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When Fidel Castro laid out the plans to storm the Moncada Barracks in 1953, his younger brother Raul was just 22. He signed up for the attack. The barracks attack failed, but the revolutionary spirit Fidel kindled would grew into a firestorm, eventually toppling the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. It was Raul who introduced the Argentine doctor Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara to Fidel during the civil war. After the 1959 revolution, Raul became Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, a post he would hold for 49 years. He helped lead the country’s defences during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and built the revolutionary state’s defences.

When Cuba fell into economic uncertainty after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Raul played a key role in managing and mitigating the crisis. In 2006, he took the reins of the country after Fidel fell ill. During his presidency, which started in 2008, Raul sought to improve ties with the U.S., which had imposed crippling sanctions on the island immediately after the revolution. He legalised private enterprise, took down the controversial dual currency system, and kept his promise to step down after two terms. The Obama administration responded positively to this reform push, by normalising ties between the countries. But then Donald Trump would become the President and undo everything Mr. Obama did with regard to Cuba.

Raul today is 94 and is not involved in the day-to-day affairs of the country. Last week, the Trump administration, which has imposed an oil embargo on Cuba, indicted Raul over the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft over the Florida Straits. Raul was then the Defence Minister of Cuba.

The indictment is part of a broad attempt by the Trump administration to punish Cuba’s communist leadership and its 11 million people. The blockade has cut off oil shipments to Cuba, sparking fuel shortages, sharp price increases and prolonged nationwide power outages. Cuba was already in deep economic peril. What made it worse was the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January. Delcy Rodriguez, Mr. Maduro’s Vice President who became acting president of Venezuela with Donald Trump’s blessings, stopped exports of fuel to Cuba. Venezuela was providing Cuba with 70,000 barrels of crude per day. An American naval blockade in the Caribbean and threats of sanctions persuaded other countries, such as Mexico, also to cut their fuel shipments to Cuba. Russia sent two tankers of fuel to Cuba, defying the U.S. blockade, but that would only buy weeks for the Cuban economy.

Millions of Cubans are enduring power outages lasting up to 20 hours a day. Essential services ground to a halt. Public transport is stalled, banks reduced working hours and flights are disrupted as the government has rationed fuel. Amid this worsening economic crisis, the Trump administration has enhanced the heat on the country by indicting Raul Castro. A regime change in Cuba has long been a goal championed by the U.S. establishment and the Cuban immigrant community in the U.S. Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State who is a Cubam emigre, is known for his hawkish position towards Havana. The administration has reportedly handed a list of demands to Cuba, including removal of Castros from the government, initiating “reforms”, release of political prisoners and steps towards holding multi-party elections. As the U.S. is trying to exit the Iran mess through a negotiated settlement, it is shifting its focus towards Cuba, pushing the country towards an economic collapse.

To understand the evolution of the Cuban system and the role Raul Castro played in it, read this profile of the former Cuban President, written by my colleague Srinivasan Ramani: Raul Castro | The old man and the siege.

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China’s past decisions to go to war were not driven by only territorial or military objectives, but shaped by wider political and geopolitical factors, according to a new book China’s Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind its Military Coercion by former Ambassador to China Vijay Gokhale.

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Published – May 25, 2026 10:40 am IST

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
| Photo Credit: AP

Cuban and U.S. flags are pictured at the U.S. Embassy in Havana on March 16, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Image used for representational purposes only
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

President Joe Biden is to remove the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Cuba in quick succession on Sunday, US geologists said, as authorities said no tsunami alert was issued and no deaths immediately reported.

The US Geological Survey put the second, more powerful tremor at a magnitude of 6.8 and 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province.

It came just an hour after a first tremor, which the USGS put at a magnitude of 5.9, with the epicenter some nine miles beneath the ocean roughly 22 miles off Bartolome Maso. 

The state-run newspaper Granma said no deaths had been immediately reported, but that the quake had been felt throughout the Caribbean island nation.

“Here people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very strongly,” Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Santiago de Cuba, told AFP via telephone of the first quake. 

“It felt very strong really, my wife is a bundle of nerves,” he added. 

The US tsunami warning system said no tsunami warning had been issued.

The tremor shook the island as it recovers from Hurricane Rafael, which hit the country’s west as a Category 3 storm, leaving residents without power for two days. 

A 5.1 magnitude earthquake was recorded in October 2023 in Santiago de Cuba, without causing any damage. 

Another strong earthquake of magnitude 7.7 was recorded in January 2020 in the Caribbean Sea and was felt in several Cuban provinces, causing the evacuation of buildings in the capital Havana, with no damage reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Argentina President Javier Milei on Wednesday sacked Foreign Minister Diana Mondino after the country voted at the UN in favor of lifting the six-decade US embargo on Cuba, the presidency said.

“The new foreign minister of Argentina is Mr. Gerardo Werthein,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni wrote on X, hours after Argentina joined 186 other UN members who voted in favor of lifting the embargo imposed on communist-run Cuba since 1962.

Werthein was previously Argentina’s ambassador to the United States.

Only two countries, the United States and Israel, both allies of Milei, voted against Wednesday’s resolution, while one country, Moldova, abstained.

Moments after Mondino’s sacking was announced, Milei retweeted a post by a lawmaker who said she was “proud of a government that does not support nor is an accomplice to dictators. Viva #CubaLibre.”

Argentina has traditionally voted against the embargo on Cuba.

Local media quoted foreign ministry sources as saying that while it was awkward diplomatically for Argentina to have opposed the US and Israel, the votes of Cuba and its allies would be needed in any future resolutions on Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, a British territory.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cuba was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Friday after the island’s biggest power plant failed, the energy ministry said, coming on the heels of weeks of extended outages across the economically devastated country.

“The system was left without power nationwide” after the unexpected shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, Lazaro Guerra, director general of electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told state television.

When the power plant shut down, “the system collapsed,” he said, adding that the government was working to restore service as soon as possible to the island’s 11 million people.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero declared an “energy emergency” after weeks of disruptions, which saw some provinces without power for up to 20 hours a day.

He suspended all non-essential public sector activities in order to prioritize electricity supply to homes.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Friday on social media platform X that the government would “not rest” until the lights were back on and the energy crisis resolved.

Worst crisis in 30 years

He blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening of a six-decade-long US trade embargo under former president Donald Trump.

Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, marked by sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and even water.

While the authorities chiefly blame the US embargo, the island is also still feeling the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit tourism hard.

The island’s electricity is generated by eight aging thermal power plants, some of which have broken down or are under maintenance, as well as seven floating plants leased from Turkish companies and a raft of generators.

In 2022, the island suffered months of daily hours-long power outages, culminating in a nationwide blackout on September 27 that year, caused by Hurricane Ian.

The situation eased in 2023 but in March this year, maintenance work on the Antonio Guiteras plant, which is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital, again caused rolling power cuts.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)