Latin American Publications!

121 readers
40 users here now

A community for Latin American publications.

NOTE: All the publications in this feed are Latin American in origin; that does not mean they only report on Latin American news.

founded 5 months ago
MODERATORS
51
 
 

The sailboats Friendship and Tiger Moth entered the port of Havana on Saturday, March 28, the last two members of the international solidarity convoy to Cuba, Nuestra América, to do so. Their arrival came after days of uncertainty and a coordinated search by specialized agencies from Mexico and Cuba, as unfavorable weather conditions and adverse winds caused significant delays and a total loss of communication.

The two vessels, which departed from Mexico’s Isla Mujeres on March 20, entered Havana Bay through its entrance channel at 4:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, assisted by harbor pilots. On board each boat were 10 activists representing various nationalities, in addition to their crews. The mission is carrying vital humanitarian aid, including medical donations for the Cuban healthcare system.

Personal de la Secretaría de Marina-Armada de México localizó y atendió a los nueve tripulantes de los veleros Friendship y Tiger Moth, reportados como no localizados desde el 23 de marzo tras zarpar de Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, con destino a Cuba para entregar ayuda… pic.twitter.com/3HJHgWAjCn

— La Jornada (@lajornadaonline) March 28, 2026

The arrival concludes seven days of sailing. The two sailboats had been reported missing on March 23, triggering an intense search operation by the Mexican and Cuban navies, with constant oversight from Presidents Claudia Sheinbaum and Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Analysts and solidarity activists raised concerns over the loss of communication with the vessels, given that the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the region since September 2025. These operations have resulted in the deaths of at least 158 people without any form of legal accountability. The most recent of these extrajudicial killings was reported on March 25.

Since the two small boats have no motors and are powered solely by wind, calculating an exact arrival date in the Cuban capital proved difficult. Hoowever, a source from the Nuestra América convoy organizers noted during search operations that the craft were being handled by experienced sailors.

On Saturday morning, the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) reported that a Persuader aircraft had located Friendship and Tiger Moth 80 nautical miles (148 km) northwest of Havana. Following the contact, a SEMAR ship provided support to the boats, and personnel performed medical checks on all occupants, confirming that they were in good health.

Activists from Nuestra América Convoy to Cuba Detained in US & Panama

US extrajudicial killings on high seas
With the 46th lethal “kinetic strike” by SOUTHCOM on March 25, which claimed four lives, the cumulative death toll of the US Operation Southern Spear has reached at least 158 victims.

This latest maritime bombing reaffirms a pattern of extreme lethality: out of 46 recorded strikes on small boats, only three survivors have been officially recovered since the inception of the campaign in early September 2025.

While US SOUTHCOM frames these actions as “applying total systemic friction,” legal analysts and activists continue to condemn the lack of transparency, the absence of due process, and the potential targeting of civilian fishing vessels.

These extrajudicial killings are being considered as a naval extension of the same US military aggression that resulted in the January 3 bombing of Caracas and other Venezuelan states and the subsequent kidnapping of the Venezuelan presidential couple.

(Telesur) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SC


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

52
 
 

Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)— Venezuela has recovered its diplomatic headquarters in the United States, as reported on Saturday March 28. The Venezuelan flag is now flying over the ambassador’s residence, which—along with other diplomatic facilities—”will be rehabilitated to serve all Venezuelans.”

Following the failed 2019 US-led regime-change operation with Juan Guaidó as the face, the embassy and eight consulates of Venezuela in the US were illegally removed from the control of Venezuelan authorities and transferred to US-authorized far-right operators.

At that time, for weeks, the Venezuelan Embassy Defenders collective, a group of US solidarity activists, fought to block the US arbitrariness, an effort that resulted in a small group of them being charged by the US judiciary.

Junto al Jefe de Misión @plasenciafelixr, recuperamos las sedes diplomáticas de Venezuela 🇻🇪 en EE.UU., que por instrucciones de la Pdta. (E) @delcyrodriguezv serán rehabilitadas para ponerlas al servicio de todos los venezolanos.

Un paso firme en el fortalecimiento de nuestras… pic.twitter.com/QEwWYDcoGM

— Oliver Blanco (@OliverBlanco) March 28, 2026

Diplomatic facilities in the US
Venezuela possesses three key diplomatic facilities in Washington, DC: the embassy, the ambassador’s residence, and the headquarters of the military attachés. Additionally, there were eight consulates in Miami, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, San Juan (Puerto Rico), and the consular section of the embassy in Washington, DC. It has not yet been announced when or how many of them will be reopened.

The newly appointed Venezuelan deputy foreign minister for North America and Europe, Oliver Blanco—who is associated with the opposition—announced on social media the return of the Venezuelan flag to the diplomatic facility by posting photos of the event.

A new group of Venezuelan diplomats arrived in Washington, as announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday. In a video, Blanco appeared alongside the newly appointed Venezuelan chargé d’affaires in Washington, Félix Plasencia, to discuss the resumption of diplomatic relations with the US.

Objectives of the diplomatic rapprochement
One of Venezuela’s primary goals for resuming diplomatic relations, as emphasized by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, is to establish a consular presence in the US to facilitate assistance for President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores, who were kidnapped by the US regime on January 3, following an extensive bombing of Venezuela that killed more than 100 people.

“We are working to foster relationships based on respect and cooperation for the prosperity of our countries,” Blanco stated in the video. He also reported on a work agenda with US Under Secretary of State Christopher Landau, Senior Bureau Official for Western Hemisphere Affairs Michael Kozak, and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Caleb Orr to finalize the diplomatic rapprochement.

Félix Plasencia emphasized that the acting president sent Blanco to lead the delegation in reestablishing a diplomatic presence in the United States. “Here we are, a group of officials, to address the issues that concern all Venezuelans,” he said.

Venezuelan Diplomats Set to Arrive In Washington This Week; New Head of Return to the Homeland Program

Since the violent US imperialist attack on January 3, Venezuela—which remains under Chavista control—has been forced into what many analysts label a strategic retreat. The government is taking decisions that were previously unthinkable in an effort to avoid further US military attacks and total foreign control, while trying to gain time to reorganize politically and militarily.

The resumption of diplomatic and consular relations also represents a significant step for thousands of Venezuelans currently residing in the United States who are in urgent need of passport renewals, travel documents, and civil registry procedures. Like President Maduro, these citizens could also benefit from consular assistance, particularly given the current unprecedented persecution against Venezuelan migrants promoted by the US regime.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

OT/JRE/SC


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

53
 
 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has slammed Canada after it imposed new sanctions against the Islamic Republic amid the US-Israeli aggression, warning that their “bullying” will ultimately affect Ottawa.


From Presstv via This RSS Feed.

54
 
 

With a mobilization and a forum on political thought, the people of the Tuy Valleys, Miranda state, Venezuela, commemorated the 32nd anniversary of Commander Hugo Chávez’s release from the Yare I judicial internment center, popularly known as the Prison of Dignity, in the Puente Carrera sector of San Francisco de Yare in the Simón Bolívar municipality. The event was held on Friday, March 27, defined by the leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) as a day of “loyalty and historical memory.”

The PSUV vice president of mobilization, Nahum Fernández, led the event, alongside the governor of Miranda, Elio Serrano Carpio, and National Assembly Deputies Rodolfo Sanz and Miguel Benavides.

Fernández, who is also the chief of government of Caracas, emphasized that March 27, 1994, marked the beginning of a political project that has settled the “historical debt” with the country’s most vulnerable sectors. “We remember this milestone because it connects us with the social protection model that we have defended for more than two decades,” he stated.

During his speech, Fernández condemned the aggressions that the nation has suffered in recent years, such as the attack on the currency, the induced shortages, and the promotion of US unilateral coercive measures by the far right. “They tried to undermine the will of the people, but the lesson of resistance has been impressive,” he noted.

Fernández reaffirmed the popular bases’ commitment to President Nicolás Maduro’s leadership, describing the union between the people and the government as a “historic marriage” that guarantees the continuity of the Bolivarian Revolution in the face of internal and external attacks.

He urged PSUV members to maintain unity, underscoring that the figure of Chávez transcends as a political guide to overcome current economic and geopolitical challenges.

The governor of Miranda, Elio Serrano, stated that Chávez’s release in 1994 marked the beginning of a process of social transformation that continues to this day. “This date not only represented the physical freedom of a man but also the emergence of hope for an entire nation,” he said.

He added that Commander Hugo Chávez’s legacy is manifested today in a people who are aware of their history. “We see a clear result: a citizenry that defends its right to happiness, sovereignty, and independence,” he emphasized.

The governor described Chávez’s release from the Yare prison as a “fundamental milestone” in Venezuela’s contemporary history, asserting that this event should remain in the collective memory as the driving force behind the social transformations that the country is experiencing. He also reaffirmed the commitment of the state administration and the people of Miranda to the strengthening of the Bolivarian model.

‘His Heart Beat as One With the People’: Venezuelans Commemorate 13 Years Without Chávez

In his speech, National Assembly Deputy Rodolfo Sanz condemned the January 3 US military invasion and the judicial processes against President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, a case that lacks a legal basis and responds to political interests. He also praised Acting President Delcy Rodríguez for defending national stability.

Sanz asserted that Chávez marked the beginning of a political project that refounded the Republic under the ideals of Simón Bolívar. He highlighted that, unlike other historical global processes, the Bolivarian Revolution was able to produce a constitution peacefully, a constitution that became the fundamental pillar of the State. “Chávez built a new Republic that embodies Bolivarian thought,” he stated.

Likewise, Sanz expressed his firm support for President Nicolás Maduro and Deputy Cilia Flores, condemning the international siege and the “lethal military operations” carried out by the US against Venezuela.

He urged the people of Miranda to remain “steadfast in defending the revolutionary leadership,” emphasizing the strategic role of preserving the nation’s political stability and social well-being amid economic sanctions and blockades.

For his part, Mayor of Simón Bolívar municipality Saúl Yánez described the penitentiary as a “place of moral reference” where the foundations of the current republic were laid.

(Últimas Noticias) by Airamy Carreño Espejo

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

55
 
 

By Nick Turse  –  Mar 23, 2026

With “Operation Total Extermination” and Trump’s threats against Cuba, expect more U.S. military strikes in the region.

As the Trump administration continues to bombard Iran, a top Pentagon official revealed that U.S. wars in the Western Hemisphere are also expanding, unveiling an effort dubbed “Operation Total Extermination.”

Attacks on Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, told members of the House Armed Services Committee last week.

Humire indicated that many more strikes in Latin America are on the horizon. The comments came a day after President Donald Trump again teased American annexation of Cuba. “I do believe I’ll be the honor of — having the honor of taking Cuba,” Trump said last week. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”

Humire announced that the Department of War supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept. “The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.

The U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign has already strayed into Colombia after a farm was bombed or hit by “ricochet effect” on March 3, leaving an unexploded 500-pound bomb lying in Colombia’s border region. In response to a request for comment, U.S. Southern Command referred The Intercept to a statement on X by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense confirming the bomb landed in Colombia.

Humire referred to the attacks as “joint land strikes” and said that America was providing Ecuador with “capabilities that they otherwise would not have.” The U.S. has since conducted at least one more strike with Ecuador. “Yes — as @POTUS has said — we are bombing Narco Terrorists on land as well,” self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on March 6, announcing the new strike. Days later, in a war powers report announcing the introduction of U.S. armed forces into “hostilities” in that country, the White House informed Congress of “military action taken on March 6, 2026, against the facilities of narco-terrorists affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.”

The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 46 attacks since September 2025, destroying 48 vessels and killing almost 160 civilians. The latest strike, on March 19 in the Pacific, killed two more people and left one survivor. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.

“Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

“This Administration is barely paying lip service to the constitutional or international law governing the use of force. But we have these rules for a reason,” said Rebecca Ingber, a former State Department lawyer and now a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York. “Rushing to war on one man’s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.”

Gen. Francis Donovan, the SOUTHCOM commander, told lawmakers last week that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even larger campaign. “What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

Humire could not say how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”

The Office of the Secretary of War did not respond to a request to clarify how great that increase might be.

Humire said the U.S.–Ecuadorian campaign was “setting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.” The word “deterrence” has become a popular Pentagon euphemism for the use of lethal strikes, in contrast to previous efforts to U.S. government efforts to marshal economic, diplomatic, and military means to convince adversaries to abandon a specific course of action. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements,” Humire claimed.

Joseph Humire, Performing the Duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs, Office of the Secretary of Defense, speaking at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2026.  Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images

In January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. It now rules the country through a puppet regime. Federal prosecutors have reportedly drafted a criminal indictment against Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, threatening her with corruption and money laundering charges if she does not continue to do the bidding of the Trump administration. Trump also recently teased the possibility of making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state.

The Trump administration is reportedly undertaking a regime-change operation in Cuba, attempting to push out President Miguel Díaz-Canel as a requirement for negotiations between the U.S. and that island nation. U.S. officials are said to favor Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of 94-year-old Raúl Castro, the former Cuban president and brother to Fidel, the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008. Díaz-Canel referenced U.S. plans to “seize the country” on X late Tuesday and said the U.S. would be met with “impregnable resistance.”

“I am holding Cuba,” Trump said recently, noting his costly regime-change war in the Middle East takes precedence at the moment. “We’re going to do Iran before Cuba.” Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in January, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. The island’s national electrical grid has already collapsed three times this month, with one blackout lasting more than 29 hours. U.N. human rights experts have condemned Trump’s fuel blockade on Cuba as “a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.”

Trump, who has repeatedly spoken of “taking” Cuba, is the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. During the Cold War, the CIA launched the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The agency also tried to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times. The U.S. also conducted a covertcampaign of bombing Cuban sugar mills and burning cane fields, among other acts of sabotage.

In the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Pentagon prepared top-secret plans to pave the way for an attack on the island. In the spring of 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a top-secret memorandum titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba.” It described numerous false-flag operations that could be employed to justify a U.S. invasion, including a plot to “sink a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)” and even staging a modern “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and blaming the incident on Cuba. Other U.S. plans for covert action on the island specifically prioritized attacking Cuba’s electrical grid.

Asked if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved in analogous actions today, spokesperson Maj. Annabel Monroe referred The Intercept to Southern Command, who then referred The Intercept to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Díaz-Canel: US Anger is Result of Failure to Control Cuba

Humire said that the War Department was “currently focused on partner-led deterrence operations,” but would not rule out unilateral U.S. strikes across Latin America. He said that, in addition to Ecuador, the U.S. had forged agreements with 17 partner-nations in the Western Hemisphere, as part of the so-called Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. This international body, formally announced by Trump at his Shield of the Americas summit earlier this month, will focus on “bi-lateral and multi-lateral operations against cartels and terrorist organizations.”

Humire was asked if any of the 18 nations were concerned about issues of sovereignty regarding the U.S. potentially conducting attacks in their countries. “Members of the coalition specifically signed a joint security declaration mentioning that they want this support and most of them all are looking for this,” he replied. But the barebones statement they signed is astonishingly vague and offers little of substance on the subject.

Humire indicated that the U.S. had leveraged gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela to strong-arm Cuba and assist in “gaining compliance from Nicaragua,” as well as “shifting the Caribbean in a favorable direction toward U.S. interests.”

