Search and rescue effort under way after vessel sank in Stock Island, in the Florida Keys, hours before hurricane made landfall
Eighteen people are missing after a boat carrying Cuban migrants sank off Florida due to Hurricane Ian, further underlining the human cost of the storm.
US border patrol said on Wednesday that it responded to a migrant landing in Stock Island, in the lower Florida Keys, Reuters said.
Continue reading...Charlotte and Lee counties hardest hit after storm makes landfall along the south-western coast with winds close to 150mph
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has laid out the predicted path of Hurricane Ian as it is expected to hit land this afternoon.
Hurricane preparations have been underway at the Big Cat Rescue, the animal sanctuary in Tampa featured on Netflix’s Tiger King TV series.
Continue reading...‘Major, major’ storm, estimated to be 140 miles wide, sweeps inland after causing huge flooding on coast, with millions of residents in its path
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland, has battered south-west Florida with high winds, rain and storm surges as it weakened and moved inland.
More than 2m homes and businesses were left without power as the storm swept ashore in south-west Florida on Wednesday afternoon, bringing “catastrophic” 150mph (240km/h) winds and a deadly storm surge of up to 18ft. Hours later, the storm – estimated to be about 140 miles (225km) wide – was downgraded from a category 4 to a category 1 storm as it moved slowly north-east, causing major flooding.
Continue reading...Electricity grid collapses in Cuba after hurricane passes through, as 2.5 million people in Florida ordered to evacuate
Cuba’s electricity grid has collapsed, leaving the entire country without power in the wake of Hurricane Ian, as residents in Florida braced for the arrival of what is expected to be a catastrophic Category 4 storm.
The western end of Cuba was hit by violent winds and flooding on Tuesday, affecting infrastructure, state-run media reported, while some of the country’s most important tobacco farms were devastated.
Continue reading...Thousands evacuated in Pinar del Río, as Floridians are warned storm may strengthen to category 4
Hurricane Ian has torn into western Cuba with nothing to stop it from intensifying into a catastrophic category 4 hurricane before its expected landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
Tampa and St Petersburg in Florida could get their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
Continue reading...Reforms met open resistance from growing evangelical movement and other religious groups
Cubans have approved a sweeping “family law” code that would allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt as well as redefine rights for children and grandparents, officials said, though opposition in the national referendum was unusually strong on the Communist party-governed island.
The measure – which contains more than 400 articles – was approved by 66.9% to 33.1%, the president of the national electoral council, Alina Balseiro Gutiérrez, told official news media, though results from some places remained to be counted.
Continue reading...Fire destroyed 40% of island’s main fuel storage facility over five days and caused blackouts
Firefighters have finally overcame what officials described as the worst blaze in Cuba’s history that over five days destroyed 40% of the Caribbean island’s main fuel storage facility and caused blackouts.
Raging flames that ravaged a four-tank segment of the Matanzas super tanker port had died down on Tuesday and the towering plumes of thick black smoke streaming from the area were diminished and now mostly gray.
Continue reading...The blaze in Matanzas province raises fears that the damaged facility will worsen the island’s energy shortage
Flames have engulfed a fourth tank at an oil storage facility in western Cuba as a raging fire consumes critical fuel supplies on an island grappling with a growing energy crisis.
Firefighters and specialists from Mexico and Venezuela helped fight the blaze in the province of Matanzas with boats, planes and helicopters as they sprayed foam on the containers, a first for crews since broiling temperatures had prevented them from doing so earlier.
Continue reading...Mexico and Venezuela send crews to fight fire that has killed at least one and injured 125, with dozens of firefighters still missing
A deadly fire that began at Cuba’s main oil terminal in Matanzas has spread after a third crude tank caught fire and collapsed as firefighters struggled to fight the massive blaze.
At least one person has died and 125 are injured, with dozens of firefighters reported missing ever since lighting struck one of the facility’s eight tanks on Friday night. A second tank caught fire on Saturday, triggering several explosions at the facility, which plays a key part in Cuba’s electric system.
Continue reading...Body found after 800 people evacuated as smoke billows towards Havana following lightning strike at Matanzas supertanker base
Fire started by a lightning strike has engulfed an oil storage facility in the Cuban city of Matanzas, setting off explosions and injuring 121 people. Seventeen firefighters were missing and one body had been found, Cuban authorities said.
