Cuba has completely run out of diesel and ​fuel oil, the country’s Energy and Mines Minister said on Wednesday (May 14, 2026), ‌as the capital Havana faces its worst rolling blackouts ​in decades amid a U.S. blockade that ⁠has strangled the island of fuel.

“We have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel,” Energy Minister Vicente de la O said on ‌state-run media, adding that the national grid was in a “critical” state. “We have no reserves.”

Blackouts have increased dramatically ‌this week and last across the capital Havana, with ‌many ⁠neigbhorhoods without light for 20 to 22 hours a ⁠day, the minister said, heightening tensions in a city already exhausted by food, fuel and medicine shortages.

The national grid, he said, was operating entirely ​on domestic crude oil, natural ‌gas and renewable energy.

Cuba has installed 1,300 megawatts of solar power over the past two years, but much of that capacity is lost to grid instability amid the ‌fuel shortages, de la O said, reducing efficiency and output.

The ​country’s top energy official said Cuba continued negotiations to import fuel despite the blockade, but said rising ⁠global oil and transportation prices amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran were further complicating that effort.

“Cuba is open to anyone ‌that wants to sell us fuel,” the Minister said.

Neither Mexico nor Venezuela, once top suppliers of oil to Cuba, have sent fuel to the island since Trump’s January 2026 executive order threatening to slap tariffs on any country shipping fuel to the communist-run nation.

Only a single large oil tanker, ‌the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin, has delivered crude oil to Cuba since December, providing ​temporary relief to the island in April.

The renewed power cuts in Havana and beyond come as ⁠the U.S. blockade on fuel imports to Cuba enters its fourth ⁠month, crippling public services across the Caribbean island of nearly 10 million people.

The United Nations last week called ‌Mr. Trump’s fuel blockade unlawful, saying it had obstructed the “Cuban people’s right to development while undermining their rights to food, ​education, health, and water and sanitation.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) said that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela amid mounting tensions with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

It is the Trump administration’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the United States.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House.

Editorial | War clouds: On the U.S. and Venezuela

Mr. Trump said “other things are happening,” but did not offer additional details, saying he would speak more about it later.

The seizure was carried led by the U.S. Coast Guard-led effort and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A day earlier, the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest that warplanes had come to the South American country’s airspace since the start of the administration’s pressure campaign.

The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Mr. Trump has said that land attacks are coming soon, but offered no details on the location.

Among the concessions the US has made to Maduro during the past negotiations was the approval for oil giant Chevron Corp to resume pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The corporation’s activities in the South American country resulted in a financial lifeline for Maduro’s government.

The UN human rights chief says U.S. military strikes against vessels allegedly carrying illegal drugs from South America are “unacceptable” and must stop.

The condemnation on Friday (October 31, 2025) appeared to mark the first of its kind from a United Nations organisation.

President Donald Trump has justified the attacks on the boats as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

Volker Turk, the rights chief, called for an investigation into the strikes, and said more than 60 people had reportedly been killed in the strikes on boats in the region since early September, said UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.

“These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable,” she told a UN briefing in Geneva on Friday.

She said Mr. Turk believed “airstrikes by the United States of America on boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific violate international human rights law.” “These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable,” she added.

“The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.” Ms. Shamdasani noted U.S. explanations of the efforts as an anti-drug and counter-terrorism campaign, but said countries have long agreed that the fight against illicit drug trafficking is a law-enforcement matter governed by “careful limits” placed on the use of lethal force.

U.S. President Trump authorises military strikes on drug-carrying boats from Venezuela, sparking debate over executive authority and legality

U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. military again targeted a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three aboard the vessel.

“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S.,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the strike.

“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels pose a threat to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests,” he added.

The strike that Mr. Trump says was carried out Monday (September 15, 2025) came two weeks after another military strike on what the Trump administration says was a drug-carrying speedboat from Venezuela that killed 11.

The Trump administration justified the earlier strike as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, have indicated dissatisfaction with the administration’s rationale and questioned the legality of the action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority, in part by using the military for law enforcement purposes.

Personnel from a U.S. warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat with nine fishermen while it was sailing in Venezuelan waters, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister said on Saturday (September 13, 2025), underlining strained relations with the United States.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tensions between the two nations escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump in August ordered the deployment of warships in the Caribbean, off the coast of the South American country, citing the fight against Latin American drug cartels.

While reading a statement on Saturday (September 13, 2025), Foreign Minister Yván Gil told journalists the Venezuelan tuna boat was “illegally and hostilely boarded by a United States Navy destroyer” and 18 armed personnel who remained on the vessel for eight hours, preventing communication and the fishermen’s normal activities. They were then released under escort by the Venezuelan navy.

The fishing boat had authorisation from the Ministry of Fisheries to carry out its work, Gil said at a press conference, during which he presented a video of the incident.

“Those who give the order to carry out such provocations are seeking an incident that would justify a military escalation in the Caribbean,” Mr. Gil said, adding that the objective is to “persist in their failed policy” of regime change in Venezuela.

Venezuela on extrajudicial killings

Mr. Gil said the incident was “illegal” and “illegitimate” and warned that Venezuela will defend its sovereignty against any “provocation.” The Venezuelan Foreign Minister’s complaint comes days after Mr. Trump said that his country had attacked a drug-laden vessel and killed 11 people on board. Mr. Trump said the vessel had departed from Venezuela and was carrying members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but his administration has not presented any evidence to support that claim.

Venezuela accused the United States of committing extrajudicial killings. The South American country’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said Washington’s version is “a tremendous lie” and suggested that, according to Venezuelan government investigations, the incident could be linked to the disappearance of some individuals in a coastal region of the country who had no ties to drug trafficking.

The Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a cartel to flood the U.S. with drugs, and doubled the reward for his capture from $25 million to $50 million.

The U.S. government has given no indication that it plans to carry out a ground incursion with the more than 4,000 troops being deployed in the area.

But the Venezuelan government has nonetheless called on its citizens to enlist in the militias – armed volunteers – in support of its security forces in the event of a potential incursion. On Saturday (September 13, 2025), it urged them to go to military barracks for training sessions.