Arturo O’Farrill is a #Grammy-winning pianist, composer and one of the most influential voices in #AfroCubanJazz. But for him, #Cuba is more than just an inspiration — it’s home, history and identity.
In #Havana, during the 41st International #Jazz Plaza Festival, Arturo told us why #jazz cannot be understood without Cuba, why #AfroCuban roots remain central to the music’s evolution, and why #cultural exchange persists despite the #US’s decades-long economic war on Cuba.
Arturo has been returning to Cuba year after year for over two decades, honoring his heritage, and using #music as a bridge between Cuban and US citizens - despite the personal cost of taking political positions.
“This is Cuba,” he says. “I come here to learn how to live.”
Donald Trump said on February 1: "We're talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens. I think we’re going to make a deal." But according to #DropSiteNews, no such talks are taking place.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, the #US de facto #oil blockade has already led to a shutdown of some essential services. We spoke with Cubans about the fuel crisis and their concerns for the future.
Also:
Interview With Cuban Jazz Legend Arturo O'Farrill
With Jet Fuel Scarce, Canada and Russia Cancel Flights
The crisis is particularly dire among children with cancer. #Cuba’s free healthcare system—which prioritizes the health of the people instead of industry profits, as in the #US—once boasted a #pediatric cancer survival rate of 80%, on par with the world’s wealthy nations. Now that’s down to around 65% as the blockade has forced healthcare providers to modify treatment protocols and medications.
“The situation is very serious at the moment. It was already in terms of acquiring supplies and medicines. But now it is intensifying and complicated with other aspects,” Dr. Forteza Saéz, an oncologist at Havana’s University of Medical Sciences, told La Jornada...
Cuban officials announced Friday a nationwide and far-reaching energy-saving plan that prioritizes fuel and electricity for essential and life-saving services. The measures also expand #SolarPower deployment, sharply reduces transport services, and cut down operating hours for schools, universities, and workplaces. The aim is to protect health care, food and water supply, and social services amid an acute energy shortage caused by the #US blockade.
The country has already notified airlines that they will be unable to refuel international flights for at least a month, further complicating tourism to the island, a vital source of income for #Cuba.
This week, we examine Trump’s recent executive order that threatens to block all oil from entering #Cuba.
It’s economic warfare aimed at regime change and amounts to collective punishment of the Cuban people. It’s also based on claims that are not substantiated by any evidence.
In 1960, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester Mallory laid out the argument for waging economic war on Cuba. The #US government, he wrote, should deny "money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Mallory also wrote that the US should be “as adroit and inconspicuous as possible” in advancing this policy.[...] The Cuban government, not the US, would be blamed for the country’s economic problems.
Cuba Must Not Fall! The survival of Cuba’s socialist project remains one of the most critical holdouts against hemispheric domination, making its defense a global litmus test for sovereignty. https://resumen-english.org/2026/02/cuba-must-not-fall/
The struggle to defend the #CubanRevolution—to preserve #Cuba’s independence, sovereignty, and right to self-determination—is not simply the struggle of a small #Caribbean nation resisting a powerful neighbour. Nor is it confined to the geographical contours of an island of eleven million people. It is, rather, a struggle with profound and incalculable consequences for #LatinAmerica, the Caribbean, and the global fight for justice, human dignity, and the right of peoples to live free from imperialist diktat.
...Cuba asserted the radical proposition that a small, formerly colonized country could chart its own path, control its own resources, and prioritize social justice over foreign capital.
As the #US#oil blockade of #Cuba continues, Cuban civil #aviation authorities have warned international airlines that jet fuel on the island has run out. Long-haul flights will now be forced to refuel in nearby third countries or may be cancelled altogether.