Recent official leaks about the potential U.S. indictment of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia on drug charges — the official reason for Maduro’s kidnapping, and the means reportedly used to keep his successor, Rodriguez, in line — suggest the U.S. may employ that tactic as leverage or an eventual pretext for military action. (Petro has denied ties to drug traffickers.)

“It sounds as if Petro is potentially on the chopping block,” a former defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his current employment, told The Intercept. The source said leaks about the potential indictment of Petro, coupled with the U.S.–Ecuadorian attack, which has stirred up tensions along the South American nations’ border, increasingly look like a coordinated campaign to foment “discord” if not conflict. Asked in January about attacking Colombia, Trump responded: “It sounds good to me.”

The U.S. attacks on the Colombia–Ecuador border come as America has recently established a “permanent FBI presence in Ecuador,” joining agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Just before the U.S. began attacks on the Ecuador–Colombia border, Donovan traveled to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, to meet with President Daniel Noboa and senior Ecuadorian defense officials.

Last August, Lt. Col. Phillip Vaughn — the commander of an Expeditionary Task Group overseeing Air Force Special Operations in the Caribbean and South America — coordinated meetings to increase “interoperability between U.S. and Ecuadorian forces” to “counter illicit actors operating along Ecuador’s northern border” with Colombia including “operational planning scenarios, execution of close air support procedures,” and “multiple topics on Joint Terminal Attack Controller support,” which relates to targeting and airstrikes.

America’s Western hemisphere blitz is part of what Trump and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine”: a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. While President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Trump has wielded his variant as a license for America to do exactly that.

The National Security Strategy, released late last year, decrees the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere.” Humire defined “America’s immediate security perimeter” as “Alaska to Greenland in the Arctic to the Gulf of America and the Panama Canal and surrounding countries.” Trump has also threatened to annex Greenland (and possibly Iceland), turn Canada into a U.S. state, and conduct military strikes in Mexico. Humire also detailed efforts to strong-arm Panama to cut ties with China to ensure access to the Panamanian-owned canal that he nonetheless called a U.S. “national asset.”

In addition to his wars in the Western hemisphere, Trump has also launched attacks on IranIraqNigeriaSomaliaSyria, and Yemen during his second term — most of them sites of U.S. conflicts during the war on terror.

Smith, the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, told Humire that Trump’s wars in the Americas also appeared to be morphing into a new “forever conflict” with no clear goal or “end point.” Asked what “level of achievement” would be necessary to “stop kinetic action,” Humire responded with a wall of words about border security, terrorism, and cartels. When Smith interrupted to clarify if the boat strikes would continue unabated, Humire confusingly replied: “No, correct.”

(The Intercept)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

56
 
 

Nearly 510 detainees have died in Salvadoran prisons between April 2022 and March 2026.

On Friday, the state of emergency in El Salvador, implemented by President Nayib Bukele, marked four years since its approval, amid popular demands and accusations of human rights violations.

The Legislative Assembly, dominated by the Nuevas Ideas (NI) party, approved the measure in 2022 after a weekend with more than 80 homicides, the result of the breakdown of a pact between the government and gangs.

Bukele and his Security Cabinet maintain that the regime has “allowed them to combat gangs,” liberate territories, and reduce homicides, although official records show a sustained decline since 2016.

Over 480 Deaths Reported in El Salvador’s Prisons Under State of Exception

Lawyer Ingrid Escobar, of Humanitarian Legal Aid (SJH), denounced human rights violations and reported the deaths of 504 detainees in prisons between April 2022 and March 2026.

Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations have documented 6,889 complaints from victims, with arbitrary detention in 98% of cases, and indicate that 75% of the abuses are perpetrated by police officers.

The text reads:

“The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador approved life imprisonment for minors under 18 years of age accused of homicide, rape, or terrorism. The reform, promoted by Bukele in his “war” against gangs, eliminates juvenile benefits and mandates periodic reviews.”

Samuel Ramirez, representative of the Movement of Victims of the Regime, stated that after four years, there is “neither justice nor the release of innocent people,” accusing the government of silence, attacks, and the elimination of fundamental rights.

Congress approved the 49th extension of the regime’s mandate, despite denunciations from international jurists who warn of possible crimes against humanity, under the justification of the persistence of terrorist groups.

During the state of emergency, supported by allegedly 85% of the population, more than 91,650 people have been arrested on charges of gang membership or having ties to these criminal organizations.

The government defends the measure as part of its “war on gangs,” while questions persist about deaths in prisons, arbitrary arrests, and the erosion of human rights and constitutional guarantees.

(Telesur) by JP


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

57
 
 

By Silvana Solano  –  Mar 27, 2026

Cuban doctors have transformed public health systems from Algeria to Brazil.

The internationalism of Cuban medicine has become a cornerstone of global health debates, particularly in the Global South.

For more than six decades, the island has sent hundreds of thousands of health professionals to nearly every region of the world.

This in-depth article explores the historical origins, expansion, and current geopolitical challenges of these medical missions in 2026.

Health as a Human Right, Not a Commodity
The Cuban medical model is predicated on a fundamental belief that healthcare is a human right rather than a commodity. This notion is the guiding principle behind the efforts of the Cuban Medical Brigades, formally designated the International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics.

In the contemporary era of heightened ideological polarization, these groups have evolved into a component of a more extensive ideological struggle. International organizations frequently laud their reach and effectiveness in underserved communities.

Nevertheless, renewed regional tensions, most notably the resurgence of a contemporary ‘Monroe Doctrine’ approach, have placed their missions under political and media scrutiny.

The establishment of one of the world’s largest medical cooperation networks by a small Caribbean nation provides a valuable case study in the challenges to the commercialization of healthcare.

From the Sierra Maestra to Algeria: Origins (1960–1963)
Cuba’s medical internationalism emerged from the social and moral transformations that followed the 1959 Revolution. The concept of the “revolutionary doctor,” rooted in Che Guevara’s vision, defined medicine as a vocation of service, not wealth.

After 1959, Cuba faced a severe “brain drain.” Nearly half of its 6,000 doctors emigrated to the United States. Instead of retreating, the new government accelerated training programs for young professionals, prioritizing rural medicine and solidarity abroad.

In 1963, Cuba launched its first long-term medical mission in newly independent Algeria, a nation left without a functioning health system after French colonization.

A group of 54 Cuban healthcare workers, 28 doctors, 25 nurses, and one technician, volunteered to serve. This was not a transaction but an act of what Havana called “true internationalism.” The message was clear: Cuba would share what it had, not merely what was left over.

It was during this period that Fidel Castro coined the term “Army of White Coats.” The goal was to build a mobile, professional force capable of responding to humanitarian crises without the constraints of military or corporate aid.

By the late 1970s, Cuban doctors were already active in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, laying the foundation for the massive cooperative health programs of the 21st century.

Flagship Programs That Challenged the Global Health Market
In the 21st century, Cuban medical cooperation evolved from emergency relief to comprehensive, long-term health initiatives.

These programs aimed to provide specialized care to populations excluded from mainstream medical markets.

Operation Miracle (Operación Milagro)
Launched in 2004 in partnership with Venezuela, Operation Miracle became one of the largest ophthalmology programs in the world. It has restored eyesight to more than 4 million people in 35 countries by offering free surgeries for cataracts, pterygium, and other curable causes of blindness. Equal parts humanitarian and political, the program disrupted the business model of private eye clinics across Latin America by proving that sight could be restored without profit motives.

Cuba and Venezuela Strengthen Support for Mexico in Response to Floods

The Henry Reeve Contingent
Created in 2005 and named after an American who fought for Cuban independence, the Henry Reeve Contingent specializes in disaster and epidemic response. It gained international recognition during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and later during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Cuban teams were dispatched even to Europe, including Italy and Andorra. Over 50 brigades served in nearly 40 countries, showcasing a health model that operates outside the private insurance system.

ELAM: The Latin American School of Medicine
Located in Havana, ELAM has become the educational core of Cuba’s health diplomacy. With more than 30,000 graduates from over 100 countries, the school trains young people from poor communities on the condition that they return to serve in underserved areas. This approach transforms the problem of “brain drain” into “brain gain” for the Global South.

The Geography of Hope: Medicine for the MarginsCuba’s “Geography of Solidarity” is defined by its doctors’ presence in regions where local and private physicians often refuse to work. Their missions adapt to the social, political, and environmental conditions of each country.

In Guatemala, Haiti, and other impoverished nations, Cuban doctors have maintained a continuous presence since the late 1990s. After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Cuba launched the Comprehensive Health Program (PIS), which evolved from disaster response into permanent public health coverage in remote mountain and forest regions.

In Haiti, teams have remained through political upheavals, the 2010 earthquake, and the cholera epidemic that followed.

In South America, Cuban health diplomacy moved into urban communities historically excluded from public services.

In Venezuela, Barrio Adentro created thousands of small clinics in hillside neighborhoods and rural villages, bringing doctors directly to marginalized populations.

In Brazil, Mais Médicos (2013–2018) placed over 11,000 Cuban physicians across 3,600 municipalities — many of which had never had a resident doctor before.

In wealthier countries such as Algeria, South Africa, and Qatar, Cuba’s cooperation takes a more technical form.

These nations pay for Cuban medical services, allowing Havana to finance both its domestic healthcare system and free programs in poorer regions. This “solidarity economy” sustains Cuba’s medical diplomacy even amid economic sanctions.

**The Right-Wing Offensive: Political Shifts and Expulsions (2018–2026)**Over the past decade, Cuban medical cooperation has faced a wave of political backlash. The rise of conservative governments across Latin America, aligned with Washington’s “Monroe Doctrine 2.0,” has reversed years of expansion.

These governments have followed a familiar pattern when removing Cuban brigades. They accuse Havana of “modern slavery,” focusing on the Cuban state’s retention of part of doctors’ salaries, a mechanism used to fund Cuba’s universal healthcare.

Others allege espionage or political interference, though without public evidence. This campaign has intensified since 2024. In early 2026, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa expelled all remaining Cuban medical and diplomatic personnel.

Around the same time, Honduras ended its contracts following the close of Xiomara Castro’s term and the election of Nasry Asfura.

These decisions reflect an ideological rather than practical realignment, and their impact has been felt most by vulnerable populations.

In Brazil, the 2018 withdrawal of Cuban doctors left more than 700 municipalities without any resident physicians.

Reports from 2025 show that regions like the Amazon and rural Honduras have seen rising infant mortality and untreated chronic illnesses, as private health providers failed to replace the capacity Cuba once supplied.

The Lasting Legacy of the White CoatsThe story of Cuba’s medical brigades remains one of the most influential experiments in South-South cooperation. Against a backdrop of sanctions and diplomatic isolation, Havana’s “Army of White Coats” continues to challenge the logic of healthcare as a marketplace.

By deploying doctors to places others would not go, from mountain villages to conflict zones, Cuba demonstrated that medical care can be universal when political will supports it.

Through ELAM, it built a generation of doctors who serve, rather than profit from, their communities. Even when right-wing governments expel the brigades, the demand for their services persists among ordinary people who witnessed their impact.

As 2026 unfolds, Cuba’s health diplomacy stands at a crossroads. While geopolitical pressure seeks to dismantle it, the results, millions of lives saved and countless patients treated at no cost, continue to speak for themselves.

In an age of privatized healthcare, the Cuban model remains a powerful reminder that medicine can be guided by solidarity, not markets.

(Telesur)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

58
 
 

This article by Jessica Xantomila and Jared Laureles originally appeared in the March 28, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. Movements and platforms of families of missing persons, which bring together more than 200 groups, reiterated their call to hold a meeting with President Claudia Sheinbaum, after expressing their concern about an update to the figures of the National Registry “that prioritizes administrative management over the reality of families on the ground.”

According to information presented yesterday by the federal government, of the 132,534 cases reported in the country, 46,742 have insufficient data for the search and 43,128 appear without a record of activity or administrative procedure after their disappearance.

In response, in a statement released today, the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico (MNDM), the Contingent against the Disappearances of LGBTTTIQ+ people, the National Search Union and Network, and the RIAPD demanded broad access to information.

“Transparency and full access to information for families must be guaranteed, particularly regarding the methodology and monitoring of the RNPDNO and the National Database of Investigation Files, as well as all processes related to the search, investigation and identification,” they stated.

Furthermore, a comprehensive search must be conducted. “The State must guarantee that every person is searched for with due diligence, regardless of their administrative or criminal status.”

They lamented that despite the rhetoric of closeness with the authorities, “we observe with concern that they continue to make decisions without broad and participatory consultation with families and platforms, even though last year we promoted a dialogue with the Ministry of the Interior to establish a broad agenda for the search, investigation, identification and restitution of our loved ones.”

In this regard, they also noted that they have been requesting a meeting with President Sheinbaum since October 2024. “We are still waiting for a response,” they emphasized.

The platforms and family movements insisted that it is worrying that the methodology used to review the national registry has not been detailed.

“Using purely bureaucratic criteria to assess the crisis risks minimizing the true extent of the crime. A database based primarily on criminal complaints ignores the reality of prosecutors’ offices in Mexico, as well as the underreporting resulting from distrust of institutions and the lack of safe conditions for reporting. The number of case files (3,869) does not equate to the number of missing persons, and therefore should not be used to minimize the magnitude of disappearances in Mexico,” they stated.

Regarding the 46,742 records marked as “without information”, they pointed out that it is the responsibility of the authorities to ensure that each report has complete and necessary information for the search.

“Classifying these cases under this category is a failure of the State to fulfill its responsibility to monitor cases with the participation of families. The lack of data in a registry is a reflection of institutional inaction, not a justification for ceasing the search,” they pointed out.

In the document, they also emphasized that shortcomings persist in the implementation of the General Law since 2017, “which are now compounded by the outstanding issues arising from the recent reform. State policy on disappearances cannot be built on opacity.”

The post Families of Missing Persons Request Meeting with President Sheinbaum After Release of Disappearances Data appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

59
 
 

The constitutional president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and First Lady and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores sent a message addressed to the people of Venezuela and the world, thanking them for their expressions of solidarity, support, and love. “We are well, strong, serene, and in constant prayer,” the presidential couple stated in the message published on President Maduro’s social media on Saturday, March 28. They also urged the Venezuelan people to keep strengthening peace, national unity, coexistence, and dialogue.

The message comes 48 hours after the Venezuelan presidential couple appeared in the second hearing of the illegal trial conducted against them by the United States, the country where they have been kept imprisoned since January 3, the day they were kidnapped by US troops who bombed areas of Caracas, Miranda, La Guaira, and Aragua, a criminal military invasion in which the US soldiers killed 120 people.

“We have received your communications, messages, emails, letters, and your prayers,” expressed the presidential couple in a text published on President Maduro’s Instagram account. “Every word of love, every gesture of affection, every expression of support fills our souls and strengthens us spiritually. We are well, strong, serene, and in constant prayer.”

They expressed their admiration for the Venezuelan people’s ability to stay united in difficult times, as well as their ability “to express love, awareness, and solidarity, within Venezuela and beyond our borders. The love that you send us becomes moral strength, inner fortitude, and a commitment to the highest values of life.”

“Today more than ever we call upon you to continue strengthening the peace of the country, national unity, reconciliation, forgiveness, and union among everyone,” they added in their words addressed to the Venezuelan people. “May no one stray from the path of dialogue, coexistence, and respect, for that is the path of the Homeland, that is the path of goodness.”

