Buoyed by his removal of Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the US president is intensifying an economic stranglehold and military menace<\/p>\n
While the world watched the pomp of Donald Trump\u2019s trip to Beijing, the US was turning up the pressure thousands of miles away. Its oil blockade<\/a> has plunged Cuba into a humanitarian crisis, sparking nationwide blackouts that have prompted rare protests, closing schools and universities and leaving hospitals battling to treat patients. Surveillance\u00a0flights\u00a0are circling. US media reported this weekend that federal prosecutors are preparing an indictment<\/a> for Ra\u00fal Castro, the 94-year-old former president and brother of Fidel. Mr\u00a0Trump has casually observed, while bragging about the kidnapping of Venezuela\u2019s then leader<\/a> Nicol\u00e1s\u00a0Maduro in January, that \u201cCuba is next\u201d.<\/p>\n A military assault on Havana would be vastly more fraught for the US \u2013 even without the war on Iran \u2013 and disastrous for Cubans. Washington hopes that threats and privation<\/a> will be sufficient. UN experts warn<\/a> that the blockade is unlawful, puts human rights at risk and may amount to collective punishment. The government admitted on Wednesday that fuel oil had run out<\/a>. Tourism has collapsed. The Canadian mining company Sherritt pulled out<\/a> of a joint venture and countries have axed their contracts for Cuban doctors<\/a> \u2013 a vital source of income for the island, and trained medical staff for others. Havana may hope that it can stagger on. But Mr Trump is not patient.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Buoyed by his removal of Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the US president is intensifying an economic stranglehold and military menace While the world watched the pomp of Donald Trump\u2019s trip to Beijing, the US was turning up the pressure thousands of miles away. Its oil blockade has plunged Cuba into a humanitarian crisis, sparking nationwide blackouts … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}