Women and children have long been a priority of Cuba's universal public health system, which operates more than 130 free maternity homes for women with high-risk pregnancies across the island.
But blackouts caused by the U.S. oil blockade are leaving doctors, nurses and their patients in the dark.
Even as the Trump administration wages economic war on Cuba, people in the United States are stepping up to help sustain the island's beleaguered healthcare by bringing solar power to its maternity homes.
Also this week:
Despite U.S. Pressure, Most Nations Oppose Embargo
How Cubans Are Surviving Endless Blackouts
We Found the “Russian Spy Base” in Cuba
Second Sanctioned Mining Company Seeks U.S. Buyer
MEDICC Brings Solar Power to Cuban Maternity Homes
Since the early 1960s, Cuba’s universal healthcare system has prioritized the well-being of women and children. Today, 131 maternity homes across the island monitor high-risk pregnancies, offering meals, medical care and rest to expectant mothers — all for free.
But blackouts caused by the U.S. oil blockade have left staff struggling to keep patients safe in the dark, properly refrigerate food or respond quickly if a patient goes into labor overnight.
Cuba’s Health Ministry has provided some solar panels to the homes, but they are not enough to keep the lights on. So after the oil blockade was imposed in January, a U.S. non-profit organization launched a project called Light for Life to purchase and install solar panels for the maternal clinics.
“What we’re suggesting is not charity,” said Teddie Potter, executive director of Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC), which for three decades has been fostering collaboration in healthcare between the United States and Cuba. “We’re giving to people because they are humans. All humans should have the right to life.”
Cuban medical staff say the solar panels are coming at a critical moment, as blackouts get longer due to unrelenting U.S. economic warfare.
Check out our video about Cuba’s maternity homes and the Light for Life campaign HERE.
For more information on how to support the Light for Life campaign, visit www.medicc.org.
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Despite U.S. Pressure, Most Nations Oppose Embargo
On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly voted 136-9, with 30 abstentions, to hold a debate regarding the U.S. economic war against Cuba.
The result was not as lopsided as the annual vote to condemn the embargo at the UN General Assembly’s fall session, when the combined number of opposing votes and abstentions can typically be counted on one hand. The modest shift away from Cuba appears to be the result of U.S. pressure, with most of the movement coming from Europe (16 abstentions and 3 opposing votes) and Latin America (5 abstentions and 3 opposing votes). Notably, Canada, which had historically defied U.S. pressure over its relations with Cuba, abstained. Israel, as always, voted with the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had lobbied countries to prevent holding the debate at all, according to a leaked State Department cable obtained by The Nation. In addition, Rubio instructed U.S. diplomats to pressure host governments considered to be U.S. allies to criticize Cuba during the debate. Nonaligned countries were to be told to stay silent and countries that have traditionally supported ending the embargo were to be informed that “the United States will be listening very closely” to their statements on the issue.
In the end, only five countries — the United States, Czechia, Chile, Costa Rica and Paraguay — spoke critically of Cuba, while 43 countries condemned U.S. sanctions, in addition to statements on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, ASEAN and the Non-Aligned Movement.
In a remarkable denial of reality, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz insisted the U.S. embargo does not exist, and then proceeded to criticize Cuba for human rights abuses.
Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla pushed back, arguing that U.S. sanctions since 2017 have increased childhood cancer deaths while infant mortality rates have more than doubled. Rodríguez also warned that U.S. hostility toward Cuba is part of a broader pattern, calling it "a prelude to what could happen to any other country tomorrow."
Watch Cuba’s foreign minister call out Waltz for denying the existence of the U.S. blockade.
In response to Waltz’s critiques of Cuba’s human rights abuses, Rodríguez responded by showing photographs of people detained and killed by ICE agents.
The General Assembly has voted 33 consecutive times to condemn U.S. sanctions on Cuba, most recently with 165 countries in favor of ending them.
How Cubans Are Surviving Endless Blackouts
Cuba plunged into darkness again on Monday when its national electrical grid collapsed entirely, leaving roughly 10 million people without power. The nationwide blackout was the third since the Trump administration imposed a complete energy blockade on the island in late January.
Elderly Cubans are bearing the brunt of the electricity and fuel shortages.
In San Miguel de los Baños, a small town in Matanzas province, 90-year-old Marianela Vallín spends her nights sitting in the dark with a homemade kerosene lamp that barely gives off any light.
"We don't have electricity. We don't have the conditions for anything," Vallín said. "We have to cook with charcoal because of the blackouts. A lot of people even make sawdust stoves, but there's barely any sawdust either."
For Vallín's granddaughter, watching her grandmother adapt to a life without power has been hard to witness. "Seeing my grandmother cooking with charcoal like this breaks my heart," she said. "It's exhausting."
We Found the “Russian Spy Base” in Cuba
The Trump administration’s January 29 executive order justified the U.S. oil blockade, in part, by claiming that Russia operates its largest spy base outside Russia on Cuban soil. TheNew York Times's D.C. correspondent Michael Crowley verified the claim through anonymous sources in Washington, writing that a Cold War-era base known as Lourdes had reopened and was “bristling with antennas.”
Neither Crowley nor the Times went to the site. We did.
This is our first video in a series investigating the supposed Russian spy base in Cuba. Stay tuned for more in the coming days!
Second Sanctioned Mining Company Seeks U.S. Buyer
Another foreign mining company is trying to save its Cuban operation by selling off its stake to a U.S. buyer in an effort to appease the Trump administration.
Antilles Gold, an Australian company developing the Nueva Sabana gold and copper mine in central Cuba, has proposed selling a controlling stake in its Cuban joint venture to a U.S. investor. The company's chairman submitted the plan to the State Department after the Trump administration sanctioned Antilles' Cuban partner, state-owned GeoMinera, forcing the joint mining venture to suspend its Cuban operation.
Under the proposal, U.S. investors would take a majority stake in the joint venture's holding company, a structure Antilles hopes could unlock an OFAC license or lift the sanction altogether.
The company says it's "encouraged" by the administration's response so far.
Two months ago, Canada’s Sherritt International announced it would dissolve its 50/50 joint nickel mining venture with the Cuban government. Just days after the decision, Sherritt reversed course when a former Trump adviser signed a pre-agreement to acquire a majority stake in the company.
The cases suggest that the economic war on Cuba is serving to force the country’s mineral wealth to be handed over to U.S. investors, and in at least one case, to a Trump ally.
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