#US President Donald Trump is trying to induce a famine in #Cuba. Mass starvation and human suffering in Cuba is the goal of #Trump’s latest ‘emergency’ Executive Order preventing Cuba, an island nation, from importing oil or any energy sources needed to survive. It is a cynical and crude ploy to distract public opinion from the issues at home that are eliciting mass public dissent, and as we’ve seen with Venezuela, a precursor to an illegal military attack.
We, along with millions of people in the United States and around the world, reject this inhumane act against the people of Cuba. This is not a policy of national security; it is a deliberate act of economic warfare aimed at strangling an entire population.
By Carlos Aznárez, Resumen Latinoamericano
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann
Feb. 3, 2026
Mariela Castro, in addition to being the head of CENESEX (Cuba's National Center for Sex Education), is an active militant in all aspects of internationalist #solidarity. Completely committed to the defense of the #Palestinian Resistance and against #Zionism, she now adds among her priority concerns, first, joining her people in developing to the fullest extent the political and military defense of #Cuba against imperialist attack, and then, for the same reasons, total support for Bolivarian #venezuela.
Responding to Washington’s intensified blockade on #Cuba, President #DíazCanel says the island remains open to dialogue with the #US - but not under coercion. His statement comes amid escalating hostile rhetoric from the Trump administration and a new wave of economic pressure.
The US has used decades-long #sanctions, financial strangulation, diplomatic isolation, and now the targeting of fuel shipments, to pressure Cuba, deepening the economic crisis, affecting electricity, transportation and the daily lives of millions of Cubans. US Secretary of State #MarcoRubio recently admitted the strategy is aimed at forcing regime-change on the island.
In this context, a key question emerges: how can US policymakers claim to act in a country’s interest while also suffocating it?
#IsaacSaney is a Cuba specialist who coordinates the Black and African Diaspora Studies program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. With roots in the African Nova Scotia community and the #Caribbean, his teaching, research, and scholarship encompass Cuba, #Africa, the Caribbean, #BlackCanadian history, the global #BlackLiberation struggle, and reparations. A major area of his research is Cuba’s relationship with Africa.
In response to the latest escalation of Washington’s economic war on #Cuba, Saney issued a statement that first appeared on January 30 on his Facebook page. It was subsequently published by the Cuban #news service Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio).
#Cuba’s legendary #Jazz Plaza festival expands outside Havana this year, bringing musicians from the #US and around the world to the island. More than just #music, it’s about resilience and resistance.
from #TheGuardian
Ruaridh Nicoll in Havana
Sun 1 Feb 2026 08.00 EST
In a social media post on Friday, #Cuba’s president, #MiguelDíazCanel, accused #Trump of trying to stifle the island, writing: “Under a false and baseless pretext … President Trump intends to suffocate the Cuban economy by imposing tariffs on countries that sovereignly trade oil with Cuba.”
Help does not seem to be on the way. A shipment due to arrive from #Mexico has been cancelled – a “sovereign decision” according to that country’s president, #ClaudiaSheinbaum, despite clear pressure from Washington.
Donald #Trump made several allegations against #Cuba as he enacted an executive order blocking #oil shipments to the island on Thursday, but one took Cubans completely by surprise. His claim that Cuba acts as a safe haven for #Hamas and #Hezbollah has been dismissed as complete nonsense by Cubans, just one in a “long list of lies” says the #Cuban government.
There are, in fact, hundreds of #Palestinians in Cuba, but they’re here training to be #doctors, alongside #medical students from over 100 countries at the Latin American School of Medicine.
We asked them what they thought of Trump’s claims.
Donald #Trump’s latest executive order allows the #US to impose additional tariffs on countries that ship #oil to #Cuba, deepening the economic siege on the island.
The result isn’t abstract policy. It’s collective punishment: blackouts, long gas lines, delayed medical care and families struggling to get through the day.
We’re in #Havana asking Cubans about the new measures and about what life looks like when fuel, electricity and transportation begin to disappear.