President Maduro, who has always shown his faith and belief in God, quoted a passage from the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”

In this context, he added, “May you ask with faith, seek with hope, call with love, for the ways of God open for the peoples who persevere in truth, in peace, and in light.”

“Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your messages, for your letters, for your prayers, and for your immense love. Our gratitude, our prayer, and our spiritual embrace are with you, today, tomorrow, and always,” concluded the message.

Protests in Venezuela and US Demand Freedom for Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores

The second hearing of President Maduro and Cilia Flores took place on Thursday, March 26, at the Federal Court for the Southern District of Manhattan. It started 40 minutes late and ended without a date for the next session.

The judge maintained the illegal imprisonment of Maduro and Flores and did not order lifting the blockade on the defense that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed by withholding the funds to pay the President Maduro’s lawyer. During the session, Judge Alvin Hellerstein said that he could reconsider his position if he determined that the US government acted in bad faith by withholding those funds.

At the hearing, Flores’s attorney, Mark Donnelly, stated that she suffers from a heart condition called mitral valve prolapse. The judge authorized the request for her to undergo a specialized medical examination, including an electrocardiogram.

The first occasion on which the presidential couple attended a hearing at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Court of the Palace of Justice, presided over by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, was on January 5, when President Maduro declared himself a prisoner of war and reaffirmed that he is the constitutional president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. “I am innocent. I am a prisoner of war. I am a decent man. I adhere to the Geneva Convention. I remain the president of my country,” he declared on that occasion.

On March 19, President Maduro’s defense attorney, Barry J. Pollack, filed a motion in the Southern District Court of New York to dismiss all charges against President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The central argument was that Washington is actively violating the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution and the right to due process, guaranteed to any accused on US soil, by preventing Venezuela from funding the defense of its head of state.

From the early hours of Thursday, March 26, people gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Caracas to demand the release of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Similar marches took place throughout Venezuela, as well as outside the courthouse in New York and in other parts of the world.

(Diario VEA)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/DZ


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

60
 
 

By Cira Pascual Marquina  –  Mar 27, 2026

I write these lines at a particularly difficult moment for Venezuelan sovereignty. The imperialist attack of January 3 and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and Congresswoman Cilia Flores marked a new escalation in an aggression that now spans more than twenty-six years against the Bolivarian Revolution. This is not an isolated episode. It is a new chapter in a broad and multifaceted strategy aimed at taking away the Venezuelan people and government’s power of decision and, ultimately, reversing the political path inaugurated in 1999.

In this context, the leadership of the revolution has been forced to make difficult decisions. There has been no shortage of tedious and often legalistic debates about the reform of the Hydrocarbons Law. However, that reform had in fact already been under discussion prior to the attack. By contrast, what doesconstitute a tactical concession affecting our national sovereignty is how the United States now oversees and controls our oil sales.

No one who has historically defended energy sovereignty can ignore the weight of this blow. Nevertheless, the immediate alternative to this concession was not maintaining sovereignty—an idea often invoked by “leftists” in the global North as they hastily declare the end of our revolution—but rather an all-out bloody war under extremely unfavorable conditions, accompanied by a naval blockade. Under imperialist siege, even revolutionary processes may be forced to maneuver to preserve life and ensure their continuity.

It was a hard blow. But it was also the result of a prolonged economic war whose objective has been precisely to close off all avenues for the country’s material reproduction.

Lenin knew these situations well. In the most difficult years of the Soviet Revolution, he defended the New Economic Policy as a necessary tactical retreat to preserve what was fundamental. Revolutionary politics, he insisted, requires distinguishing between what can be defended at a given moment and what constitutes the strategic core of a historical process.

Today, that distinction becomes crucial once again. National sovereignty is not reducible to control over a strategic resource, however important it may be. In Venezuela, there exists another equally important dimension: organized popular sovereignty.

This is the terrain of the commune.

When Karl Marx analyzed the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, he wrote a phrase that retains all its force: “The Commune was the direct antithesis of the Empire.” What was revolutionary about that experience was not a change in government, but the emergence of a new political form: a structure in which the working people began to govern themselves.

The commune thus represented more than a local institution or a mechanism to address specific territorial problems. It was a political form capable of embodying collective emancipation.

This idea takes on particular relevance in the contemporary world, and it is precisely for this reason that Chávez conceived the commune as a superior organizational form aimed at undermining the foundations of the bourgeois state, overcoming the metabolism of capital, and transforming the social relations of production.

Capitalism, whose tendency toward concentration and expansion Marx had already anticipated, now takes the form Lenin conceptualized as imperialism: a global system of domination and dispossession in the service of big capital, sustained by financial, military, and—increasingly—communicational power.

In this context, the communal question takes on strategic significance.

As Chris Gilbert argues in his essay “Socialist Communes and Anti-Imperialism: A Marxist Perspective,” for communes to have real anti-imperialist potential, they cannot be conceived as spaces of local autonomy disconnected from the national political process. When this happens, the communal project risks being neutralized or reduced to a marginal experience.

The Marxist—and Chavista—perspective points in another direction. The commune is not a local refuge from the system, but a fundamental component of a broader strategy of power and social transformation.

As Gilbert further explains, when Hugo Chávez proposed communes as the “basic cells” of Venezuelan socialism, he did so within an explicitly anti-imperialist horizon. The goal was not to build isolated communities, but to reorganize the country as a whole and open the path toward a social metabolism different from that of capital.

Chávez made this clear in 2009. “An isolated commune is counterrevolutionary,” he said.

Communes must be articulated into communal cities, federations, and ultimately into a confederation capable of progressively displacing the old state. This was not a localist project. It was a national one.

Today, this wager takes on even greater significance!

Under conditions of imperialist siege, a society’s ability to reproduce life with dignity depends to a large extent on the organization of the working class. Communal production, collective management of services, and collective decision-making become concrete mechanisms both of resistance and of building new social relations that point toward emancipation.

The recent National Popular Consultation, held on March 8, International Working Women’s Day, expresses precisely this dynamic.

Thousands of communes across the country debated and prioritized projects aimed at addressing concrete needs: water systems, productive initiatives, community infrastructure, educational, sports, and cultural spaces. The consultations might appear to be simple administrative measures within the state apparatus, but their significance runs much deeper.

Every time a community collectively decides how to organize its material life, it exercises a concrete form of sovereignty. And we are not speaking here of an abstract sovereignty proclaimed in speeches, but a sovereignty that is practiced.

This popular sovereignty acquires strategic value when a country faces unilateral coercive measures and military aggression. The objective of such attacks is not only to pressure a government: it is to disorganize social life and fracture the collective fabric that allows a society to reproduce itself with dignity.

In the face of this strategy, communal organization operates as a form of social resilience.

Communities that produce food, organize economic circuits, manage services, or collectively prioritize their resources, build a capacity for resistance that no blockade can fully destroy.

This is why the commune is not only a democratic experiment. It is also a form of national defense.

In this sense, it is politically significant that, just two months after the January 3 attack, the national government—with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the helm—chose to center these popular consultations. At a moment when imperialism presses for the dismantling of popular power, the decision has been the opposite: to maintain communal democracy as the backbone of the revolutionary process. This reflects a strategic understanding: in the midst of siege, the principal strength of the Bolivarian Revolution does not lie solely in state institutions, but in the territorial organization of the working class. In times of imperialist aggression, strengthening popular power is not a political luxury—it is a historical necessity.

As Gilbert reminds us, Marx argued that communal relations constitute the fundamental antithesis of a system based on commodity exchange. Whereas capitalism transforms social relations into relations between things—relations that are mediated by money, the markets and capital—communal production implies collective control over productive activity.

That collective control is, ultimately, a form of sovereignty.

In Venezuela, sovereignty is being built in thousands of communes—some more robust and consolidated, others still incipient—where politics ceases to be a distant affair and becomes a daily practice.

Of course, commune-building is full of contradictions. The construction of the communal state coexists with inherited bureaucratic structures, enormous economic difficulties, and the tensions inherent to any process of historical transformation.

Yet even amid these tensions, the commune remains the strategic horizon. In a world where power is increasingly concentrated in corporations and financial centers, the idea that communities can directly govern key aspects of their collective life carries a profoundly subversive potential.

Defending Venezuela against imperialism does not mean only denouncing external aggression. It also means defending and deepening the forms of popular organization that can sustain daily life with dignity.

If, at times, national sovereignty must maneuver or concede ground in specific areas in order to withstand the siege, there is one sphere in Venezuela where there can be no retreat: that of popular sovereignty in the territory.

It is there that the deepest root of our historical process is found.

Oil may be subject to tactical negotiations. Geopolitical correlations may shift. Economic conditions may force difficult decisions. But as long as there exists an organized pueblo capable of governing its territories, the possibility of building a different society remains alive.

In Venezuela, that possibility has a name: the commune.

Industrial Integration and the Impact of the US Blockade: Vida Café Economic Circuit (Part 3)

And in times of imperialist siege, defending the commune as a national project means defending the deepest form of sovereignty: the sovereignty of an organized people that produces and shares collectively. But this defense cannot be reduced to resistance. The commune is also a strategic wager for popular offensive action: rebellious yet disciplined, creative yet organized—capable of transforming the defense of life into the conscious construction of a new society.

But such an offensive requires acting without naivety or false hopes. As Ramón Grosfoguel recently argued, the moment demands combining tactical flexibility with strategic firmness; constantly assessing the balance of forces with realism; working to recover lost ground; and preparing for future attacks. If the history of imperialism teaches us anything, it is that its ultimate objective is not merely to pressure or discipline processes of change, but to defeat and bury them.

In the Venezuelan case, defeating the Bolivarian Revolution would mean doing so in all its dimensions, including erasing or blurring the historical horizon embodied in communal construction, with its transformative potential. For this reason, defending the commune cannot be limited to the local management of daily life or territorial resistance to siege. It must be conceived as part of a national project of collective emancipation, capable of sustaining, deepening, and projecting organized popular power toward a socialist future.

Ultimately, what is at stake is not only the survival of the government—though that must be secured—but the historical possibility of the working class governing itself.

That is where popular sovereignty resides.

And that possibility—as Marx reminded us—has a concrete political form: the commune.

(Monthly Review)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

61
 
 

León Rengel, a Venezuelan citizen who was deported by the US authorities to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last year, has sued the United States for $1.3 million as compensation. He has become the first Venezuelan deported to a third country to seek compensation from the US.

US President Donald Trump’s government systematically denied him his right to due process, claimed without evidence that he was a gang member, and illegally sent him to a foreign prison.

Rengel explained to the press that his intention in filing the lawsuit is not to return to the United States. “However, I do want to clear my name. I want to show who I am and explain what happened to me. When people point their fingers at you, life becomes very difficult,” he said.

León Rengel was one of the 252 Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador in March 2025. There, they were kept incommunicado after being labeled as “extremely dangerous” criminals belonging to the defunct Tren de Aragua gang.

“What happened to the Venezuelans sent to CECOT could happen to anyone, to any migrant in the US,” Rengel commented to a US media outlet.

After months of tensions between Venezuela and the US over the immigrants illegally incarcerated in a foreign prison, Rengel, along with the other Venezuelans, finally returned to Venezuela in July 2025 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between the two governments.

Venezuela Receives 411 Repatriated Citizens as US Deportations Continue

León Rengel had entered the US in June 2023, after obtaining an appointment through the CBP One app, an initiative established by former US President Joe Biden.

According to court documents, Rengel was awaiting a scheduled immigration court hearing for 2028 and had an active application for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) when he was arrested in March 2025 in Irving, Texas.

The lawsuit claims that the US immigration agents ignored the immigration documentation confirming that he was legally in the United States and instead justified his detention by alleging that his tattoos supposedly linked him to the Tren de Aragua gang, classified as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the Trump administration.

The legal complaint alleges that Rengel was deceived into being sent to CECOT, where he was subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

(Últimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

62
 
 

By John Perry  –  Mar 24, 2026

United Nations “experts” on Nicaragua, working to sanitize the effects of a failed U.S.-inspired coup attempt, have not visited the country since the violence occurred eight years ago.

Yet, for them, Nicaragua is “a giant prison” in which the Sandinista government “has effectively taken its own population hostage.”

According to lawyer Jan-Michael Simon, the German leader of the group who is not known to have ever visited Nicaragua, its government is doing “exactly what the Nazi regime did.”

[Source: x.com]

Simon’s group of “experts,” which includes lawyers from Hungary and Uruguay, have now published a dozen UN-funded reports on Nicaragua, each with more exaggerated allegations than its predecessor.

Two aspects of its work reveal its function as part of the U.S. propaganda machine. One is that the group ignores detailed evidence presented to it that does not comply with Washington’s narrative on Nicaragua; in fact, it accepts evidence only from so-called “human rights” groups opposed to the Sandinista government.

The second is that it feeds its material to Nicaragua’s opposition media, to which Simon readily gives interviews. Their role is to give rolling coverage to the reports and—if possible—attract the attention of corporate media, such as The New York Times.

But these “human rights” groups and opposition media are far from independent. They all receive considerable U.S. funding.

Giving evidence in February to the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Damon Wilson, said that funding such “partners” who oppose the Nicaraguan government was the NED’s “third largest program” in the hemisphere after Venezuela and Cuba. The NED is a CIA cutout that uses federal funding to promote U.S. interests globally, especially when this involves inciting regime change.

Wilson was reluctant to name the “extraordinarily courageous folks” from Nicaragua he met in a recent visit to Costa Rica. But he did refer to one NED partner by name, the so-called Rural Workers’ Movement. Was he aware that this group organized fatal attacks on police stations in rural Nicaragua in 2018 (documented in detailed witness statements)? Did he know that its attacks resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, kidnappings and firearm thefts, and terrorized local populations? Apparently not, because Wilson said that the NED supports groups that “understand the importance of non-violent, peaceful resistance.”

[Source: ned.org]

In all, the coup attempt in 2018 resulted in hundreds of deaths, including 22 police officers. At the time, the UN Human Rights Commission briefly acknowledged the opposition’s role in the violence, but it and other international bodies quickly shifted their focus to concentrate solely on alleged violence by the state.

The role of the current UN group of “experts” is to firmly establish the narrative that the Sandinista government is to blame, without exception, for the hundreds of deaths and injuries that resulted from the coup attempt.

In their latest report, the “experts” take this one step further: They make the bizarre claim that hundreds of violent opposition attacks were, in reality, “false-flag” incidents. “Acts of vandalism against FSLN [Sandinista] militants’ properties and private businesses, such as stoning, looting and arson,” they allege, were actually carried out by “pro-government armed groups” paid for from state funds.

This would be laughable had these incidents not been extremely serious, that in many cases surviving victims were able to identify their attackers, and that the coup leaders and their followers openly bragged about the attacks and posted videos of them (mostly since deleted) on social media.

A photo of armed opposition roadblock in 2018, posted on social media. [Source: afgj.org]

According to the UN “experts,” in reality these were “false-flag” operations run by the Sandinista government.

Nicaraguans assaulted by opposition thugs or whose houses were burned down  (many known to me personally)would be appalled that the UN has published such obvious lies.

The new report also claims that “public funds” were diverted from social projects in order to suppress the 2018 violence, as if this is an act of malfeasance on the government’s part. Yet, of course, three months of violent attacks on police, government workers and public buildings, including setting fire to schools and health centers, carried an enormous cost.

