The U.S. embassy in Cuba warned Americans in \u200bthe country on Tuesday that there was a spike in government-sponsored protests against Washington and that some U.S. citizens were denied entry upon arrival. It also said American citizens in Cuba \u2060should prepare for “significant disruption” from power outages and fuel shortages. WHY IT’S IMPORTANT In \u200crecent weeks, Washington has \u2060moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and \u200dtransportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts. KEY QUOTES “Take precautions by conserving fuel, water, food and mobile phone charge, and be prepared for \u2060significant disruption,” the U.S. embassy noted on its website, saying Cuba’s national electrical grid is increasingly unstable and prolonged power outages are a daily occurrence. “U.S. citizens in Cuba or planning to travel to \u200cCuba are advised that there have been incide
nts of U.S. citizens being denied entry upon arrival as well as a spike in regime-sponsored protest activity \u2060directed at the United States, including anti-U.S. rhetoric.” CONTEXT Emboldened by the U.S. military’s seizure of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a deadly raid last month that President Donald Trump ordered, the Republican leader has talked of acting against \u2060Cuba and pressuring its leadership. The U.N. human rights office has said the U.S. raid in which Maduro was seized was a violation of international law and \u200dhuman rights experts cast Trump’s focus on exploiting Venezuelan oil as echoing an imperialist approach. Trump has said “Cuba will be failing pretty soon,” adding that Venezuela, once the \u200cisland’s top \u200bsupplier, has not recently sent oil \u200cor money to Cuba. Trump has also threatened tariffs on goods from countries supplying oil to Cuba. Cuba’s deputy foreign minister told Reuters on Monday Cuba and \u200cthe U.S. are in communication,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. embassy in Cuba warned Americans in \u200bthe country on Tuesday that there was a spike in government-sponsored protests against Washington and that some U.S. citizens were denied entry upon arrival. It also said American citizens in Cuba \u2060should prepare for “significant disruption” from power outages and fuel shortages. WHY IT’S IMPORTANT In \u200crecent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n