forward. As long as there are young Cubans with pride in their hearts, the strength to persist, and the tenderness to care for their communities, the Major will never have fallen. He continues to ride across the plains of his home island, leading the way forward.
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The Executive Order of May 1st and the blockade measures announced today increase the harm to the Cuban population and reinforce the threat of aggression
In a scathing official statement released on May 7, 2026 from Havana, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an unreserved rejection of a new executive order signed by the White House on May 1 that ramps up the decades-long U.S. economic, financial and commercial blockade of the island nation to never-before-seen, extreme levels.
Beyond rejecting the core executive order, Cuban officials also condemned a follow-up action from the U.S. Department of the Treasury dated May 7, which added two major Cuban entities — state-run groups Gaesa and MoaNickel S.A. — to the U.S. List of Specially Designated Nationals. This designation marks the first coercive penalty implemented under the terms of the new May 1 executive order.
Cuba’s foreign ministry describes the expanded measures as a brutal act of deliberate economic aggression that vastly expands the harmful extraterritorial reach of the long-standing U.S. blockade. Under the new rules, the U.S. can impose secondary sanctions on foreign companies, global banking institutions and third-country entities even when their commercial activities have no direct or legitimate connection to U.S. markets or operations.
The statement outlines that these new restrictions will deal additional severe damage to Cuba’s already strained national economy, which has still been reeling from the devastating impact of a U.S.-led oil blockade imposed on January 29 this year that effectively paralyzed all fuel imports into the country.
The Cuban government further accuses U.S. authorities of acting as a self-appointed global policeman, in open and flagrant violation of core tenants of international law and the fundamental principles governing free global trade in goods and services. The new measures, officials argue, directly and explicitly attack the sovereign right of all sovereign nations to establish or maintain economic, commercial and financial ties with Cuba, regardless of their own foreign policy priorities.
Top U.S. leadership, particularly the Secretary of State, has engaged in widespread blackmail and intimidation campaigns to force the entire international community to comply with the U.S. blockade, according to the statement. No nation is immune from these threats, which Cuban officials frame as part of a decades-long campaign of harm against the Cuban people that amounts to an ongoing act of genocide. The end goal of the escalation, they say, is to force Cuba into complete isolation from global economic and financial systems.
In a formal warning to the global community, Cuban officials emphasized that this act of aggression against the Cuban economy and its population will only achieve the destructive outcomes Washington intends if sovereign, independent nations choose to surrender to U.S. intimidation. The statement expresses confidence that the international community will not passively accept illegal U.S. regulatory overreach, will not surrender their sovereign equality, and will not leave their domestic businesses, citizens and financial institutions unprotected from unfair U.S. coercion.
The statement notes that the global community has repeatedly opposed and condemned the nearly 70-year campaign of harm the U.S. has waged against the Cuban people. Cuban officials denounce the latest aggressive measures as criminal in nature, designed to push the entire Cuban population into hunger and desperation, and to trigger a large-scale social, economic and political collapse across the country. They also reject what they identify as a deliberate U.S. strategy to manufacture a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, as a pretext to justify even more dangerous actions against the island, including potential military aggression.
Cuba reaffirmed that it will continue to use all international forums to denounce the illegal blockade, and called on the entire global community to stand against this latest escalation. The statement frames the new measures as a dangerous step forward in Washington’s long-standing goal of exerting total domination and control over Cuba’s national destiny, a move that violates the fundamental independence and sovereignty of all nations around the world.
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Telemedicine: A Valuable Tool for Health and Life
Just 30 days after integrating into Cuba’s National Virtual Hospital network, the Pepe Portilla Pediatric Hospital in western Cuba’s Pinar del Río has already emerged as a testament to how digital healthcare innovation can overcome longstanding systemic and geographic barriers to high-quality medical treatment. What was once a standard institutional meeting room has been reimagined as a digital hub connecting local clinicians to top specialists across the island, outfitted with a simple setup of a webcam, large display screen, and internet-connected computer.
This transformation is already changing outcomes for rare, complex pediatric cases that local providers rarely encounter in their practice. Dr. Jesús Lazo Cabrera, a clinician at the facility, recently leveraged the network to secure consensus for a six-month-old infant named Liam Valdés Morejón, who was born with congenital global emphysema — an extremely rare condition that affects just one in 20,000 to 30,000 births. With roughly 5,000 annual births across Pinar del Río, local clinicians may only see one case every five to six years, leaving them without frequent hands-on experience managing post-surgical complications. After Liam’s post-operative progress failed to match standard medical guidance, the team turned to the National Virtual Hospital for support.
Through the platform, Lazo Cabrera and his team shared real-time imaging, full patient histories, and clinical notes with leading pediatric specialists at Havana’s prestigious Juan Manuel Márquez Pediatric Hospital and other leading Cuban institutions, replicating the experience of having out-of-province experts in the exam room. The collaboration allowed the local team to align their treatment approach with national best practices and adopt a customized new care plan that Liam is currently following, with a formal re-evaluation scheduled in four weeks. Today, six months after his birth, the infant continues to make steady positive progress — a concrete outcome that demonstrates the network’s life-changing impact.
Dr. Mayte Cabrera Hernández, general director of Pepe Portilla Pediatric Hospital, explained that the National Virtual Hospital offers far more than just second-opinion consultations. The platform supports a full suite of telehealth services, including remote patient monitoring, remote diagnostic analysis, continuing medical education for local clinicians, and cross-institutional case consultations. For a country facing persistent fuel shortages that complicate long-distance patient transfers, the digital network addresses two critical challenges at once: it cuts unnecessary healthcare costs and eliminates the inherent medical risks of moving vulnerable pediatric patients hundreds of kilometers for specialist input. Even when transportation is available, Cabrera Hernández notes, avoiding travel reduces stress and risk for young patients and their families, while delivering the same standard of care available in Cuba’s capital.
