标签： Cuba

A sitting Colombian congressman and member of the historic ruling Pacto Historico coalition has publicly denounced the national government’s newly proposed tax reform, framing the policy as a concession to International Monetary Fund demands that shifts nearly all fiscal burden onto low- and middle-income households while delivering generous tax breaks to the nation’s wealthiest elite. In a public post shared to his official X social media account, House of Representatives member Gabriel Becerra, who previously mounted a campaign for the Colombian presidency, argued that the draft legislation deliberately penalizes working families and middle-class citizens while offering targeted relief to the country’s most economically powerful groups. Becerra went on to issue a stark warning to the sitting administration, noting that policymakers appear to have overlooked the widespread civil unrest that erupted across the nation in 2021, when then-President Ivan Duque attempted to roll out a nearly identical tax overhaul during his 2018–2022 term, sparking mass national protests that disrupted public services and forced the government to abandon the controversial proposal. A line-by-line breakdown of the current draft bill confirms the core of Becerra’s allegations: dozens of basic food staples that currently qualify for reduced or zero value-added tax will be reclassified as taxable goods under the new rules. Items set to lose preferential tax status include coffee, granulated sugar, common vegetable cooking oils, pasta, and wheat flour, while a broad range of currently tax-exempt staple goods including beans, lentils, chickpeas, corn, table salt, fresh artisanal cheeses, and nearly all unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables will be newly subject to standard sales tax rates. The proposed reform extends beyond grocery costs to impose additional financial strain on middle-class households, with planned tax hikes on personal healthcare services and adjusted income tax brackets that raise liabilities for earners in mid-tier wage ranges. Meanwhile, the nation’s highest-net-worth individuals are set to receive significant cuts to their mandatory wealth tax contributions, a provision Becerra decried as a gross inversion of fiscal fairness. “This policy forces the people who already have the least financial security to pay even more, while the tiny fraction of citizens who hold the most wealth get a lighter tax bill,” Becerra stated in a public remark. “This is an unmitigated policy disaster for ordinary Colombians.” The controversial draft tax bill has already drawn widespread pushback from opposition political blocs, who have raised a slate of additional unaddressed concerns about the proposal’s long-term impacts on household cost of living and national economic stability.

A months-long investigative probe conducted by leading Brazilian daily *Folha de S. Paulo* has exposed a well-trodden land escape route out of Brazil, centered on the Foz do Iguaçu border crossing in the southern state of Paraná, that has been repeatedly utilized by high-profile figures tied to the far-right Bolsonaro political movement to evade ongoing judicial scrutiny. The latest individual documented using this corridor is sitting lawmaker Flavio Bolsonaro, eldest son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who recently crossed the frontier into neighboring Argentina alongside members of his immediate family. This border passage has a well-documented history of being used by other prominent Bolsonaro allies facing legal repercussions, including former federal congresswoman Carla Zambelli and ex-Federal Highway Police director Silvinei Vasques. Records show Zambelli traversed the border by private vehicle before continuing her international travel circuit that eventually took her to the United States and Italy. Vasques, by contrast, was intercepted and detained at the international airport in Asunción, Paraguay, mid-departure as he attempted to board an outbound commercial flight bound for El Salvador. The investigation also confirmed the presence of Leonardo Rodrigues de Jesus, widely known by the nickname “Leo Indio” and a first cousin to Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest sons, in the border region. A fugitive from Brazilian judicial authorities, he is wanted for alleged direct involvement in the violent January 8, 2023, insurrection that saw thousands of Bolsonaro supporters storm, vandalize, and occupy the core federal government buildings in Brasília in a failed attempt to overturn the 2022 general election results. Court documents and local media interviews confirm he has been residing openly in Puerto Iguazú, the Argentine border city directly across from Foz do Iguaçu, since early 2025. During a recent appearance on a local Argentine television broadcast, Leo Indio voiced explicit approval of Flavio Bolsonaro’s decision to leave Brazilian territory, and went on to mischaracterize the widespread looting, arson, and violent assaults on security personnel that defined the 2023 Brasília insurrection as an entirely “peaceful” demonstration. Data previously released by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) in November 2024 shows a total of 61 Brazilian nationals wanted in connection with the 2023 coup attempt are currently residing as fugitives in Argentina, though the high court did not publish a breakdown of how many of these individuals entered the country via unmonitored or informal land border crossings rather than official ports of entry. The *Folha* investigation also highlights a series of critical, as-yet-unanswered questions surrounding Flavio Bolsonaro’s unannounced departure from Brazil: no public records confirm how he traveled from the national capital Brasília to the Paraná border region, what exact overland or transit route he used, and which third parties may have coordinated or facilitated his cross-border travel to avoid detection by federal law enforcement.

