With more than 7,500 traffic accidents per year and a rise of over 18% in deaths during 2025, road safety in Cuba is deteriorating against a backdrop of frequent blackouts, poor visibility, and an increasingly precarious transportation system.
Persona protegida
On January 3, 2023, Sandra’s* son decided to embark for the United States, together with another 24 Cubans. Their point of departure was Hoyo Colorado, a small community in the Marti municipality of Matanzas. Their destiny was uncertain, but all of them shared the hopes of finding a better place to live.
The chaotic state in which unfortunate Cuba finds itself today is evident across the most varied areas. Among them, the forced underconsumption of food for the average Cuban stands out, as they cannot afford the inflated prices that skyrocketed following the ill-timed implementation of the so-called “Tarea Ordenamiento”.
Actually, it’s better not to die in Cuba either. In the worst moments of my illness, I read a news item from Holguin, asking the relatives of those deceased to bring in the gas cylinders to cremate them, because the crematorium didn’t have the fuel to do it.
One of the most evident results of the total collapse of Cuba has been the tremendous increase in street crime, and the sustained violence we find ourselves subject to at every step.
The real, the very painful thing, is that the substitute country, little by little —without an immediate solution in sight— is replacing the country that should be; which, logically, does not seem to lead to anything edifying.
Perhaps the moment is not so far away when the national coffee refuses to keep on brewing under the name of socialism and, definitively, explodes. Live to see.
José Martí, who was too honest and poetic to survive as a politician, was certain that he would die "without a country, but without a master". We, saving the distances, suffer the same sorrows.
The statements of the Minister of Agriculture reveal the agricultural crisis in Cuba and the lack of a government strategy to solve it.
On October 16, 2023, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel made his latest statements on the TV show Mesa Redonda, with the most meticulous mise-en-scene.
Between 2018 and 2022 the Cuban government appealed to “scheduled service interruptions” to cut domestic consumption by 10.6%. However, this saving wasn’t enough to compensate the electricity generation deficit, which was the result of fuel shortages and the deterioration of old power plants.
"What need is there in this country and at this time for our leaders and other public servants to want to be PhDs?"
The severe shortage of coffee in Cuba, high prices in the informal market and uncertainty about future harvests and imports have meant that this beverage, which used to be an accessible and standardized product in Cuba, has become a luxury item.
But as there’s nothing more healing than time, to set the stones back in their place, Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso will return to Cuba.
Miguel Diaz Canel makes more trips abroad than to the Cuban provinces