Last Thursday, Cuba received a deportation flight from the United States, and our team was at the airport in Havana to film its arrival and to talk to some of the 161 people deported.
Also in this edition of Cuba in Context:
- The Miami Herald lays the groundwork for more sanctions
- Pacemakers campaign saves lives in Cuba
- Cuba’s president visits East Asian allies
Inside a U.S. Deportation Flight to Cuba
For years, Cuba has quietly received deportation flights from the United States — even as Washington wages economic war on the island.
Last week, we obtained access — a first for a foreign media outlet — as one of these flights touched down at Havana’s José Martí International Airport. WATCH THE STORY.
Through a collaboration with CBS News, our footage was also broadcast in Miami.
It was the eighth deportation flight to Cuba this year and the 59th since 2017, when Cuba agreed to accept the flights.
Cuba has continued to honor its bilateral migration agreement despite the Trump administration’s increasingly belligerent policy toward the island.
More than a million Cubans have left in the past five years, the biggest emigration wave in the nation’s history. Most have gone to the United States.
Cubans have long had a relatively privileged immigration status in the U.S. But that is changing.
Trump has revoked the legal status and work permits of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, putting them at risk of deportation. Others have been deported while attending routine check-ins with immigration officials.
Back in May, we interviewed one of them — Heidy Sánchez, a mother who was separated from her daughter and deported by ICE to Cuba. WATCH HER STORY.
The Miami Herald Lays the Groundwork for Sanctions
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the greedy and wicked dragon Smaug steals an immense treasure and hoards it in his mountain lair. If a recent article in the Miami Herald is to be believed, the Cuban military is akin to Smaug, collecting billions of dollars in bank accounts “stuffed with cash” that it has pilfered from the long suffering Cuban people.
There’s one problem with this potentially bombshell discovery: Miami Herald journalist Nora Gámez Torres provides no credible evidence to back up her claims.
But this dodgy journalism hasn’t stopped Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Cuban-American hardliners from repeatedly citing the Herald's reporting to justify imposing ever harsher sanctions on Cuba.
In a collaboration with Fair & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Belly of the Beast journalist Reed Lindsay and Blake Burdge, the founder of Cuba Monitor, take a hard look at the Herald’s fuzzy math and the mutually beneficial relationship between Gámez Torres and pro-embargo politicians...
Read the FULL ARTICLE.
Pacemakers Campaign Saves Lives in Cuba
Global Health Partners and mediCuba Europa have raised over $500,000 to donate nearly 600 pacemakers to Cuba.
Amid an unprecedented economic crisis fueled by U.S. sanctions, Cuba’s universal and free healthcare system is struggling to provide patients with life-saving pacemakers. Doctors at Havana's Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery say U.S. sanctions make it difficult for Cuba to import pacemakers directly from manufacturers.
We visited Cuba’s Cardiology Institute, where we talked with patients, their relatives and doctors about what the donated pacemakers mean to them. WATCH THE VIDEO.
The pacemaker campaign runs until the end of the year.
Even with a small contribution, you can DONATE to help save lives in Cuba.
In Other News
Cuba’s president visits Asian allies. Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel began an Asian tour last week. His first stop was Vietnam, where he inaugurated a production plant for a Cuba-Vietnam biotech company. Cuba and Vietnam have long been political allies, and this year are celebrating 65 years of diplomatic relations. Economic partnerships between the two countries have grown in recent years. And last month, the Vietnamese Red Cross launched a campaign to raise money to support crisis-stricken Cuba. The campaign has so far raised over $14 million from hundreds of thousands of individual donations. Díaz-Canel will next visit China and Laos.
Follow us on WhatsApp and Telegram!
📡 For real-time updates: [WhatsApp] | [Telegram]
¿Hablas Español? We have a Newsletter in Spanish!
If you or someone you know prefers to read in Spanish, now you can receive our reporting, documentaries and exclusive insights directly in your inbox.
Suscríbete a Belly of the Beast en Español aquí.
Help us grow our Spanish-speaking community by forwarding this to friends, family and colleagues!
📢 We’re Now on Bluesky!
Follow us on on Bluesky for updates, behind-the-scenes content and powerful stories from Cuba that you won’t find anywhere else. 👉 Follow us now!
Support Independent Journalism
Since launching in 2020, Belly of the Beast has become the go-to source for news and documentaries about Cuba.
We receive no money from any government or corporation and rely on the support of individuals to keep telling Cuba’s untold stories.
Here's how you can help:
Donate: Fuel our work and help us continue to provide independent, hard-hitting journalism.
Share: Know someone who would love our documentaries, video reports or articles? Forward this email or invite them to subscribe.
Suscríbete a Belly of the Beast en Español
|