The government asked for, and was refused, an IMF loan to help pay for losses of more than $1 billion. They were told that, if they applied formally, the request would be vetoed by the U.S. government.

Naturally, once the coup attempt ended, the Sandinista government sought to ensure that any new acts of terrorism, whether instigated inside Nicaragua or abroad, are identified and, if possible, halted. Such a response would be expected in any civilized country. However, for the “expert” group, this has morphed into a “transnational surveillance and intelligence network” which carries out assassinations abroad.

Their argument centers on the case of Roberto Samcam, who led one of the most violent opposition groups in 2018 and fled to Costa Rica to avoid arrest. He was murdered in June 2025 but, despite extensive efforts by opposition groups to blame the Sandinista government for his killing, the authorities have since arrested five Costa Ricans.

‘Worthy Children of Heroes and Martyrs’: How Nicaragua Cultivates Peace

In February, the Costa Rican authorities announced that “all individuals linked to Samcam’s murder have been apprehended”; none was Nicaraguan nor apparently linked to Nicaragua. There were implications, however, that the homicide was drug-related.

Of course, since the day of the killing, opponents of Nicaragua’s government have been claiming that it ordered the assassination. Speaking to opposition outlet Confidencial, Jan-Michael Simon simply announced that this was the case, despite having no proof. So did Damon Wilson in his February testimony to a sub-committee of the House Committee on Appropriations.

A final example of the extreme partiality of these “experts” is their take on Nicaraguans who have left the country. They quote figures showing that more than 300,000 Nicaraguans have sought asylum in Costa Rica. But they fail to note that Costa Rican authorities regularly claim that most of these applications are from Nicaraguans who simply want to regularize their status in the country: only one in ten has so far been approved.

The “experts” also ignore the extreme fluidity of traffic across the border, with around 900 Nicaraguans crossing daily in both directions, according to another UN body. If they are escaping the “surveillance, threats, harassment and physical violence” they allegedly experience in Costa Rica at the hands of Nicaragua’s “undercover officials,” it seems extraordinary that so many return to the “giant prison” created by the Sandinista government.

The narrative of Sandinista “repression” (a characterization used 42 times in a 26-page report) suits Washington’s tightening of the screws on Nicaragua. The “experts” call for additional “targeted sanctions,” disregarding their illegitimacy in international law and that the UN itself rejects their unilateral imposition.

Former UN independent adviser Alfred de Zayas observed that the “human rights industry” is in dire condition. As the group of “experts” continues to demonstrate, the main purpose of the “industry” is manufacturing consent for regime change. Its agenda is Washington’s—not one that resonates with most Nicaraguans, who simply want the stability recovered after the 2018 coup attempt to be maintained.

A poll in February showed that—across the whole of Latin America—their country has the third most popular government. It gives the lie to the monstrous portrayal of Nicaragua offered by the UN’s so-called “experts.”

(Covert Action Magazine)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

63
 
 

As part of Operation Vuelvan Caras, Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) shot down a drug-carrying aircraft in the municipality of Pedro Camejo, Apure state.

The procedure was carried out through armed reconnaissance missions coordinated by the Integral Defense Zone (ZODI) Apure and the Aerospace Task Force, as part of surveillance and control mechanisms.

According to the official report by the FANB, the Grifo Formation, consisting of two K-8W aircraft, located the target, a white high-wing aircraft with the initials YV-2473, during the anti-drug deployment.

Venezuela’s Interior Minister Cabello: 7.2 Tons of Drugs Seized So Far in 2026

After the unauthorized aircraft entered restricted airspace, the military units disabled the equipment, following national security protocols.

This action was part of the continuous surveillance strategies carried out by the FANB and citizen security agencies to protect Venezuelan territory from transnational criminal structures attempting to use the national airspace for illegal purposes.

(LaIguana.TV)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

64
 
 

This article by Arturo Sánchez Jiménez originally appeared in the March 28, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. The Secretariat of External Relations (SRE) last night demanded an investigation into the Adelanto immigration processing center in California, following the death of a Mexican national on the night of March 25 while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

With this case, to date 14 Mexicans have lost their lives in ICE custody or in immigration operations during President Donald Trump’s second term.

According to the agency, the Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino was notified by immigration authorities that the national was transferred to a hospital in Victorville, where he died; so far, the cause of death has not been officially determined.

The consular office activated the appropriate protocol and contacted the family of the deceased to provide assistance and support. It is also in communication with U.S. authorities to obtain the complete medical records, the cause of death, and the circumstances surrounding it, with the aim of fully clarifying the facts.

The Secretariat of External Relations reiterated its call to the responsible authorities to prevent these cases from continuing and demanded an immediate review of the Adelanto center, pointing to “serious omissions and evident deficiencies in the provision of medical care to people in its custody.”

The External Relations Secretariat stressed that the Mexican government will exhaust all legal and diplomatic avenues to raise awareness of the problem and closely monitor this case, and reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring the protection and dignity of Mexican nationals abroad.

The post Mexican External Relations Secretariat Demands US Investigate Death of Mexican Citizen in ICE Custody appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

65
 
 

Simultaneous marches were held in Caracas and New York on Thursday, March 26, demanding the release of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores, who are being illegally held captive in the United States. In New York City and Plaza Bolívar in Caracas, hundreds of banners flew with a single slogan, “Free the Venezuelan presidential couple.”

On Thursday, during the presidential couple’s second hearing, people from different nationalities gathered near the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. There, with banners in hand, protesters chanted slogans demanding the release of Maduro and Flores, who were kidnapped from Caracas in the early hours of January 3 by US soldiers.

In Caracas, from very early Thursday, people gathered in Plaza Bolívar, the capital city’s main square. In that emblematic place, near the statue of Liberator Simón Bolívar, a large screen displayed details about the illegal trial against the presidential couple. At every moment, in unison, the crowd chanted: “May the drums sound, release Maduro and Cilia Flores,” and “Nicolás and Cilia are our family.”

Aggression and judicial abuse
Oscar Benítez, one of the marchers, told Diario VEA, “I am a social organizer, a member of the Agrourbano Movement, and we are here to uphold our dignity, our Venezuelan, revolutionary, and peasant identity.”

Benítez and his comrades were in Plaza Bolívar to demand the release of the presidential couple. “We also demand that their rights be respected. He is the constitutionally elected president of all Venezuelans. Those two were forcibly taken from our territory, violating our sovereignty,” he said.

“Since January 3, Nicolás and Cilia have been victims of persecution, aggression, and judicial abuse by the United States under the instructions of Donald Trump,” Benítez added.

A protester in Caracas holds a poster of the Venezuelan presidential couple, with the slogan #BringThemBack, demanding their release from US imprisonment. Photo: Telesur.

A protester in Caracas holds a poster of the Venezuelan presidential couple, with the slogan #BringThemBack, demanding their release from US imprisonment. Photo: Telesur.

“Free them”
“We just want them to release our President Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores,” said Luis Dávila, marching in Plaza Bolívar. “Here in Venezuela, and in many cities around the world, today, people are demanding their release. They are victims of a kidnapping by the US military and then by a court that keeps them detained despite having no evidence or reasons for them to be in those conditions.”

He added that Venezuela has clearly demonstrated that it is a nation that loves peace and respects international law. “Based on these two premises, we demand the release of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores,” Dávila said. “There is no justification for keeping them behind bars. Both the court and the judge handling the case know that they have no solid arguments to keep them detained, and yet, the injustice against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores continues.”

Illegal trial
Orlando Vegas emphasized that he was in Plaza Bolívar “to repudiate the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. More than two months have passed since they were forcibly kidnapped in violation of all international law. I express my condemnation of Donald Trump and his regime.”

“That vile act committed by the Trump Cartel and his war partner Netanyahu—because Zionism cannot be separated from imperialism—was an action against the Venezuelan people to seize our resources,” Vegas highlighted. “On January 3, they attacked us militarily in the most cowardly way. They killed over 100 people, including 32 Cuban internationalists who were safeguarding President Maduro.”

“They also bombed Aragua, La Guaira, Caracas, and Miranda—killing Venezuelans,” he added. “They killed both civilians and military personnel equally. For all those reasons, we are here to demand justice and the release of Maduro and Cilia Flores.”

Regarding the trial against Nicolás Maduro, Vegas said it is completely illegal. “Our president was kidnapped. We cannot overlook that. The head of state of a constitutionally elected government in full exercise was kidnapped,” he stressed. “Therefore, all the actions that have taken place from January 3 to date, from a legal standpoint, are illegal.”

“We demand their freedom”
Nancy Mogollón, a participant in the march in Caracas, said that she would speak on behalf of all Venezuelan women. “Here, we all are supporting the swift release of President Maduro and Cilia Flores,” she said.

She added that no person who was born in Venezuela or has been living in the country for a while “can forget what was done to us on January 3, when we were invaded by US troops, who kidnapped President Maduro along with Cilia.”

“We will remain in the streets and in every community to demand their release,” Mogollón emphasized. “The US justice system itself has invented ‘evidence’ and accusations because they have nothing solid with which to charge them. The judge has dismissed so-called evidence against the two of them because, deep down, they know they have not committed any crime.”

Part of the march in Plaza Bolívar, Caracas. Photo: Telesur.

Part of the march in Plaza Bolívar, Caracas. Photo: Telesur.

Solidarity from Brazil
Carlos Rogelio Núñez, who lives in Brazil, attended the act of solidarity and support for the release of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Núñez is a member of the board of the Workers’ Central of Brazil. “We are here in the Liberator Simón Bolívar Square to express the solidarity of the people, the workers, and unions of Brazil against the United States’ injustice against President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.”

“The workers of Brazil condemn the various forms of violence that the United States has been committing against the people of Venezuela. As unions, we want Maduro and Cilia to return to their homeland once again,” he emphasized.

Venezuela’s Presidential Couple Appear in New York Court; Judge Questions Legitimacy of Legal Fee Freeze

Protesters in the US demand freedom for Venezuelan presidential couple
Social movements and organizations around the world, including in Egypt, Brazil, Colombia, Belarus, and the United States, have launched the international campaign #BringThemBack. The campaign condemns the imprisonment of President Maduro and Cilia Flores as arbitrary and demands the presidential couple’s return.

In New York, activists carried out mobilizations aimed at bringing visibility to the case within the United States, expanding the conflict into the realm of global public opinion.

These expressions indicate the internationalization of the conflict, where social and political actors dispute the narrative about the legitimacy of the ongoing judicial process.

Protesters in New York demand the release of President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores from US imprisonment. Photo: Telesur.

Protesters in New York demand the release of President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores from US imprisonment. Photo: Telesur.

From the early hours of Thursday, protesters camped outside the New York court where President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were to appear.

According to the protesters, the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores represents a precedent in international relations, as it involves the unlawful capture of a sitting head of state through a foreign military invasion.

Thursday, March 26, marked almost three months since the kidnapping, and the presidential couple’s second hearing was held in a climate of deep legal controversy. A declassified secret memorandum, dated days before the invasion, revealed that the US Department of Justice used the narrative of the non-existent Cartel de los Soles to justify the military aggression. However, these claims have lost strength as they were dropped from the formal charges. The omission of these charges suggests that the legal framework of the US case contains significant cracks, making this trial one of the most atypical and questionable judicial processes in modern history.

(Diario VEA) by Carlos Batatin, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

66
 
 

By Alan Macleod – Mar 26, 2026

Shadowy pro-Israel group Terror Alarm is crowdfunding a $1 million bounty for the capture of a well-known Iranian academic and media personality – and Twitter is refusing to remove it. But who are Terror Alarm? MintPress traces the company back to its source and exposes its role as a private security firm.

Last week, the official Terror Alarm Twitter account posted a direct threat to Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, writing:

“We are crowdfunding $1 million for a bounty for the capture of Mohammad Marandi, advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader and frequent IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]-aligned propagandist. We want him alive.”

Not only was it not taken down, despite hundreds of users attempting to alert Twitter to the post, it was also promoted as “paid partnership,” meaning that the platform itself was profiting from the incitement.

A Shady, Contradictory Company
Founded in 2016, Terror Alarm publishes low-quality, A.I.-generated news across social media. It has built up a significant global following, including over a quarter of a million followers on Twitter (where it has changed its name four times already), and a Telegram channel with 36,000 subscribers.

Its dealings, including its funding, are kept shrouded in secrecy. However, it has previously advertised in-house software jobs based in Denmark, Romania, and Spain, which, they note, require a degree from a European technical university, fluency in English, and to have lived in a NATO member state for the past seven years.

Another posting on Telegram noted that, “TV Studio jobs available in Romania, Ukraine, Denmark, Sweden and Lithuania.” To qualify, it states, “You need to be Pro-Israel, Zionist, and speak fluent English.”

Although at first glance, the group appears to be simply another low-quality content farm, searching through archived versions of the company’s (now offline) website via the Internet Wayback Machine reveals that Terror Alarm is far more than that.

The company has gone through a number of facelifts. It began as a supposedly anti-terror app, before rebranding as a private security firm, and then, finally, becoming an E.U.-registered NGO.

Describing itself as a “highly accredited private security firm that not only alerted authorities about terrorist attacks as they happened but also helped thwart many acts of terror at the height of the 2014-2017 ISIS attacks in Europe,” it offers a variety of security services, including private bodyguarding, background checks, legal service, brand protection, and evidence compilation.

Terror Alarm has removed its website from the Internet. But according to a previous version accessed via the Wayback Machine, the group has three core missions:

1- Intelligence sharing with Free World governments,
2- Combating antisemitism through A.I.-driven monitoring and response,
3- Preventing terrorist attacks through predictive A.I. analysis.

The third of these missions is particularly controversial, and amounts to a Minority Report-style judgment on pre-crimes. As the company itself explains, its technology scours the internet and “continuously scans digital activity using predictive A.I. to detect early signs of radicalization or extremist association.” It then alerts authorities and initiates a “pre-configured ‘digital lockdown’” to “enable proactive counter-radicalization.”

In short, Terror Alarm promotes itself as a service that can predict who will carry out attacks, based on their social media posts, and can share that information with governments and police forces. However, its own source code, netizens have exposed, dictates which groups are considered worthy of support and which are “opposed entities.” While the UAE, Turkey, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel and “Jews and Zionists worldwide” are considered positive groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Chinese Communist Party are all placedon their own private terrorist list.

Defending and Supporting Israel, From Denmark
As the list suggests, Terror Alarm is a fundamentally pro-Israel organization, and it clearly has strong ties to the Ethno-Jewish state. To begin with, the contact details displayed on an archived version of its website includes a +972 (Israeli) phone number. It also used to post an inordinate amount of contentrelevant only to Israelis, such as articles titled “Israeli tourists detained indefinitely in Turkey for photographing the city!” and “Hanukkah 2021 and what it means for the IDF.” Indeed, in one Archive.org capture, the company’s strapline was “Counter-Terrorism and Breaking News from Jerusalem, Israel.” Moreover, the company only allows Jews to be appointed to its board.

However, the organization is not registered in Israel, but in Denmark. Journalist Freddie Ponton found that local records list businessman René Rønneberg as Terror Alarm’s official representative. Rønneberg has been a director of a number of small Danish businesses, including BEZH Denmark ApS, a company partially owned by Avi Simonsen, a man who, despite his name, was born in Iran in 1977, just before the Islamic Revolution.

