2 Trapped Workers Rescued from Hydropower Tunnel 9 Days after Nepal Floods

The United States has imposed new sanctions on Cuba in a push that critics say is designed to deepen the island’s economic and energy crises. The measures target Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Abapet, Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import Company.

“

The US is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible.

Abapet imports specialized equipment and spare parts used to maintain Cuba’s deteriorating power grid. Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the sanctions could push critical machinery offline and make maintenance parts more costly. That, he said, would raise inflation and put further pressure on the Cuban economy.

“The US is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible,” Erickson said, according to The Associated Press. He said the Trump administration appeared unwilling to accept any change from Cuba other than the “toppling of regime,” and predicted that Havana would seek alternative ways to obtain the parts it needs.

“

The goal in theory is to create so much civilian hardship and suffering that they have no option but to essentially rise up and topple their government.

Cuba is already facing increasingly frequent islandwide blackouts. Daily outages have exceeded 24 hours as the aging grid fails and fuel reserves decline, after President Donald Trump threatened tariffs in late January against countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba. Erickson said the policy sought to create enough hardship to trigger a revolt and called it “an attempt to cause a humanitarian crisis.”

“

The blockade is a genocide.

Talks between Washington and Havana held earlier this year have stopped, while sanctions have expanded to smaller state companies. Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga blamed the United States before the latest measures were announced, saying, “The blockade is a genocide.” Yaqueline Bernal, a 49-year-old Cuban, said she had been without electricity since Sunday and feared for her eight young grandchildren. “If we don’t have power, we don’t have water,” she said. “You really don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

“

If we don’t have power, we don’t have water. You really don’t know what’s going to happen to you.