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Alena Douhan, the United Nations special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, spent 10 days in Cuba meeting with stakeholders on the impact of sanctions. In a press conference at the end of her visit, she called on the U.S. to stop sanctioning the island.

Also:

From Cuba to Harvard to Health Minister: Dr. Luther Castillo's journey
Miami anti-communist insider convicted of acting as a foreign agent
Teresita's Dream screens across the U.S.
Reduced fuel shipments leave Cuba in the dark
Cuba allows foreign companies to pay employees directly
U.S. vs. Venezuela: Implications for Cuba
Florida hardliners spur Congress to condemn socialism
Belgium to shutter Havana embassy
New podcast episode: “Cuba Analysis”

UN Expert Urges U.S. to Lift Cuba Sanctions

After a week and a half of fieldwork, United Nations Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan described U.S. sanctions as “a breach of international law,” which undermine "the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, food, health and development." She added: "I call on the United States to lift and suspend all unilateral coercive measures applied to Cuba."

Douhan's full report on her findings will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2026.

Watch our video.

From Cuba to Harvard to Health Minister: Dr. Luther Castillo's Journey

Dr. Luther Castillo Harris is Honduras’ Secretary of State for Science and Technology. But like more than 30,000 other young people from Global South countries, he earned his medical degree on a full scholarship from Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). He went on to become the first Garífuna, an Afro-Indigenous community in the Caribbean, to graduate from Harvard University. "Cuba opened that path," Dr. Castillo said. "If I hadn’t had the Cuban degree, I wouldn’t have gotten into Harvard."

Watch Liz Oliva Fernández’s interview with Dr. Castillo about his personal journey and the impact of Cuba's health internationalism.

Miami Anti-Communist Insider Convicted of Acting as a Foreign Agent

Retired CIA agent Dale Bendler was sentenced to two years in federal prison last Thursday for selling classified information he combed from top secret U.S. government databases to Angola. But in addition to his conviction for failing to register as a foreign agent, Bendler has close ties to prominent Cuban-American hardliners and has pushed for regime change in Cuba. His role in the U.S. intelligence community's well-documented efforts to undermine the Cuban government has largely evaded scrutiny.

Read the full article by Lee Schlenker for Belly of the Beast.

Teresita’s Dream Screens Across the U.S.

Our latest documentary has been screened in Washington D.C., Boston, New York, Brattleboro and Glasgow in recent weeks, while receiving coverage from media outlets like Jacobin. The film, which tells the story of scientist Teresita Rodríguez’s quest to find a treatment for her mother’s Alzheimer’s, has moved and inspired audiences. Rodríguez helped develop a medication that is showing significant potential in slowing Alzheimer's symptoms and could transform how the disease is treated worldwide.

Stay tuned for more screenings and the film's release.

In Other News

Reduced fuel shipments leave Cuba in the dark. Petroleum deliveries to Cuba from allies Venezuela and Mexico have dropped this year compared to the same period in 2024, Reuters reports. Rolling blackouts have become the norm for Cubans in recent years. Since Trump’s first term, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned tankers transporting oil to Cuba. China is helping Cuba transition to renewable energies and is financing the construction of 55 solar parks on the island this year.

Cuba allows foreign companies to pay employees directly. Cuba’s Foreign Trade Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva announced Tuesday that foreign companies will soon be allowed to hire Cubans directly, pay employees in dollars and buy real estate. The Minister made the announcement during FIHAV, Cuba’s largest annual trade event, as a part of a national strategy to attract foreign investment.

U.S. vs. Venezuela: Implications for Cuba. The U.S.'s build up of military force in the Caribbean is the largest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. According to U.S. military documents reviewed by The Intercept, there are plans to keep troops in the region through 2028. In public, the Trump administration says the deployment is intended to stop “narco-terrorism.” But senior Trump officials told Reuters that the administration may soon launch a new phase of covert operations and try to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Washington’s threats against the Maduro government evoke memories of the numerous U.S.-backed coups in Latin America both this century and last. The Telegraph reports on how Trump and Rubio’s Venezuela campaign is just the latest chapter of the U.S.’s decades long attempts to orchestrate regime change not only in Caracas, but in Havana.

Florida hardliners spur Congress to condemn socialism. Hours before New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with Trump at the White House, the House passed a resolution, sponsored by hard-line Cuban-American Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), to condemn socialism as a “failed ideology and the antithesis of the American Dream.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is sponsoring the concurrent resolution in the Senate. Salazar and Scott have both advocated for “maximum pressure” sanctions on Cuba, which economists estimate cost the island billions of dollars every year. The resolution's loudest champions trumpet the “failure” of socialism abroad — but work overtime to prevent it from succeeding.

Belgium to shutter Havana embassy. Belgium’s Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot announced last week that his country will close its embassy in Havana. Cuba expressed "surprise and disappointment" about the decision, as the two nations have had continuous relations for over a century. Prévot attributed the decision to the way “diplomacy [is] becoming more transactional,” and how "tariff and trade wars are forcing us to rethink our network of partners in order to diversify our sphere of action and influence."

New podcast episode: “Cuba Analysis”. Listen to a fascinating interview with Irish rugby legend and retired world-leading transplant surgeon David Hickey, who praises the island’s public healthcare system and argues why the U.S. blockade is a war crime with genocidal intent in the latest episode of the "Cuba Analysis" podcast, hosted by Nina Blodau and Helen Yaffe.

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