Cuba has already been suffering increasing fuel shortages since the US blocked all oil going to the island from Venezuela. In recent weeks, power outages in Havana have increased.
from #TheGuardian
Thomas Graham in Tijuana and Ruaridh Nicoll in Havana
Fri 30 Jan 2026 13.08 EST
#Sheinbaum’s comments came after a week of increasing threats from Washington. US officials briefed that gunboats could be deployed off #Cuba, and said efforts were under way to find Cuban ministers prepared to collaborate with the US.
Speaking on Wednesday, Mike Hammer, the #US chargé d’affaires in Havana, said: “The Cubans have complained for years about a ‘blockade’, but now there is going to be a real blockade.”
The annual March of the Torches is a student tradition celebrated in Cuba on January 27, the eve of the birth of #JoséMartí, #Cuba’s national hero. Thousands gathered on the steps of the University of Havana, carrying handmade torches, calling for a rejection of #US#imperialism.
CONFRONTING THE CUBAN REGIME: Today, President Donald J. #Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a national emergency and establishing a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba, protecting U.S. national security and foreign policy from the Cuban regime’s malign actions and policies.
The Order imposes a new tariff system that allows the United States to impose additional tariffs on imports from any country that directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba.
After headlines suggested #Mexico had suspended oil shipments to #Cuba, President #ClaudiaSheinbaum stepped in once again to clarify what actually happened.
Sheinbaum explained that #oil from Mexico reaches Cuba through two paths: contracts managed by state-owned oil corporation #Pemex, and humanitarian aid decided directly by the Mexican government. Neither, she said, has been halted.
The confusion comes at a critical moment for Cuba, as #US sanctions tighten and fuel shortages deepen. Sheinbaum emphasized again that humanitarian aid is a sovereign decision and will continue.
Marco Rubio has acknowledged what U.S. policy toward Cuba has required for decades: the embargo will not be lifted without regime change.
Speaking during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on U.S. policy toward Venezuela, Rubio went further than past administrations, stating plainly that the United States would “love to see” a change of government in #Cuba and that such an outcome would benefit U.S. interests.
Pressed by Senator Brian Schatz, Rubio clarified that this is not just rhetorical preference. The U.S. embargo, he said, is codified in law under the Helms-Burton Act and explicitly conditions its removal on political change in Havana.
Mexico's President #ClaudiaSheinbaum says the decision on whether her country sends oil to Cuba remains a matter of national sovereignty. Her remarks come in response to international media reports claiming shipments had been suspended due to pressure from the US.
Mexico is one of the main suppliers of oil to Cuba following the #US attack on Venezuela on January 3, which ended with the abduction of President #NicolásMaduro and his wife. Following the attack, #Trump called for a full blockade on oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba.
#Mexico and #Venezuela, close allies of #Cuba, have helped supply #oil amid the island’s fuel shortages.
In the lead-up to the #US surgical attack on #Venezuela, Washington repeatedly harped on the theme that the mutual aid agreements between #Cuba and Venezuela were dangerous and nefarious.
Speaking of this relationship, #MiguelDíazCanel said, “Only those who are unaware of the value of friendship, solidarity, and cooperation forged between peoples can mistake the relationship between Cubans and Venezuelans as a mere business transaction or a vulgar exchange of products and services.”
[screen grab of a post on Facebook by Belly of the Beast]
On left is a photo of many bags of rice with flag of Cuba and China in front, with text headline of "China to Send Cuba New Aid Package"
On right is text:
This week, China announced a new assistance package for Cuba that includes $80 million for electrical equipment to improve the energy sector and 60,000 tonnes of rice. A ceremony at a grain transit warehouse took place on Monday to mark the first batch of rice delivered. China’s Ambassador to Cuba Hua Xin said at the ceremony: “We believe that through joint efforts, no blockade can extinguish the light of hope, and no difficulty can hinder our progress. China is willing to continue strengthening cooperation with Cuba, overcoming difficulties together, and injecting greater momentum into building a China-Cuba community with a shared future.”