In its first full month connected to the network, Pepe Portilla has already completed three remote specialist consultations, with the case of Liam standing as the clearest example of the model’s potential. For seasoned clinicians like Lazo Cabrera, the network fills a longstanding gap in care: even clinicians with decades of experience can encounter unique cases that other centers have more experience managing, and the platform unifies care standards across the entire country. “This gives us security in our procedures,” Lazo Cabrera explained, “because we can confirm our approach matches what top teams across Cuba use, and we can give families confidence that their child is receiving the same treatment they would get anywhere in the country.”
Pepe Portilla is not the only Pinar del Río facility participating in the program: the province’s Abel Santamaría Cuadrado General Teaching Hospital has also joined the national network, which aims to standardize care, share specialized medical knowledge, and close geographic gaps in access to care across Cuba, powered by digital health innovation. As Liam’s steady recovery shows, the initiative is already delivering on that promise, uniting clinicians across the island in a shared mission to protect patient health and save lives.
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From university to industry: The best path for Artificial Intelligence
On the morning of Wednesday, May 7, 2026, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba, undertook a working visit to the University of Havana, where he held an in-depth meeting with academic researchers leading cutting-edge artificial intelligence development initiatives across the institution. The visit, framed within Cuba’s national Science and Innovation-based Government Management System, underscores the top leadership’s sustained commitment to advancing digital transformation and leveraging AI to address pressing social and economic challenges across the island.
Díaz-Canel was joined on the visit by Walter Baluja García, Minister of Higher Education, Mayra Arevich Marín, Minister of Communications, and Miriam Nicado García, Rector of the University of Havana. During the session, researchers from two leading faculties — Physics, and Mathematics and Computer Science — presented a curated selection of their ongoing AI projects, all tailored to deliver tangible benefits for Cuba’s public and private sectors.
Leading the presentation from the Faculty of Physics was Dr. Milton García Bonato, a senior researcher at the faculty’s Center for Complex Systems. He outlined that his team’s work in AI stretches back more than 30 years, predating the global mainstream boom in artificial intelligence driven by large-scale internet-based language models. One of the team’s most high-impact innovations is an AI model built to analyze human mobility patterns. This tool proved critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling policymakers to accurately assess population movement trends and measure the effectiveness of public health restriction measures. Beyond public health, the model also serves as a core planning resource for urban transportation systems, helping city officials organize transit networks based on commuter origin and destination data.
The Faculty of Physics has also expanded its AI applications into other key national sectors, including telemedicine solutions for the public health system and efficiency-focused tools for the national economy. In a post-meeting interview with reporters, García Bonato emphasized that AI aligns naturally with the faculty’s longstanding research focus on complex systems: “AI is fundamentally about leveraging existing data that captures complex interrelationships to build predictive models that support better decision-making,” he explained. “Our team is fully committed to translating academic breakthroughs into solutions that address the country’s current needs, from more efficient resource management to tangible problem-solving. The nation can count on us — our work is rigorous, peer-validated, and published in top international journals, so this is established, credible science.”
From the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Dean Dr. Suilan Estévez Velarde presented a broad overview of the faculty’s AI-driven contributions to Cuba’s digital transformation. Her presentation highlighted a diverse portfolio of tools, including platforms for AI-augmented citizen engagement, open science collaboration portals, enterprise project management systems, and logistics and operational optimization frameworks. Special attention was given to work from the faculty’s Cryptography Institute, along with advances in data analytics for decision support, medical image processing for biomedicine, and domestic language model development — headlined by CeciLIA, Cuba’s homegrown large language model.
Like their colleagues in Physics, the mathematics and computer science team made major contributions to COVID-19 response through combined AI and mathematical modeling for outbreak prediction, tools that have since been adapted for forecasting other infectious diseases. The faculty has also developed AI-powered diagnostic support tools for specific conditions including skin diseases, and industry-focused solutions ranging from predictive analytics for the domestic software sector to integration of generative AI and blockchain technology for Cuban enterprises. Estévez Velarde noted that these innovations have the potential to drive widespread modernization across the Cuban economy, boosting operational efficiency, cutting costs, and creating new export-ready products and technologies that strengthen national competitiveness.
Despite these significant advances, Estévez Velarde also highlighted a key ongoing challenge: strengthening collaboration between academic research institutions and domestic industry. She noted that misalignment around project timelines, communication styles, and priorities between academia and the private sector can leave promising research trapped as unpublished theses rather than scaled into real-world solutions, emphasizing the need for targeted training to bridge this gap and translate academic work into tangible national impact.
In her closing assessment of the meeting, University of Havana Rector Miriam Nicado García called the exchange “extremely productive.” She noted that the session gave researchers the opportunity to outline how the university is integrating AI into strategic sectors spanning health, energy, transportation, the broader economy, and public services. Attendees also reached consensus on the key priorities for future growth: continued investment in university infrastructure and faculty development, expanded AI education across all levels of the national education system, and sustained training of new PhDs, masters students, and specialists in AI and related digital fields — all critical to advancing Cuba’s long-term development goals.
Díaz-Canel reaffirmed during the visit that advancing AI and digital transformation is a core strategic priority for the Cuban government, as the nation works to build a more modern, digitally connected society that delivers greater benefits to all citizens.