The blaze at the Matanzas supertanker base began during a thunderstorm on Friday night, the ministry of energy and mines tweeted. The government said later that it had asked for help from international experts in “friendly countries” with experience in the oil sector.
Continue reading...The journey to America, often via Nicaragua, has become more viable – and many are taking their chances at the border
One morning last spring, 22-year-old Ernesto Hernández set out from the outskirts of Havana on a rickety boat hoping to cross the Florida Straits. The plan was to leave behind a dilapidating communist-ruled island in which he saw no future, and sail into an American dream.
Nobody has heard from him, or the other six people onboard, since.
Continue reading...Group includes children and pregnant women as exodus from crisis-hit Haiti grows
A ship carrying more than 800 Haitians who were apparently trying to reach the US has landed instead in central Cuba, in what is thought to be the largest group yet in a swelling exodus of people from the crisis-stricken Caribbean countr.
The Communist party newspaper Granma quoted Red Cross officials in the province of Villa Clara as saying the 842 people crammed on to the vessel had been given medical attention and were being housed at a tourist campground.
Continue reading...The updates, touted as ‘modernizing’ the country’s laws, control unauthorized contacts with foreign organizations and individuals
Cuba’s parliament has approved a new penal code that officials say modernizes the country’s laws but human rights groups warn tightens already strict limits on dissent.
The law approved late on Sunday controls unauthorized contacts with foreign organizations and individuals and explicitly bans foreign financing.
Continue reading...Saber Lahmar has been charged with encouraging jihadists to fight for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantánamo Bay prison has gone on trial in France for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group.
Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in 2008 and taken in afterwards by France, has been charged with encouraging jihadists to head to Iraq and Syria to fight for the extremist group in 2015.
Continue reading...Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel says explosion at Hotel Saratoga appears to have been caused by a gas leak
At least 26 people have been killed and a further 74 have been treated in hospital after a powerful explosion tore the façade from a hotel in the Cuban capital, sending plumes of dust into the air and leaving rubble strewn across the street in the historic centre of Havana.
Speaking at the scene soon afterwards, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, ruled out a bomb and said the blast at the Hotel Saratoga appeared to have been caused by a gas leak.
Continue reading...Cuba says US sanctions and decision to close American consular section in Havana encourage Cubans to seek riskier routes to US
American and Cuban officials are due to meet in Washington on Thursday to discuss migration concerns, people familiar with the matter said, in the highest-level formal US talks with Havana since Joe Biden took office last year.
The meeting comes at a time when Biden’s administration is grappling with rising numbers of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the US border from Mexico, with Cubans making up a growing portion of them.
Continue reading...Analysis: Economic penalties have been meted out since Napoleon’s day but there’s little proof they achieve the desired outcome
Waging war by economic means is nothing new. Napoleon imposed an ineffective embargo on British exports in the early 19th century and during the first world war there were attempts by both sides to starve each other into submission.
But since 1945 sanctions have been used with increasing frequency as a means of trying to change either the policy stance or the regimes in targeted countries.
Continue reading...Courts sentenced 20 people in eastern Holguín province for sedition after last July’s anti-government protests
Cuban courts have handed out sentences of up to 20 years in prison to a group of people accused of taking part in protests that swept across the island in July.
The 20 defendants sentenced in the eastern province of Holguín were convicted after trials last month on charges of sedition. Hundreds of other people await verdicts following trials elsewhere.
Continue reading...The unique Gladys Palmera archive may cross the Atlantic from Madrid to secure a permanent base
On a hillside an hour from Madrid, not far from the sepulchral splendour of the Escorial monastery, with its royal tombs, imperial maps and sacred relics, lies another, rather less austere, treasure house.
The Gladys Palmera collection, kept in a sprawling, tropical-hued complex crammed with 1950s Mexican film posters and prowled by the odd decorative monkey and jaguar, is the largest private archive of Latin American music in the world.
Continue reading...American Foreign Service Association chief Eric Rubin says syndrome, which remains a mystery, has affected recruitment
The spread of Havana syndrome has “dramatically hurt” morale in the US diplomatic corps and affected recruitment, according to the head of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA).
Eric Rubin, whose association represents nearly 17,000 current and former diplomats and foreign aid workers, said it was getting harder to find young people to work abroad, because of concerns about Havana syndrome – and about whether the government would look after them if they got sick.
Continue reading...