Little is known about either of these characters, who both keep an extremely low profile online. Yet their political outlook can be guessed at from looking at Terror Alarm’s output.

Strangely, for such an overtly political organization, it insists that it is entirely neutral. “We have no ‘agenda’ except to prevent acts of terror. Most of the tweets on our @Terror_Alarm Twitter feed are AI-generated and as such, they are technically mostly agenda-free tweets,” it writes, as if A.I. is a purely neutral tool, adding that:

“We report only the facts and not a personal attitude toward the facts. We do use our connections to get the news but we will not be on either side of any argument and we normally do not disclose the sources.”

And yet, it openly announced its enthusiastic support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, or what it called Israel’s mission to “transform Gaza from a war-torn region into a place of peace and prosperity.” It also calls for the United States to “deploy troops to assist in the humanitarian mission of relocating Palestinians to countries willing to offer refuge (Most Palestinians are originally from Jordan and Egypt).”

Israel-Backed Rioters Fail Regime-Change Operation: Interview With Dr. Mohammad Marandi

Media Blackouts and Propaganda Wars
The public response to Terror Alarm’s attempts to kidnap a well-known Iranian-American academic was overwhelmingly one of outrage.

“This is a reprehensible post for X to allow, targeting Marandi and putting a bounty on him. It is also a ‘Paid partnership.’ Imagine the outcry if a pro-Palestinian or pro-Iranian group did this with Israelis or Americans. Criminal charges would be filed,” wrote Drop Site News’ Jeremy Scahill. “Try to do one of these about an Israeli or American professor tied to the war and see how long it takes before your post or even account is banned,” reacted journalist Glenn Greenwald. Hundreds of people attempted to contact Twitter, but the company has not responded.

Despite the incident going viral, it has been entirely ignored by corporate media. A search for “Marandi” or “Terror Alarm” into the Dow Jones Factiva news database elicited zero relevant results in The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, The Washington Post, or any American news outlet. As of March 26, only The Canary and 21st Century Wire – two small independent online sites – have covered the story.

This cannot be because Professor Marandi is not known to journalists at big networks. Born in the United States and rising to become professor of English Literature and Orientalism at Tehran University, Marandi’s excellent command of the English language and his sharp debating skills have made him a regular guest on big networks such as the BBC or CNN.

A military veteran and an advisor to the Iranian government’s nuclear negotiation team, he has become the go-to face on television espousing Iran’s point of view in English. This has earned him widespread notoriety, with supporters enjoying his wit and his ability to dress down oppositional interviewers, and detractors seeing him as the spokesperson for a dictatorship.

Marandi has become a particularly common face on TV news across the world since the most recent U.S./Israeli attack on Iran. On February 28, coordinated American and Israeli attacks hit Iran and assassinated its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Western missiles pounded the country, hitting government and military installations, as well as schools and hospitals.

Iran fired back, targeting American bases across the region, and closed the Strait of Hormuz, effectively crippling the global economy. The result was chaos. Much of the world’s oil and gas supply has been halted, leading to fears of electricity and food shortages, as well as a prolonged global depression.

President Trump appeared blindsighted by the response, and immediately called on his NATO allies to join the U.S. in a mission to reopen the narrow sea passage between Iran and Arabia. Their response, however, was far from enthusiastic. And with Washington’s Gulf allies sounding the alarm about the dire economic and social consequences of a prolonged engagement, it appears Trump might be forced into a humiliating climb down.

Washington can still rely on support from big social media platforms such as Twitter, however. The company was bought in 2022 by Elon Musk, a tech mogul and Pentagon contractor who made his money partnering with the U.S. national security state. Musk’s companies have secured billions in contracts with the C.I.A. and U.S. military. In 2023, he signalled his full support for Israel in its campaign against its neighbors, flying there to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tour kibbutzim hit by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.

In January, he changed the Iranian flag emoji on Twitter to feature the lion and the sun, a design associated with the dictatorship of the shah. As such, this represented a clear statement of intent to use his platform as a tool to overthrow the current government, as it has been used before under previous ownership.

Twitter has also partnered with AU10TIX, forcing all users who wish to use the site’s premium services to hand over their identities, including their passports and face scans, to the company. AU10TIX is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former spies from elite IDF surveillance group, Unit 8200.

Thus, while many expressed outrage that the platform was not only allowing Terror Alarm to place a bounty on the head of a prominent academic, but was also promoting it as a paid partnership, a closer inspection of Twitter’s close ties to Israeli intelligence makes this revelation much easier to believe.

Marandi himself was far from shocked by the decision to allow the Terror Alarm paid partnership to continue. “Elon Musk and his employees support terrorism, but no one should be surprised. After all, they support the slaughter of women and children across West Asia,” he said.

(MintPress News)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

67
 
 

This article by Gustavo Castillo originally appeared in the March 28, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Havana. The two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid that disappeared en route to Cuba have been located and their crews are “safe,” organizers of the convoy said Saturday, adding that the mission is continuing. This was also confirmed by the Mexican Navy (Semar) in a statement.

Since Thursday, the Navy had deployed an operation to find the whereabouts of these boats that had departed a week ago from Isla Mujeres, in the southeast of the country.

The ships were part of an international convoy that wants to send 50 tons of medical supplies, food, solar panels and other goods to the needy Cuban population.

The Mexican Navy (Semar) reported that an aircraft located “the catamaran-type vessels that were being searched for in the Caribbean.”

“They were located 80 nautical miles northwest of Havana, Cuba.”

After locating the vessels, a Navy ship “is heading to the area to provide support. Radio communication is being maintained” with the vessels that departed from Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, on March 20, he said.

A spokesperson for the Nuestra America convoy confirmed the location: “We are relieved to confirm that the two sailboats have been located by the Mexican Navy. The crews are safe and the ships are continuing their journey to Havana.”

“The convoy is still en route to complete its mission: to deliver urgently needed humanitarian aid to the Cuban people,” said the spokesman, who thanked Mexican and Cuban authorities for their “support, coordination and professionalism.”

Contradictory Communications

On the eve of the incident, conflicting statements from Mexico and the United States generated further uncertainty about the fate of the two sailboats, named Friend Ship and Tiger Moth.

Earlier in the day, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had declared that the “search” for the two boats was continuing.

A Mexican navy ship “made contact with them and after a few hours lost contact,” the president explained at a press conference in Mexico City.

However, at approximately the same time, the United States Coast Guard told AFP that “it had received a report at 10:36 (08:36 Central Mexico time) that the two vessels transited safely to Cuba.”

Later, the same service issued another statement clarifying that it is not participating in the search, which is being led by the Mexican Navy and Cuban authorities.

As evening fell, Cuban and Mexican authorities had not confirmed a sighting of the vessels.

“From our country we are doing everything possible in the search and rescue of these brothers in arms,” ​​said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The Mexican navy did not specify the identity or nationalities of the crew members, but stressed that it was maintaining communication with rescue agencies in Poland, France, Cuba and the United States.

The Huasteco ship, from the Mexican navy, arrived in Havana this Friday from Mexico with 111 tons of food and other donations collected by Mexican civil organizations, Cuban television reported.

This is the fourth shipment of humanitarian aid sent to the island since mid-February by the Sheinbaum government, which has already delivered more than three thousand tons of supplies to the country, such as milk, meat products, beans, rice and personal hygiene items.

“Mexico and the president of Mexico have no idea how many Cubans would like to personally thank their president for everything she has done for Cuba during these times,” Díaz-Canel said in an interview he gave Thursday to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

The post Mexican Navy Locates Two Sailboats Carrying Aid to Cuba appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

68
 
 

Trump says strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure will be paused for 10 days, as markets react to rising tensions and the US-Israeli aggression on the country continues.

US President Donald Trump announced he is temporarily suspending attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure for 10 days, describing ongoing talks with Tehran as “going very well.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “As per Iranian Government request… I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, ‌April ⁠6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.”

He added: “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by ⁠the Fake News Media, and others, they are ⁠going very well.”

🚨 BREAKING: President Trump says that per the Iranian Government's request he is PAUSING energy plant destruction by 10 days to April 6

HUGE progress being made 🔥

"Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are… pic.twitter.com/fcFeS905cq

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 26, 2026

The announcement came as financial markets reacted sharply to rising geopolitical risk, with key US indices falling and oil prices climbing amid fears of prolonged disruption to global energy supplies.

Markets reel as Trump “pauses” Iran energy attacks
Financial markets showed deepening anxiety over the war’s trajectory. The Nasdaq composite fell about 2%, entering correction territory, more than 10% below its recent high, while the Dow industrials dropped more than 400 points and the S&P 500 lost 1.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down 2.4% at 21,408, while the S&P 500 settled 1.7% lower at 6,477.

Oil prices surged in response to fading hopes for a quick resolution. Brent crude futures closed at $101.89 a barrel, up 4.8%, after rising as high as $107 earlier in the session, while West Texas Intermediate climbed to $94.48.

Goldman Sachs raised its 2026 oil price forecasts, projecting Brent to average $85 per barrel for the year, up from a previous estimate of $77, warning that prices could spike to $200 in a severe disruption scenario.

The 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.42% from 4.33% late Wednesday as investors priced in persistent inflation risks, while gold fell more than 3% amid a broader sell-off across asset classes

Not an isolated incident
On March 23, 2026, Trump alleged Washington and Tehran were moving toward a potential agreement, claiming the two sides had “major points of agreement” after he ordered a “temporary pause” in US strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, written in all caps, Trump said: “I am pleased to report that the United States of America, and the country of Iran, have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”

He also announced that he had directed the Department of War to halt further “military action” for a limited period, writing: “I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

Speaking to reporters in Florida, Trump insisted Iran was seeking an agreement, stating that Iranian officials wanted “to make a deal” and that US envoys had been in contact with what he described as a “respected” Iranian figure, though not Iranian Leader Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei. He added that any potential deal would require Iran to surrender its enriched uranium stockpile.

He further suggested that the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened quickly if a deal is reached, saying, “If a deal happens, it’s a great start for Iran and the region,” while acknowledging he could not guarantee an agreement.

Trump also claimed that Iranian officials initiated contact, saying they had “called him for talks and not the other way round.”

Earlier, in an interview with Fox Business Network, he reiterated that Tehran was eager for a deal and suggested an agreement could be reached within five days. He said his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had been involved in discussions as recently as Sunday night.

On this issue, an Iranian Security Source told  Al Mayadeen on Wednesday that the headline for current events, especially Trump’s 5-day deadline, is new Trump trickery.

Wider context
Trump’s 5-day pause on March 23 followed a 48-hour ultimatum on March 21. At the time, the US President warned Tehran that failure to open the Strait of Hormuz could destroy Iran’s power infrastructure. The ultimatum marked a sharp escalation in rhetoric that preceded a wave of joint US-Israeli aggression.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump said: “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Financial markets responded positively early on Monday after Trump said that Washington and Tehran had engaged in “very good” talks. Oil prices, already highly volatile since Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched aggression against Iran, fell sharply in response.

However, Iranian officials rejected the claim that any talks had taken place between the two sides.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stated on Monday that “no negotiations have been held with the US”, accusing Trump of attempting to “manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped”.

Simultaneously, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military headquarters warned it will target US and Israeli energy infrastructure, information technology systems, and water desalination plants if Iran’s own energy facilities are attacked, signaling a major escalation in the regional confrontation.

Iran Rejects US Proposal, Lays Out Five Conditions for Ending Imposed War: Source To Press TV

Iran submits response to US plan, sets terms for war’s end: Tasnim
Earlier today, an informed source told Tasnim that Iran has delivered its response to a 15-point proposal put forward by the United States, transmitting its position through intermediaries on Wednesday night. Tehran is now awaiting a reply.

According to the source, Iran’s response sets out a series of conditions tied to any potential end to the war. These include an immediate halt to assassination operations, the establishment of binding guarantees to prevent a renewed aggression, and the provision of clearly defined compensation and reparations. The response also calls for a comprehensive cessation of hostilities across all fronts, extending to all resistance groups involved in the confrontation throughout the region.

The source further stressed that Iran considers its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz to be a natural and legal right that will remain in place. This control, the source indicated, is viewed as a mechanism to ensure the implementation of any commitments made by the other side and must be formally acknowledged.

These positions, the source added, are separate from the demands previously raised during the second round of nuclear negotiations held in Geneva shortly before the US-Israeli war that began in February.

The source also cast doubt on Washington’s stated intentions regarding negotiations, describing them as part of a “third deception” effort. According to the source, the United States is pursuing multiple objectives under the cover of diplomacy: presenting a peaceful image to the international community, maintaining lower global oil prices, and gaining time to prepare for further military aggressions, including a potential ground operation in southern Iran.

Reflecting on previous engagements, the source said Iran now holds “complete doubts” about the United States’ willingness to negotiate in good faith. The source argued that both during the 12-day war in June 2025 and the current war, the United States initiated hostilities while talks were ongoing, suggesting that renewed diplomatic efforts may similarly serve as a pretext for further escalation. Analysts suggest that were no need to call on Iran to admit a certain reality, if, as the name suggests, it was a reality in the first place.

War exposes US limits
Iran’s response comes as the aggression on the country enters its fourth week, after the United States and “Israel” launched coordinated attacks targeting the country’s leadership, civilian infrastructure, and military capabilities, prompting sustained Iranian retaliatory operations across the region.

The consequences of this aggression have extended far beyond the battlefield. Disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery through which roughly a fifth of global oil and LNG supplies pass, have not only sent shockwaves through energy markets but also exposed the limits of US power in the region.

Despite its military presence, Washington has struggled to secure a chokepoint central to the global economy following its aggression, while Iran has shown it can impose costs that reverberate through oil prices, inflation, financial markets, and allied capitals, undermining the image of a US-led order able to guarantee stability.

Amid these developments, the United States has been working at countering Iran’s retaliation following the aggression and shaping the war’s outcome on terms favorable to Washington to no avail.

Tehran has categorically rejected negotiating under such conditions. Iranian officials say recent US proposals, including a reported multi-point plan conveyed through intermediaries, are unrealistic and designed to force strategic concessions while the war continues.

According to Tehran officials, Washington and “Israel”, having initiated the aggression, have no standing to dictate its conclusion. Authorities insist the war will end only on Iran’s terms, including a full cessation of aggression, guarantees against renewed attacks, and recognition of Iran’s sovereignty.

Trump threatens Iran
The White House openly threatened further escalation against Iran, warning that the US is prepared to intensify its attacks unless Tehran accepts Washington’s terms.

“The President’s preference is always peace. There does not need to be any more death and destruction. But if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily … President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before,” Leavitt told reporters.

Iran’s continued retaliatory strikes, however, contradict Washington’s claim of “defeat,” with officials announcing the 82nd wave of retaliatory strikes targeting US and Israeli assets across the region, thus indicating that Tehran’s operational capacity remains intact.

(Al Mayadeen – English)


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

69
 
 

On Friday, US President Donald Trump stated that following the Pentagon’s attacks on Venezuela and Iran, “Cuba is next” on the list.

“Sometimes you have to use force, and Cuba is next,” Trump said during a speech for the Future Investment Initiative summit in Miami, Florida. During his address, he ironically requested that the media “please” ignore the statement.

The US president recalled his recent deployment of the US Army, specifically the elite Pentagon unit Delta Force, to bomb the Venezuelan capital and kidnap President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Deputy Cilia Flores, in January. This followed months of maritime siege that included extrajudicial killings by the US Southern Command in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific.

