Cuba is one win away from the WBC quarterfinals. Months ago, it wasn’t even clear if they’d be allowed to play. U.S. visa restrictions denied entry to several Cuban staff members, part of a policy that blocked some 100 Cuban athletes and sports officials last year.
#baseball #mlb
Cuba had a deal. Trump blew it up. 10 years after Obama's historic visit to Havana, a new wave of sanctions is hitting the island hard. Peter Kornbluh, expert in U.S-Cuba relations, explains how it all fell apart — and what comes next.
Full interview: youtu.be/2imYUSTAB0g
Belly of the Beast has interviewed dozens of Cuban doctors who work or who have worked abroad. Every single one of them has told us they signed up voluntarily. That’s not the impression you’d get from reading the corporate media.
Cuban doctors are paid many times more abroad than what they earn in Cuba. Belly of the Beast has verified that in Italy, they are paid 3,000€ a month. They must send 1,800€ of that to the Cuban state (much of which supports the public healthcare system), and keep 1,200€.
In an apparent concession, Occhiuto added that he had intended to increase that number to as many as 1,000 in 2026, but is now considering advertising for applicants from elsewhere.
After the meeting, Occhiuto issued a statement saying: “Cuban doctors who are allowing us to keep hospitals and emergency rooms open are still a necessity for our region.”
U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Cuba Mike Hammer was last week in Italy, where he met with Roberto Occhiuto, the governor of the southern region of Calabria. He pushed Occhiuto to end Calabria’s employment of around 500 Cuban doctors. Occhiuto refused.
Their story was recently highlighted in our recent video featuring Dr. Bill Blanchet, a physician from Colorado who’s been accompanying his patients to Havana. It’s also the focus of our soon-to-be-released documentary: Teresita’s Dream.
👉https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/teresitas-dream
At Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology, a team of mostly women scientists led by Dr. Teresita Rodríguez has spent years researching the treatment — despite limited resources and decades of U.S. sanctions that restrict scientific collaboration.
On International Women’s Day, we’re honoring the women scientists and doctors behind NeuroEpo — a promising new Alzheimer’s treatment being developed in Cuba. 🧵
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva affirmed Cuba during the FAO conference, saying the island’s food crisis is not due to a lack of production.
“Cuba is going hungry because they [the U.S.] don’t want it to have access to the basics.”
Washington’s campaign has combined diplomatic arm-twisting, including revoking visas for officials in countries that host Cuban medics, with propaganda depicting Cuban doctors as victims of “human trafficking.” Cubans are paid many times more abroad than what they earn in Cuba.
“Because it’s the main source of hard currency traditionally for Cuba, the U.S. has decided to destroy Cuban medical internationalism,” John Kirk, author of Healthcare Without Borders: Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism, told Belly of the Beast.
Over the past year, Paraguay, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Guatemala, and Guyana have all announced they will end their medical cooperation agreements with Cuba following intense U.S. pressure.
More than 150 Cuban doctors left Honduras yesterday after Honduras announced last week it will no longer hire Cuban medical workers, who have been supporting Honduras’ health system since '98. They are typically posted in working-class urban neighborhoods and remote rural areas.
Travel to Havana with us! Coming here supports the Cuban people.
Our immersive eight-day trip to Havana with Belly of the Beast journalists and filmmakers is the best way to do it.
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The US seeks to increase leverage over Cuba by simultaneously engineering state collapse & empowering the private sector. The result: rising inequality & death. Private-sector vans have fuel to deliver luxury goods to those who can afford it, while hospitals run short on fuel.
While there will be no quantity limits for the oil exports, according to reports, U.S. firms will remain barred from selling oil to the Cuban state.
The Trump administration threatened tariffs to impose what amounts to an oil blockade on the island January 29. But last week’s announcement is effectively a carve out to the blockade. It sheds light on the economic facet of Washington’s evolving regime-change strategy.
“We want to open the spigot of US fuel exports to Cuba, so long as the ultimate beneficiary is the private sector,” a source w knowledge of the administration’s plan told Miami Herald. “There is nothing more in line with the Donroe Doctrine than making Cuba dependent on the US.”
The U.S. Treasury Department said last week that U.S. companies can now apply for licenses to sell oil to the Cuban private sector. The oil being resold by U.S. firms will come from Venezuela, whose government the Trump administration decapitated on January 3.
Last week, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said the ruling has removed the tariff threat over oil shipments to Cuba. She said her government is reviewing whether to recommence the shipments.
Trump used the IEEPA — along with the National Emergencies Act and Section 301 of Title 3 of the United States Code — to justify his January 29 executive order threatening to impose tariffs on countries that send oil to Cuba.
On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give Donald Trump the authority to “unilaterally impose tariffs.”
We are looking for a full-time writer/editor to join Belly of the Beast! You will work closely with our team of Cuba-based journalists to write our weekly newsletter, edit video subtitles, create social media posts, and edit and write articles.
www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/careers
Cuban authorities seized assault and sniper rifles, ammunition and night-vision equipment after intercepting an infiltration attempt by 10 individuals arriving by boat from Florida. Havana calls it part of a long history of plots; investigation ongoing.
U.S. citizens are traveling to Havana for a new breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Clinical trials show that, unlike any other medication, Cuba’s NeuralCIM not only stabilizes patients, but in more than half of cases it actually reverses many Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Another person listed as a survivor, Roberto Azcorra Consuegra, told NBC 6 South Florida he wasn’t involved in the incident and that he is in Miami. When he was asked if he knew any of the other people on the list, he said, “I can’t reveal that information for now.”
The Cuban government has identified the six survivors, saying “most of them have a known history of criminal and violent activity” and that two of them, Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, appear on Cuba’s wanted terrorists list.
Conrado Galindo Sariol, one of the survivors, was interviewed last year on Radio Martí, the U.S. government-funded propaganda outlet. “We are in the final stage of ending the dictatorship,” he said, and “must make more effort than ever.”