During a press briefing held on the margins of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ gathering in Atlanta, U.S., Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov laid out a notable position on potential high-level engagement with Ukraine, according to an official release from Russia’s diplomatic ministry. Lavrov confirmed that Moscow is prepared to extend full safety and security assurances to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with a critical caveat: such guarantees cannot be extended if the meeting were to take place within the borders of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. This statement arrives amid swirling diplomatic discussions around the upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit, scheduled to be hosted in Miami later that same month. Just days prior to Lavrov’s press appearance, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov publicly dismissed any possibility of a face-to-face encounter between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Miami summit, labeling the scenario as completely unfeasible. The diplomatic chain of events traces back to a formal invitation extended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that month, in which the U.S. government formally invited President Putin to participate in the G20 leaders’ gathering. Peskov responded to the outreach by noting that Russian authorities viewed the invitation with appreciation and would conduct a thorough internal review to evaluate the logistics and merits of attendance. The push for direct bilateral talks between the two leaders has been a consistent public position of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly emphasized that a direct, unmediated meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is a critical prerequisite to reaching a negotiated settlement to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Trump has also openly stated that he would welcome Putin’s presence at the upcoming G20 summit, framing the multilateral gathering as a high-profile, appropriate venue to advance de-escalation efforts. As a longstanding established multilateral forum, the G20 brings together 19 individual national economies spanning Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States, alongside the European Union as a full member representative.

Between October 24 and 31, the National Network on Cuba coordinated a coordinated international advocacy campaign dubbed the “Global Week of Action against the U.S.-Imposed Genocide in Cuba,” uniting hundreds of grassroots activists, labor representatives, community organizers and anti-war advocates across major U.S. cities to demand an immediate end to Washington’s decades-long unilateral economic siege on the Caribbean island.
The cross-country series of events kicked off with an interactive educational forum at the Chicago Cultural Center on October 24, followed by a community gathering at the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, two days later, and a panel discussion hosted on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Boston on October 27. A large, peaceful march also took place in the streets of New York City, drawing crowds of local residents and solidarity groups calling for normalized U.S.-Cuba relations.
On October 28, the exact same day the United Nations General Assembly held its annual non-binding vote on a Cuban-led resolution demanding the full removal of the U.S. trade and travel blockade, roughly 50 local activists assembled at downtown Miami’s iconic Torch of Friendship monument to stage a public protest against the punitive measures. Longtime local organizer Pete Seidman noted that the demonstration pushed back against prevailing narratives that frame Miami’s Cuban-American community as uniformly supportive of Washington’s hardline policies, highlighting that a significant segment of the city’s population aligns with the overwhelming global majority that backs Cuba’s longstanding call to end the embargo.
Local broadcaster Radio Miami also covered a parallel demonstration held at Chicago’s Federal Plaza, where attendees delivered fiery speeches condemning successive U.S. administrations for policies that intentionally restrict access to essential goods, medicine and fuel for ordinary Cuban citizens, describing the measures as a deliberate attempt to economically suffocate the island nation’s population.
On the U.S. West Coast, labor union members and progressive political organizers in the Los Angeles area, mobilized by Workers United – an affiliate of the national Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – hosted a dedicated gathering to denounce the unilateral blockade that has remained in place for more than 65 years. Local activist Mark Friedman emphasized that the steady turnout for the event reflected growing cross-movement solidarity between U.S. labor groups and Cuban civil society.
Savannah Boyd, a representative from anti-war group CodePink and independent community bookstore All Power Books, stressed during one of the public forums that the ongoing U.S. fuel embargo against Cuba carries immediate, life-altering consequences for ordinary families, rejecting framing of the policy as a distant, abstract partisan debate. Her remarks echoed repeated statements from the Cuban government that characterize the cumulative humanitarian toll of the six-decade blockade as a form of silent, slow-motion genocide.

Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) announced via its official X platform that a high-level working session focused on advancing grassroots community governance was recently convened, bringing together local community representatives to share on-the-ground insights. The gathering was presided over by three core national leaders: Esteban Lazo, president of the ANPP, Manuel Marrero, the island nation’s prime minister, and Roberto Morales, the Organization Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. During the meeting, community leaders presented first-hand accounts of ongoing neighborhood transformation initiatives, the operational progress of the nationwide “My Neighborhood for the Homeland” grassroots movement, the rollout of targeted economic and social reform measures, and cross-departmental integrated community service delivery models. Following the closed-door discussions, top Cuban officials took to their personal X accounts to pay public tribute to the frontline public servants serving in the country’s Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, as the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of these foundational local governance bodies. Prime Minister Marrero specifically lauded the unwavering dedication and people-centered commitment of municipal assembly members, while ANPP president Lazo published a formal anniversary message noting that the October 31, 1976, establishment of the Local Organs of People’s Power represented a landmark institutional milestone that codified the core Cuban governance principle that all state power originates from the public and is administered directly at the grassroots level to serve community needs.

On October 30, 2026, Cuban First Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee and national President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez conducted a two-part official work tour across Havana, first stopping at the renowned William Soler University Pediatric Hospital before moving to the Benigno water source facility in Cotorro municipality to assess progress on the capital’s city-wide Comprehensive Water Supply Program.

Accompanied by Public Health Minister José Angel Portal Miranda and top Havana provincial party and government officials, Díaz-Canel met directly with the hospital’s leadership, medical specialists and frontline care teams to recognize their unwavering commitment to delivering uninterrupted pediatric care amid severe operational constraints imposed by long-standing U.S. economic sanctions. The president emphasized that Cuban health workers have maintained full operation of all clinical services even amid crippling shortages of fuel, transportation, essential medications and reliable power, a feat he described as a testament to the collective heroism of the Cuban people. He further noted that the global recognition Cuba earned through its recent UN diplomatic victory was directly tied to the selfless dedication of medical staff serving both domestic communities and international humanitarian medical missions.

Hospital director Dr. Alena Fontane Valdés briefed the president on the institution’s suite of nationally leading specialized care programs, which include the Regional Neonatal Surgery Center, National Reference Center for Pediatric Liver Transplantation, National Reference Center for Airway Surgery and Autologous Esophageal Transplantation, and specialized units for stem cell implantation for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and obstetric brachial palsy surgery. Medical leadership shared that even under harsh blockade-related pressures, key clinical outcomes have continued to improve, including rising survival rates for critically ill ventilated neonatal patients and intensive care unit patients across the facility. Díaz-Canel toured key hospital spaces including the surgeon training virtual simulation classroom, telemedicine department and active surgical wards, where he spoke directly with young patients and their family members, and reaffirmed his administration’s support for ongoing digital transformation efforts to modernize pediatric care delivery across the country.

Following his visit to the pediatric hospital, the presidential delegation traveled south to the Benigno well field in Cotorro municipality, a critical supplementary facility for Havana’s eastern water distribution network that currently provides potable water to roughly 58,000 residents of San Miguel del Padrón municipality. During the assessment, Aguas de La Habana General Director Yosvany Rubí Bazail outlined ongoing infrastructure upgrade work, noting that all civil engineering projects for the Benigno well field have been completed, while parallel initiatives to reduce system-wide water leaks and install additional pumping equipment are progressing on schedule. Officials detailed a cross-agency strategy integrating distributed power generation and renewable energy solutions to address the persistent energy deficit that has long hindered consistent water pumping operations across the capital. In coordination with the National Electric Union, the first phase of the program is deploying large backup generator sets at key water supply pumping stations, with initial tests returning fully satisfactory results, though intermittent service disruptions continue due to the broader national energy crisis and unplanned recent breakdowns on major transmission mains such as the Cuenca Sur system, alongside delayed spare part imports for critical pumping equipment and temporary adjustments to power lines connected to new generator installations.

Díaz-Canel called for enhanced inter-agency coordination across participating bodies including the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, deputy prime minister’s office, Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources to accelerate implementation of all planned upgrades, minimize service disruptions for Havana residents, and steadily expand reliable potable water access across the capital.