“Cuba is next,” Trump reiterated at the forum, before pivoting to anti-immigration rhetoric and defending his “America for Americans” policies.

Trump’s statements follow an announcement by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel that his country had decided to engage in a “collective” dialogue with the US. However, the Cuban leader clarified that the island’s political system “is not at stake.”

“Our political system and any decision that belongs to our people are not at stake,” Díaz-Canel stated in an interview with La Jornada. He emphasized that the future of Havana “does not depend on the US,” a country he described as having always longed “to take over Cuba.”

Díaz-Canel interview
In the interview, President Díaz-Canel stated that the US regime’s greatest failure in 67 years of the Cuban revolution has been its inability to seize control of the island. The Cuban president explained that this failure has fueled a sense of anger, manifesting in a tightened embargo since 2019, including more than 240 measures implemented during the first phase of the Trump regime, as reported by Telesur.

Díaz-Canel condemned the inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which has effectively cut off its international financing channels. He also highlighted a recent executive order threatening to impose tariffs on countries supplying oil to the island. This measure has resulted in Cuba receiving no fuel for nearly four months, subsequently triggering a collapse of the national electricity grid.

Venezuela’s Presidential Couple Appear in New York Court; Judge Questions Legitimacy of Legal Fee Freeze

“On January 29, an executive order was issued declaring Cuba an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to the security of the United States. It is another slander, another completely fabricated claim,” the Díaz-Canel stated.

According to the Cuban president, the energy blockade constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, the human rights of the Cuban people, and the very logic of the free market. “They, who talk so much about free trade and the free market, are imposing on us an energy blockade that is criminal,” he concluded.

(RT) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

70
 
 

The president of the Special Monitoring Commission for the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence, Jorge Arreaza, reported that 8,146 people have been granted full freedom under the Amnesty Law to date.

He explained that of the total, 310 had been in prison and were released, while the remaining 7,836 were under alternative measures and benefited from the law.

#26Marz | La Comisión Especial de Seguimiento para la Ley de Amnistía informa:

Solicitudes válidas recibidas: 11.559

Personas beneficiadas:
– Que estaban privadas de libertad: 310
– Que tenían medidas cautelares en libertad: 7.836

Total Libertades plenas: 8.146 personas pic.twitter.com/ZM68eeZjCf

— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) March 26, 2026

He further explained that a total of 11,559 valid requests have been received and are being assessed by the competent authorities.

On the other hand, Arreaza has explained in multiple press statements that there is a difference between the number of amnesty requests received and those granted because several requests do not comply with the law’s conditions or fall outside its scope.

The Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence was approved by the National Assembly of Venezuela on February 19. It covers events that occurred from 1999 to the date of the law’s approval.

Venezuela Releases a Total of 245 Prisoners Under Amnesty Law

The request for amnesty under this law can be submitted by the person accused of or charged with an offense, their defense attorney, or the Attorney General’s Office.

Article 9 of the Amnesty Law establishes that actions or omissions constituting crimes against humanity, serious human rights violations, and war crimes will be excluded from amnesty. Those involved in intentional homicide, serious injuries, kidnapping, extortion, corruption, and drug trafficking are also excluded from the scope of the law.

(Últimas Noticias) by Aura Torrealba, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

71
 
 

This interview with President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, by Luis Hernández Navarro was originally published in the March 26, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.


Havana. The essence of the close relationship between Mexico and Cuba, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, is summarized in the title of a play he presented in these lands: Amor con amor se paga.

The son of a teacher and a disciplined worker, the president explains in an exclusive interview with La Jornada that the US anger against the island stems from its insatiable colonial appetite and the fact that, in 67 years of revolution, Washington has not been able to seize the Caribbean nation.

Díaz-Canel details how talks between Washington and Havana have progressed within a framework of respect for the sovereignty and political systems of both countries.

Visibly moved, he said: “To Mexico, to the Mexican people, to the Mexican government, all our admiration, our respect, our affection, and our commitment. And in particular to Claudia, the Mexican president, who has demonstrated unwavering conviction, unwavering principles, courage, and gallantry. Thank you, Mexico! A thousand times thank you for always standing by Cuba’s side in our nation’s most difficult moments.”

Mr. President, you were born in 1960. The revolution had already triumphed. You have lived your entire life under an economic blockade. What’s new about the fuel embargo? How can you explain to the world the US’s anger against the island?

You’ve made a very accurate observation. I was born in 1960, in the early years of the revolution. By a coincidence of historical dates, I turned one the day after the victory at Playa Girón. But 80 percent of the Cuban population was born after the revolution. Therefore, 80 percent have lived their entire lives under the blockade. My children, our children, have lived under the blockade. Our grandchildren were born under the blockade.

This anger, this hegemonic conception of the blockade and the confrontation between a power like the United States and Cuba, has historical precedents and contextual factors. Among these historical precedents, it is clear that the United States’ desire has always been to seize control of Cuba.

Regarding the elements of the current context, we must first acknowledge the weakening of the hegemonic power that the United States has wielded over the world, due to the emergence of powers that champion multilateralism and offer alternative relationships for nations. Furthermore, a multidimensional crisis of the capitalist system always makes it more aggressive and ultraconservative. It acts in a more irrational and fascist manner. I believe we are witnessing a resurgence of fascism. Consequently, this attitude leads to the unpopularity of anyone who defends their self-determination, promotes a different model, and refuses to be crushed by imperial designs. Such individuals are then attacked in various ways: through economic, political, and diplomatic pressure, as well as media manipulation.

Cuba has lived under blockade for 67 years. However, in the midst of this siege, it has managed to build a just society. A society with unity, convictions, and principles. Many people question Cuba’s economic policies, but it is the Cuban economy, under siege, that has been able to sustain an enormous social program. This has generated a feeling of admiration and recognition of our resistance. But it is not just resistance; it is creative resistance. By resisting, we have been able to build, advance, and develop. The imperialists have not liked that.

Photo: Marco Peláez

In very recent times, this blockade has intensified. This began with the first stage of the Trump administration, which implemented more than 240 measures against Cuba in the second half of 2019, deepening the embargo. They even included us on a list of countries that supposedly support terrorism, which cut off all avenues of financing for the country and led us to a very difficult situation. What we are experiencing is the culmination of 67 years of the blockade and its intensification. The Biden administration maintained this policy.

As the situation worsened, they began cutting off our energy sources, our sources of foreign currency, and restricting tourism. There was enormous pressure on the work of the Cuban medical brigades. In the midst of all this, we faced COVID-19 and had to overcome it with Cuban ingenuity, with Cuban vaccines, with technologies developed by Cuba. We have also experienced the effects of natural disasters. In short, we have lived through a crisis that has brutally impacted the reality of our people and their daily lives, caused by the blockade, COVID-19, and natural disasters.

Now we turn to the events in Venezuela. What happened on January 3rd in Venezuela is a watershed moment for the world. It demonstrates how a superpower, driven by its unbridled desire to exert its hegemony, kidnaps a president and removes him from the country to frame him for a trial in the United States based on lies, fabrications, and slander. In the midst of this situation, they restrict fuel shipments to Cuba. On January 29th, an executive order is issued, declaring Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat to the security of the United States. This is yet another slander, another completely fabricated story.

It’s been almost four months since we last received a drop of fuel. In this situation, it’s very difficult to develop the economy and the lives of a people. But the country endures, it functions, it continues to dream, to plan, and it aspires to achieve greater social justice in order to overcome this situation with determination.

The biggest failure of the United States government in these 67 years of revolution is its inability to seize control of Cuba. That provokes anger. I want to identify that feeling with something the army general explained many years ago: when the revolution triumphed and began to implement a series of measures aimed at independence, sovereignty, and social justice, when it passed the Agrarian Reform Law, it crossed the Rubicon. From then on, they never forgave us for the revolution’s progress. Then came the blockade, the pressures of all these years, the intensification of the conflict, and all this history we’ve reviewed. Undoubtedly, that failure has provoked anger.

You are the son of a teacher and a brewery worker. You are an engineer. Now you are at the head of the Cuban state. Does that personal trajectory summarize the changes in Cuban society since the revolution?

Here you have familiar elements, like a typical Cuban family, which evolved during the revolution. From my mother, I have the example of a dedicated teacher. She always wanted to be a rural teacher, to work with the children of that area. I felt enormous pride in her for that. She raised me with values, also with decency, with proper behavior. My father was a laborer who got up every day at 4 in the morning to get to his job early, which was outside of Santa Clara. He always maintained a strict approach to our education.

In my family, there are figures like my grandparents. A maternal grandfather of Spanish origin, hardworking, optimistic, very poor before the revolution. A loving paternal grandmother, who was also a teacher, a great admirer of Martí. She taught me to believe in Martí. She preached in a very Martí-esque way. Her gifts were always books. She introduced me to systematic reading. An aunt, the daughter of the poet Navarro Luna, influenced my development, even as a communist activist. Furthermore, there was a harmonious family and neighborhood in the block where I lived in Santa Clara. All of that contributed to my upbringing.

I grew up with the feelings of the people. I witnessed the progress and transformations of the revolution in my childhood and youth. Therefore, I consider myself a product of that process of growth. I have an enormous commitment to ensuring that this process continues, that it keeps growing and contributing, so that we can overcome this stage in which our dreams have been stalled. I tell you this with all sincerity: I am prepared to act to the very end. I have an enormous commitment to the Cuban people, to the revolution, its leadership, and our history.

When he speaks about the energy crisis caused by the US strangulation, he does so as an engineer. He has explained to us how there is a crisis in the energy generation model, how they depend on large thermoelectric plants, but how they are changing that pattern with photovoltaic energy. However, the backbone of generation remains thermoelectric plants, which need oil, and Cuba produces only 40 percent of the crude oil it requires. What will they do to solve that problem?

A very interesting question. We do not relinquish our right, like any country in the world, to receive fuel supplies. We do not cover all our electricity generation needs with domestic production. Furthermore, fuel is needed for other economic activities and for the daily life of the country. The energy blockade is, above all, a flagrant violation of our human rights as a people, and a violation of international law. It even goes against the logic of capitalism. They, who talk so much about free trade and the free market, are imposing a criminal energy blockade on us.

There are three directions here. One is to continue developing our energy transition strategy towards renewable sources, which includes not only photovoltaics and hydroelectric power, but also other native sources we are studying. This also includes the use of biomass in power plants that operate on it, and the use of biogas. There is a whole strategy in place in that regard.

Luis Hernández Navarro of La Jornada & President of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel Photo: Marco Peláez

We are also working to further incentivize domestic crude oil and associated gas production. To that end, we are pursuing a strategy of increasing oil well prospecting and exploration, as well as improving our extraction processes. In the first two months of the year, we have been able to halt the decline we had been experiencing in domestic crude oil and associated gas production.

Furthermore, by turning to science, we have found solutions to improve the processing of our domestic crude oil, which is heavy and has a high sulfur content. Nevertheless, we will still have a dependence on hydrocarbon imports, which will decrease as we progress. To this end, we are seeking to build energy cooperation alliances with sister nations. In addition, we are exploring commercial projects that will allow us to diversify and expand our fuel suppliers, with countries that respect Cuba’s sovereignty and are willing to face the challenges of this energy blockade.

Another point is denouncing this genocidal blockade before international organizations, a blockade that violates the human rights of the Cuban people and condemns them to severe limitations. A fourth element is promoting South-South energy cooperation, which would allow for technology transfers, exchanges, and faster progress on all these proposals.

These are our visions, our aspirations. Doing so under these conditions of the US energy blockade is very difficult. But we have solidarity. Last week we received a convoy of members of the solidarity movement with Cuba. We have many people who are buying panels and photovoltaic systems and bringing them to Cuba. The private sector in Cuba itself, with a strong commitment to social responsibility, is promoting renewable energy projects. We have also given this private sector the ability to import fuel to power a range of processes. The private sector can import fuel, and it is doing so.

Socialist countries with communist parties running the state, such as China or Vietnam, have undertaken economic reforms to introduce market mechanisms. Is that on the Cuban agenda?

We maintain a broad relationship with Vietnam and China, countries under construction of socialism. We have a bond of political parties, governments, and peoples. They are nations that are very supportive of Cuba. Our three countries systematically exchange information about their reform processes: China’s, Vietnam’s, and, in our case, the updating of our economic and social model.

The Chinese and Vietnamese have repeatedly emphasized that their reforms and processes have unique characteristics specific to China and Vietnam. We, too, have our own unique characteristics. We are an island nation, a small island, located 90 miles from the United States and heavily blockaded. We have developed significant human capital and a skilled workforce. We have well-established universal education and healthcare systems, and a level of scientific and technological development that distinguishes us and gives us strength.

We are carrying out a process of updating our economic and social model, which began or was deepened at the Sixth Party Congress. We have achieved a series of transformations that we seek to accelerate, with Cuban characteristics. It is not about copying. It is a Cuban system, but one that shares elements with the Chinese and Vietnamese models. For example, the leadership of the Communist Party, as the guiding force of society, is enshrined in our Constitution. A strong state. An efficient government. An agile public administration, freed from bureaucracy. A proper relationship between centralized planning and the market. The necessary market regulations to prevent speculation. Harmony between the state and non-state sectors. That all economic actors contribute to the country’s economic and social development.

This combination of elements should allow us to achieve sustainable, socially just, inclusive, and equitable development. It should enable us to achieve food sovereignty, strengthen science and innovation, and develop digital transformation and artificial intelligence processes in our society. We must continue to strengthen universal public social services, guarantee the rights to education, health, sports, and culture, and boost our economy in every sector, while maintaining international cooperation. That is the direction we are heading. We are doing so under very difficult conditions, because all of this entails investment, requires transformations, and dismantling bureaucracies and ingrained habits. And we are doing it amidst a situation of being under siege, with the blockade intensifying.

You announced the possibility that Cubans living outside the island could invest. Are there specific guidelines on how this investment would work? Isn’t there a risk of social stratification?

We have evaluated all of these factors. We must acknowledge that in recent years the number of Cubans and Cuban families residing abroad, whether temporarily or for longer periods, has increased. Our government is committed to listening to them, welcoming them, providing them with services and support, and giving them the opportunity to participate in our economic and social model and contribute to the country’s development.

This has been a long-standing effort. Fidel, in 1978, initiated a dialogue with the Cuban community abroad. This was followed by four conferences on the nation and immigration. There has been an ongoing exchange. Lately, we have been holding meetings in countries with Cuban communities, at the regional level. When we make working visits abroad, we meet with representatives of Cuban residents. We have a dossier of proposals, aspirations, motivations, projects, and concerns that we have analyzed and presented.

That analysis led us to improve our policy, to refine and update it for Cubans residing abroad, where we made several things more flexible. Many of these changes relate to their investments in our country.

Photo: Marco Peláez

Their investment in our country is carried out in accordance with our legal framework. There is oversight and regulations in place, just as foreign investment from any entity must comply with, or as companies, both private and state-owned, must comply with in our country.

All our observations are important to prevent the involvement of Cubans residing abroad with capital subservient to the interests of circles outside Cuba, linked to policies seeking to change the sociopolitical system or to subversive programs. We must maintain vigilance and control.

I believe that with the unity that exists in our people, with ideological clarity and with the defense of the legality of the country, and also, with the understanding of those who come with a commitment to participate in the development of their nation, this whole process can be feasible and beneficial.

Regarding the talks with the United States, you have established a critical path: initiating conversations, aligning agendas, advancing on possible solutions, and then implementing them. Always, you say, within the framework of respect for sovereignty and respectful treatment. Where are you at on that path, and who are the actors participating?

At this time, there has been a conversation between Cuban officials and State Department officials, which was facilitated by international factors.

He’s not going to tell us what they are…

No. These processes are very sensitive. They have to do with bilateral relations and ties between countries, with the whole history of misunderstandings.

Although the Vatican has played a role in the past.

Don’t provoke me… I’m not going to say it. I believe we must respect the discretion inherent in these processes, in these conversations. As we explained, this is in line with a historical practice of the Cuban Revolution. We have always expressed our willingness to engage in dialogue with the United States on any issue, but always based on respect for both political systems. Respect for sovereignty, unity with a principle of reciprocity, and adherence to international law.

Now, the important thing is that both sides show the will and readiness to continue advancing the dialogue. That, on that basis, we identify the bilateral differences that we can resolve. That both sides have the will to implement measures that help and benefit both peoples. That we find areas of cooperation that allow us to confront threats and, above all, guarantee peace and security for both nations and the region. That we find ways to build spaces of understanding that allow us to move forward and move us away from confrontation. For that, we need an agenda, the willingness to develop its points, and to reach agreements. We are at that point.

Is President Díaz-Canel an obstacle to this dialogue process or is he a factor in its favour?

In Cuba, processes like these cannot be personalized. In Cuba, there is a collegial, collective leadership that is also accountable to its people. We must answer to the people, to the supreme body of the nation, which is the National Assembly of People’s Power. What I defend, what we defend collectively, is not the purpose or idea of ​​a single individual. It is the consistent practice of the revolution.

Undoubtedly, one realizes there’s media manipulation surrounding this. Sometimes they label you, calling you more or less of a bureaucrat, an obstacle, or inflexible. I believe this is part of a media manipulation strategy used to reinforce the unconventional war against our country, a strategy that has one fundamental element: reputation assassination.

Photo: Marco Peláez

The decision to engage in dialogue with the United States is a collective one. Our political system and any decisions made by our people and parliamentary bodies are not at stake in this decision. Therefore, my continued service, or that of anyone else who may at any given time hold a position of this level of responsibility in our country, depends on the people. And it also depends on the representatives of those people in the National Assembly of People’s Power, not on the United States.

You have acknowledged that, within the context of the tightening of the noose, there is discontent and that this discontent is legitimate. Is there a way to channel it so that it can be expressed creatively? Would transformations in the mechanisms of popular representation be necessary?

Life is very hard. The Cuban people are generous, supportive, resilient, and resourceful. There are places where we’ve had blackouts lasting 30 or even 40 hours. Today, people are limited in how they get around and how they get to work because of the fuel shortage. The early mornings become labourious because, if there’s even a little electricity, it’s the time to cook, preserve food, and do a bunch of other daily chores around the house.

We’ve had to adapt the way our school year operates. This requires a significant effort from all teaching staff and affects our young people and children. Today, our healthcare system is suffering tremendously. Just look at how criminal this energy blockade is. We’re talking about a country that knows how to do these things, that has a robust healthcare system, that knows how to operate, that has the capacity, without the blockade, to avoid waiting lists for surgeries, because it has the entire system of medical institutions to do so.

In our efforts to produce food, sometimes we have the food but struggle to distribute it because we lack fuel for transportation. People have had to adapt their cooking methods. Every Cuban kitchen has become a wood-burning or charcoal stove. It’s very difficult to have that in apartment buildings. Communal kitchens have sprung up. Everyone respects each other, everyone helps out. But look at the hardships we face. I would ask, how many people could endure such a situation? Only a people like ours, who deserve a monument.

It was precisely your country’s former President, López Obrador, a great friend of Cuba, who expressed that the Cuban people deserved a monument. I believe that monument doesn’t have to be made of marble or stone. It could simply be a gesture that is within the power of the United States government and its president: lifting the blockade that violates the human rights of ten million Cubans.

So, amidst this situation, this complexity, there is dissatisfaction. No one can be happy living through all of this. To the extent that we explain and engage with the people, we can help them understand that the culprit is neither the revolution nor the Cuban government. The Cuban government does not work to upset the people. On the contrary, it works to find solutions in the midst of this very complex situation. We have a humanist vocation; this pains us deeply. We are part of this people.

It must be understood that this escalation is an act of war against the Cuban people. There is also the media manipulation that accompanies this blockade and attempts to capitalize on what could be protests against the government. Most of the dissatisfied people are dissatisfied because they have a problem, because they have suffered a prolonged blackout, because we haven’t been able to restore their electricity for days. They go to the institutions of the Party, the government, the country. They go to the institutions that represent them. They have confidence in these institutions. They go, and the leaders of these places face them. They explain things, and where possible, they try to mitigate the situation, even by involving the people.

Unfortunately, there are others who, because of these same manipulations, because money is involved, express themselves in a vandalistic manner. And that has to do with other things. It has to do with subversion, with behavior that disrupts the internal order and requires a different kind of treatment.

We have a will. And we are doing it because there have always been spaces for greater popular participation and mechanisms that we must improve. I always say: everything we do, everything we set out to do, must have a foundation in popular participation. It needs to have at least three fundamental elements. There must be spaces for people to voice their problems, raise their doubts and concerns, and make proposals. A space for the governing mechanisms and institutions to channel these proposals and make decisions. These decisions are then shared with the community, and the community, along with the institutions, participates in implementing them. And within this participatory process, there must also be popular oversight. So, there is institutional oversight, combined with popular oversight. That is a harmonious system of popular power.

With the labor adjustments we’ve had to make, people are spending more time in their communities than in their traditional workplaces, social centers, or educational institutions. Therefore, there needs to be an improvement in the work of the municipal assemblies of people’s power, at the community institutional level, and in the community-level governance structures, such as the people’s councils and district delegates, along with all community institutions. There needs to be a shift in the behavior or redesign of the activities of mass organizations, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), women’s groups, social organizations, student organizations, and even workers’ organizations, because workers are now spending more time in their communities.

There is enormous potential. We’ve been sharing this with a group of women. We’ll be sharing it tomorrow with a group of outstanding young people. We need to have systematic spaces for debate with different sectors of society. These organizations can focus on addressing all the problems that are so acutely felt in the community. If we harness all the potential of our people in each community, addressing issues of vulnerability, disadvantage, support for the school year, municipal self-sufficiency, and community-based markets, there’s an impressive field of participation, relationships, and social dynamics. That’s what we’re promoting and refining.

Is there a failed state in Cuba?

It’s a very hypocritical and unjust construct. The country that imposes a blockade to deprive you of everything and leads you to difficult situations calls you a failed state when it’s the one responsible for those problems. What a strange failed state we are! We maintain coherence, direction, harmony; we resist. As a people, we continue to come together and share solidarity with the entire world. We are not isolated. The world doesn’t recognize us as a failed state. On the contrary, what it recognizes is how we are able to continue functioning on this basis of creative resistance amidst so much coercion, so much pressure, and so much aggression. And it has to do with the strength of our people’s unity.

It’s very common for the leaders of the revolution, at any level—local, municipal, provincial, national—to visit these places and interact with the people. I myself have a system of working with comrades from the party. We systematically go to the provinces, we visit the municipalities. We’re on our second or third tour of every municipality in the country these past few years. When we go there, in addition to reviewing and analyzing economic and social development programs, we meet with the people. There are always two or three thousand people gathered in the plazas, with whom we can interact extensively. A failed state can’t do that. There are states that don’t consider themselves failed, and a president or a leader doesn’t have that opportunity to be among the people. It’s another hypocritical construct they use to try to fragment unity and distort our reality.

Mr. President, Cuba has been extraordinarily supportive of the world. It actively participated in the fight against colonialism in Africa and in national liberation struggles in Latin America. Cuban blood has been spilled on many continents. Most recently, that of the 32 heroes who defended President Maduro before he was kidnapped. Do you believe there has been reciprocity for all the solidarity they have shown?

We have offered solidarity out of conviction. There is a Martí precept that “homeland is humanity.” Fidel developed this with his concept of internationalism, of international solidarity. He took it to its highest expression. There is also the example of Che. We have never gone to a country to invade. When we have participated in actions to defend a country, it has been at that country’s request. From Angola and Africa, we only take our dead; we take no riches. We receive nothing in return but recognition. African blood runs through our veins. It is in our origins. It is in the formation of Cuban identity.

We have always stood on the side of just causes. We have defended the Palestinian people, the Sahrawi people. We defended Vietnam during the war with the United States. We have defended the integration of the Caribbean and the Americas.

And so the issue of the medical brigades, which the United States government is now so vehemently attacking, has been present. They want to portray them as a form of human trafficking. We have always stood on the side of just causes. We have defended the Palestinian people, the Sahrawi people. We defended Vietnam during the war with the United States. We have defended the integration of the Caribbean and the Americas. We have developed missions at the continental level that have allowed several countries to eliminate illiteracy using a Cuban method. Operation Miracle restored sight to millions of people in our region. We have provided free training, primarily to thousands of young people from every continent. Even amidst this complex situation, we maintain a project like the Latin American School of Medical Students.

And we have done this out of conviction. And we have received reciprocity. Cuba is not isolated, which is another narrative they are trying to impose right now. Recently, we received hundreds of people: representatives of solidarity movements, of political parties of different political persuasions, representatives of the people, and of social movements. They came and brought material aid by boat, on long voyages, using their own resources and with tremendous dedication. They brought medicine, food, and photovoltaic panels to alleviate the energy situation. But above all, they came to share their hearts and support, which gives us energy and shows us that Cuba is not isolated, that it is not alone. We have reciprocally received that support, that aid, and that interest.

And what more can be said about the Mexican people? There’s the appeal made by La Jornada, the one from UNAM, the one made by President AMLO, the way in which Mexican governors and political figures have donated part of their monthly salaries. The way in which the Mexican people have mobilized to collect and send aid to Cuba is impressive.

It seems that the genocide in Gaza sparked a new awareness among young people and a capacity for mobilization and protest. Do you think this could be extended to Cuba, or has it already happened?

It doesn’t extend to Cuba because it’s already here. Our youth, the generations that share the revolution today, were born and raised witnessing the example of the Palestinian people, suffering the genocide against them. Fidel was one of the people who, on an international scale, in international forums, most forcefully denounced the genocide against the Palestinian people. When I was a university student, there were young Palestinians studying at my faculty, and we became friends with them. Today, hundreds of young Palestinians are studying in our country, and we have met with them regularly.

What is stirring in the world as a sentiment was already a conviction among Cuban generations, and particularly among young people. Recent events among Cuban youth have further strengthened these anti-imperialist convictions. Beyond the Palestinian issue, this maturation of ideas and convictions, which is beginning to spread globally and advocates for multilateralism, against militarism and aggression, and for a more inclusive and just international economic order, takes Cuba as its point of reference. These are the values ​​that Cuba has always defended. Without Cuban chauvinism, we have played a leading role internationally, thanks to the development of these convictions within our own national process.

The issue isn’t whether it spreads to Cuba: it already exists there. The issue is how Cuba, based on its revolutionary practice, its historical experience, and its struggle, manages to radicalize that position and contribute to its expansion and understanding among many people around the world. That’s what we can contribute.

President, to conclude: is there anything you would like to say to the people of Mexico?

That’s the most difficult question. Talking about Mexico, expressing in words the feelings we have toward Mexico, is impossible for me. I’m going to try to string together expressions that might reflect the magnitude of those feelings, which are very strong, of how Cuba and Cubans see Mexico.

Mexico is the sister nation that has always stood by Cuba, in good times and bad. The one that has always been with us, the one that has never wavered. Let us remember the 1960s, when the whole world turned its back on us due to pressure from the United States, yet Mexico remained steadfast. For Cubans, Mexico holds a very special place in their hearts. With all that history and culture, it has opened its arms to welcome Cuba’s sons and daughters on countless occasions, some of whom are among the most representative figures. From Heredia to Martí, from Mella to Fidel and the Centennial Generation. Thousands of personalities, thousands of events, thousands of anecdotes come to mind, all connected to that shared history that unites us.

José Martí

How many people stood alongside Benito Juárez during the Mexican Revolution? How many Mexicans fought in our wars of independence? Our artists? How many Cuban-Mexican families are there? It’s a deeply personal relationship.

There is a very important fact. When Martí lived in Mexico, at only 22 years old, he presented a work to the Mexican public called Amor con amor se paga (“Love is Repaid with Love”). I believe that there, in that phrase, in the title of that work, lies the essence of our deep relationship. To Mexico, to the Mexican people, to the Mexican government, all our admiration, our respect, our affection, and our commitment. And in particular to Claudia, the Mexican president, who has demonstrated unwavering convictions, unwavering principles, courage, and gallantry. Mexico and the president of Mexico have no idea how many Cubans would like to personally thank their president for everything she has done for Cuba during these times. We feel tremendous respect and tremendous admiration for her and for her people.

Thank you, Mexico! A thousand times thank you for always standing by Cuba’s side in our nation’s most difficult moments.

Many thanks to La Jornada, Carmen Lira, and her entire team. It’s a tremendous opportunity for us to be able to reach out to their readers as well.

The post “Mexico is the sister land that has always stood by Cuba, in good times & bad.” appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

72
 
 

This article by Daniela Wachauf originally appeared in the March 26, 2026 edition of El Universal.

The Mexican Navy (SEMAR) reported that it activated the Navy Plan to locate two sailboats carrying nine crew members of different nationalities, with the objective of delivering humanitarian aid in Havana, Cuba.

These ships set sail on March 20 from Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo “without any communication or confirmation of their arrival to date.”

The vessels were scheduled to arrive between March 24 and 25, so the protocols were activated, in compliance with the responsibility of the Mexican State to safeguard human life at sea.

In a statement, the agency indicated that as part of the actions implemented, the Naval Commands of the Fifth Naval Region, Ninth Naval Zone, based in Isla Mujeres and Yucalpetén, were alerted.

As well as the Naval Search, Rescue and Maritime Surveillance Stations (ENSAR) of those commands, in addition to issuing notices to the maritime community, with the purpose of expanding location capabilities.

Only two days ago, the US government murdered four people in the Caribbean (the latest atrocity in its illegal blood-soaked campaign which has killed at least 163 in the Caribbean & Pacific in over 45 air strikes) highlighting how dangerous the Caribbean is.

Also, inter-institutional coordination was established with the Port Captaincy of Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, technical bodies for the analysis of maritime information, which allows strengthening the planning of operations and optimizing decision-making.

The Mexican Navy (SEMAR) emphasized that international coordination is maintained through communication with shipping agencies and Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers (MRCCs) in Poland, France, Cuba, and the United States, as well as diplomatic representations of the countries of origin of the people on board, in order to strengthen cooperation and the exchange of information in real time.

Regarding field operations, surface and air units have been deployed, including Persuader aircraft, which are carrying out maritime and air search patterns on the estimated route between Isla Mujeres and Havana, considering the planned course, possible points of change of course, as well as the prevailing weather conditions and sea currents in the region.

“Likewise, permanent monitoring and continuous analysis of available information is maintained, which allows for the updating of the search action plan and the definition of probable drift zones, with the aim of increasing the probability of locating the vessels,” the agency emphasized.

Furthermore, he called upon the national and international maritime community, including commercial, fishing, recreational vessels and platforms operating in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, to immediately report any information or sightings of the aforementioned vessels to the nearest naval authorities.

The actions are carried out under international search and rescue protocols, prioritizing at all times the protection of human life at sea.

The Mexican Navy reiterated its commitment to use all available resources to locate the vessels and safeguard their crews.

Adnaan Stumo, Maritime Coordinator for the Nuestra América Flotilla to Cuba, who explained in a March 20th interview before departing, that the flotilla has “to arrive as soon as possible because there are a lot of people waiting for us there.” Stumo had previously been kidnapped by israeli forces in October of last year as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying aid to Gaza.

Ships Were Part of the Nuestra América Flotilla Initiative

Last Friday, March 20, EL UNIVERSAL reported that two ships from the Nuestra América Flotilla initiative, made up of 10 crew members, including a four-year-old child, were preparing to leave Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico , bound for Cuba.

According to the mission coordinator, Adnaan Stumo, the mission consisted of two catamarans named Friends ship and Tiger moth, with between two and three tons of medicines and food supplies.

The names of the crew members are Adnaan, Alexis, Andres, Ayla, Claire, Hugo, Ira, Kun, Pierre, and the minor, who joined the departure of a larger vessel called Granma II, which had set sail from Yucatan.

A 24 meter shrimp-boat, known as the Granma II (formerly known as the Maguro) was also part of the flotilla departing from Mexico, but arrived in San Cristóbal Cuba on the morning of March 24th after an 85 hour journey.

The post Mexican Navy Searching for Two Nuestra América Flotilla Sailboats That Disappeared in Caribbean en Route to Cuba appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

73
 
 

This article by Aníbal García Fernández originally appeared in the March 24, 2026 edition of Revista Contralínea.

Oil is the engine of the world and, particularly, of capitalism. However, it is a finite resource, so finite that some analyses indicate that global oil production has already passed; others place the decline in global production around 2027-2028, and still others until 2040. Mexico has just over nine years of oil reserves and seven years of gas reserves remaining. Therefore, it is important to strengthen energy sovereignty, but even more so, energy security.

On March 18, 1938, Mexico opposed the continued privatization of its resources. This date is significant because it marked an international milestone with the expropriation of oil from U.S. companies; it also ended a years-long conflict with oil workers and served as a precedent for future expropriations in other countries.

The oil expropriation is deeply linked to the Mexican Constitution and the application of Article 27. As Lorenzo Meyer mentioned in his book Las raíces del nacionalismo petrolero en México (“The Roots of Oil Nationalism in Mexico”), after the Mexican Revolution the United States government interpreted that, if the 1917 Constitution were implemented, “not only would the material interests of American capitalists have been affected, but even their political hegemony would have been reduced in their still small but growing area of ​​influence.”

It is under this interpretation that the application of the Mexican Constitution, from its inception, has served as a bulwark against the hegemony of the neighboring country, as it protects national resources and sovereignty. This explains why successive governments of that nation have made countless efforts to amend it, particularly Article 27, along with Articles 25 and 28, which regulate energy in our country and the economic model. These efforts, of course, include the Mexican political and economic elite who subscribe to these unpatriotic principles.

However, energy security is equally important. Its defining element is the relationship between hydrocarbon reserves and production in our country. But it must be clear that energy security goes beyond this, considering energy a public good provided by the State to ensure the continuity, reliability, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability of fuel and electricity supply as pillars of development.

Perhaps, as a result of international events, it will become increasingly relevant to consider minerals as part of energy security, but that is another topic for future discussion.

Oil Reserves & Production in Mexico

Mexico has 9.8 years of oil reserves remaining. According to data from PEMEX’s Directorate of Planning, Coordination, Performance, and Sustainability, proven crude oil reserves in 2024 are 5.293 billion barrels of oil equivalent . Meanwhile, oil production, according to the state-owned company, is 1,485 barrels per day. Therefore, in scenario “A,” where no new reserves are added and the current production rate is maintained, Mexico has oil reserves until 2033.

If probable reserves (which have a recovery confidence level of 50 percent or more) are added, and with the same rate of oil production, Mexico has 17 more years .

It is important to remember that the country’s oil production peaked in 2004, reaching a maximum output of over 3,380 barrels per day. From then on, production declined, as did reserves, as shown in Figure 1.

Chart 1. Crude oil reserves by six-year term

However, the outlook for gas is not so different. Mexico’s reserves are only 7.3 years long, considering proven reserves in 2024 and production for the same year. If probable reserves are included, the national reserves would be 13 years long, that is, until 2037.

The main culprits for the loss of sovereignty and energy security are the PRI and PAN governments, which prioritized the export of crude oil, the loss of oil transformation processes, the division of the petrochemical industry, and the division of PEMEX to bankrupt it.

To illustrate the above, during the neoliberal period, according to the agency’s data, 562 oil wells were drilled under Carlos Salinas, producing 13.25 million barrels per day; under Ernesto Zedillo, 1,089 wells were drilled, producing 17.486 million barrels per day. However, the extractive focus was on Felipe Calderón — a illegitimate president, as President Sheinbaum has stated — since during his six-year term, 6,211 wells were drilled, and production barely reached 16.146 million barrels per day .

With President López Obrador and the program to recover sovereignty, but above all, energy security (a broader concept and just as important as sovereignty), with 1,123 wells, production reached 10 million 581 thousand barrels per day.

Figure 2. Wells drilled and oil production by six-year term

Mexico has not made any major oil well discoveries. The last one was Cantarell in the 1970s, and under Andrés Lajous’s administration at Pemex, it was decided to inject nitrogen into it, resulting in a loss of production, and what was once the second largest oil field in the world began to decline.

Thus, the graph above shows that with Calderón and Peña Nieto, the two Presidents of the privatizing energy reforms, more oil wells were required and production declined, that is, a loss of productivity was generated.

But there is another factor: the decline of oil fields in Mexico. Viewed historically, as shown in the following graph, the country is already in a declining phase. A clear example of this situation is that in 2004, the 200 wells in Cantarell produced more than the 4,255 national wells in 2021. The difference is staggering: they produced 25 times more than in 2021.

Figure 3. Number and volume of crude oil and fields discovered (1900-2015)

According to data estimated by UNAM researchers Luca Ferrari and Diana Hernández in their text Hydrocarbons Sector: Historical Evolution, Current Situation, and Scenarios on Energy Sovereignty —published by the then-CONAHCYT in 2024—, in 2000 Cantarell accounted for 60 percent of national production with 200 wells. By 2021, the Ku, Maloob, and Zaap fields, along with the next six highest-producing fields, represented 62 percent, with 356 wells and an average production of 3,033 barrels per day. The remaining 38 percent was covered by 200 fields with 3,899 wells.

But the most relevant point is that, in 2000, the relationship between investment and daily barrel yield was considerable. For every million pesos invested, 66 barrels per day were obtained; in 2018, this figure was only 11, an 83 percent reduction; and in 2020, the yield continued to decline, as shown in the following graph .

Chart 4. Investment in Pemex for exploration and production and yield in barrels per day extracted for every million pesos invested per year

That’s why a state and a public company that guarantee the oil supply are so important, as is a public policy that views energy as a good and a service, not just a commodity. In fact, PEMEX has a National Strategy for Reactivating Closed Wells with Opportunities dating back to 2025.

The Global Energy Crisis

The global energy crisis is rarely discussed until significant international events occur, many of them geopolitical in nature. However, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, one news item that went largely unnoticed was that of peak oil. In 2020, Rystad Energy stated that, according to its analysis, global oil demand would reach its maximum of 102 million barrels per day in 2028.

Equinor predicted a collapse in production in 2027 or 2028; the French firm Total placed it in 2030; McKinsey in 2033; and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 2040. Beyond the companies’ analyses of international oil production data, the decline in the rate of oil reserve discovery since the 1980s is evident.

Between 1981 and 1990, the annual growth rate of international oil reserves was 3.8 percent. The following decade (1991-2000) saw a decrease to 1.9 percent; from 2001 to 2010 it increased to 2.3 percent, before declining again from 2011 to 2020 to 0.3 percent.

Easily extracted oil is running out, it is becoming increasingly expensive, the remaining reserves are more contested, and consumption, although it has slowed down, continues to grow; and the dispute pits powers with military and nuclear power against each other.

According to some analyses, our main trading partner, the United States, has six more years of oil left at the production rate and reserves of 2023. And in gas, they still have 20 more years at the production rate and proven reserves of 2024.

It is important to remember that our energy matrix relies heavily on natural gas, which is supplied by imports for 74 to 76 percent of our needs. Some of this gas is injected into the energy system to generate electricity, a significant problem of energy dependence resulting from neoliberal policies.

In his appearance before the Mexican Congress in 2025, the director of PEMEX, Dr. Víctor Rodríguez Padilla – also an expert in energy security – stated: “The vision of the President of the Republic, who is an expert in climate change and global warming, and all the measures to counteract, prevent, and adapt to climate change, is that the country’s resilience lies in not exceeding 1.8 million barrels per day. Maintaining that level of 1.8 million barrels per day is essential to stabilize income and to safeguard our dwindling oil reserves for the long term. Because, as I was saying, the transition is not easy; it is a long process, and this has been seen in Europe. We cannot accelerate the transition, no matter how much we might want to, because it would destabilize the country.”

At the 2025 Energy Forum held in August of that year in the Senate of the Republic, the director of PEMEX also opened a debate that the Mexican population needs to have: there are unconventional resources in the country that would allow us to extend national oil and gas reserves a little longer, as well as gain energy security; but it involves deciding whether or not to allow fracking with new technology.

The post PEMEX & Energy Security in the Face of the International Crisis appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

74
 
 

One day before the hearing scheduled for March 26, in which Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are to appear before US courts, the defense team has publicly denounced the United States government for attempting to prevent the president from being able to pay for his legal representation.

In this regard, in an interview with Sputnik, Venezuelan political scientist Carolina Escarrá warns that this type of action reflects the political and economic nature of the process, above any legal basis.

The specialist maintains that the hearing will be resolved more by geopolitical negotiations than by legal arguments and that Washington has acted from the outset with a clear interest: to control the natural resources of the Venezuela.

For Escarrá, the “kidnapping” of Maduro responds to “an economic interest, of transnationals linked to the [US] political elite… They had to generate a commotion in Venezuela to access oil, gold, and rare earths.”

**The dismantling of the “Cartel de los Soles”**One of the central elements she highlights is the modification of the original accusation after the detention.

Escarrá notes that the 2020 indictment, promoted by then-Attorney General William Barr, “was full of elements linked to the Cartel de los Soles.” However, after President Maduro’s abduction, the charges underwent significant changes.

“When they get to President Nicolás Maduro and the First Lady, Cilia Flores, they immediately modify that indictment, and there are only two mentions [of the Cartel de los Soles]. It is as if it were no longer the name of a cartel but of a political culture of corruption,” explained the analyst. “That is how they handle it in the complaint itself,” she added.

This modification, in Escarrá’s view, makes it possible “to perceive that it is not really a matter of drug trafficking, nor related to organized crime or anything of the sort, but that there was a deeper political and economic reason,” she states.

The political scientist further contextualizes: “The kidnapping and prosecution of President Maduro respond to the US security strategy, in which Washington openly admits it seeks to counterbalance China in the region, for which it needs the continent’s natural resources.”

“Venezuela has always been like a containment barrier against the power that the US holds over the rest of the continent,” she argues.

Violations of due processRegarding expectations for the March 26 hearing, Escarrá considers the scenario uncertain and dependent on political negotiations. The analyst refers to the concept by analyst Alfredo Clemente of the “fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.”

“This thesis raises the question: what is the origin, what is the underlying reason behind this entire trial? And the only answer is a financial and geopolitical reason that seeks to remove China… from Venezuela and from the region itself,” she asserts.

Escarrá warns that what is at stake is not a conventional judicial process. “This is not an act of justice or legal procedure… but an act of supremacy of force, closely linked to the entire vision of Manifest Destiny, of US supremacism, of imposing things as they see fit,” she recalls.

From the standpoint of international law, the analyst underscores the irregularity of the process.

“International law is clearly being violated here, because one cannot try the president of another country, nor can one do so in courts that are not of that country,” she states.

The expert also indicates that even US domestic law is being violated.

Unexpected obstaclesClemente argued that under US jurisprudence from the case Zivotofsky v. Kerry, recognition of a foreign government is an exclusive power of the president, meaning that New York courts would be obliged to accept the legitimacy of President Maduro’s mandate and, therefore, his sovereign immunity.

He adds that the doctrine of estoppel (acts of one’s own) would prevent the United States from recognizing acting president Delcy Rodríguez as the legal authority of Venezuela while maintaining a judicial process against the figure from whom her authority originates.

“Trump has boxed himself into a legal dead end,” said Clemente. “If the government of Delcy Rodríguez is legal, then the origin of her power [the appointment and mandate signed by Maduro] must be legal by necessity.”

“This is where the doctrine of acts of one’s own, known in Latin as estoppel, comes into play,” explained Clemente. “This rule says that a state cannot go against what it has already recognized. The United States cannot recognize the ‘flower’ [Rodríguez’s administration] and pretend that the ‘root’ [Maduro’s mandate] does not exist or is ‘criminal.’ It is a legal absurdity: one cannot say on Saturday that a government is legal and on Monday try to prosecute the man who gave life to that government.”

The specialist also emphasized that blocking Venezuelan funds to prevent President Maduro from paying his chosen lawyer constitutes a “structural error” that, according to the US Supreme Court ruling United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, would irreversibly invalidate the trial.

For the analyst, Washington’s recognition not only confirms the legitimacy of the Venezuelan president in the eyes of the US regime but also exposes that the military assault of January 3 was an illegal act of war and outlines a roadmap that includes a habeas corpus motion and dismissal of the case in the future.

Behind the DOJ’s Politicized Indictment of Maduro: A CIA-Created ‘Network’ and Coerced Star Witness

(Noticias LatAm)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/CB/SL


From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

75
 
 

This article by Carlos Álvarez Acevedo originally appeared in the March 26, 2026 edition of Zeta Tijuana.

Eight members of the United States Army irregularly entered Mexican territory in the city of Nogales, Sonora, on March 25, 2026, to carry out reinforcement work on the international border fence.

The US military personnel reinforced the train’s access gate located on the border strip with barbed wire, an activity they continued working on for approximately one hour inside Mexican soil.

According to eyewitnesses, officers of the Mexican National Guard (GN) approached the U.S. military personnel and argued with them, demanding they return to their country. Far from complying, the U.S. military personnel called in additional troops carrying high-powered weapons and remained within Mexican territory.

A Mexican citizen also approached the U.S. soldiers to confront them, demanding they withdraw and stating that their presence constituted an invasion of Mexican territory. The soldiers ignored him.

During the incident, personnel from the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) were present at the scene, some of them dressed in civilian clothes, and they simply observed and took photographs of what was happening.

The incident concluded at approximately 1:30 p.m. that same day, when the U.S. military personnel finished their work and quietly withdrew to their country without any further consequences being reported.




The post US Military Illegally Entered Mexico in Nogales, Sonora appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.


From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

view more: ‹ prev next ›