Cuban residents suffer daily power outages
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What are the daily challenges faced by Cuban residents due to power outages?
Cuban residents suffer daily power outages. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Nick Kureishi. As the energy crisis in Cuba continues, the port of Havana has received two ships carrying humanitarian aid sent by Cuba's ally Mexico. Cuba's struggling after the Trump administration imposed a virtual oil blockade on the island. The BBC's Will Grant reports.
Two tankers' worth of humanitarian aid has now made it to Cuba, sent from the government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. They included more than 800 tons of basic goods, powdered milk, rice and beans, items desperately needed in this worsening humanitarian crisis in Cuba. However, what wasn't on those tankers is what Cuba most needs in this moment, which is crude oil.
Will Grant there.
How is humanitarian aid from Mexico impacting the energy crisis in Cuba?
Well, daily life in Cuba is tough. The BBC's Alicia Trujillo has been speaking to a resident of Havana who's asked that we do not disclose his name.
My day-to-day life has been reduced, as the life of everybody else, to the survival between cycles of blackouts. That is now the situation. So it is very difficult to do anything else other than perform simple tasks in the house, trying to do something when the electricity is already connected.
And how long does it last? How long do the blackouts last?
It depends.
What is the significance of the Trump administration's oil blockade on Cuba?
10, 12, 14 hours, 16 hours in a row.
How are people just managing on a day-to-day basis?
Surviving. People try to survive. Depending on the amount of money people have, they try to access to the services or the goods they need to the day-to-day life. You cannot accumulate too much food, for example, because of the lack of refrigeration capacity in the houses. And even if you have a good refrigerated storage, it depends on the availability of electricity. So food starts to rot. It reduces life to try to obtain the things you need for the day.
Are schools open? How are hospitals functioning? Are those things functioning?
I don't know. They published some indications coming from the Ministry of Public Health. No surgical maneuvers will be performed. Only those for immediate saving of a life.
And, I mean, I see tourism isn't coming, so there is no money coming into the country.
tourism now, it is not feasible. Nobody wants to be a tourist in a country in the middle of this situation. Lack of sanitation, serious problem of public health, nothing. You can see that in Havana. The buildings with electricity, those are the hotels. But you don't go to a country to visit a hotel. You go to a country to visit the country. Social situation is deteriorating rapidly also. You have now a situation of different nature of violence. In the night, you cannot walk in the street because they are all black.
What kind of future are people thinking there is? Because this seems like a long-term situation, no oil, and the Americans seem to be putting a lot of pressure on the Cuban government.
Everything is going down slowly in the country, and the daily life is complicated. I see no future. The only future is a change. There is no other Exit. Situation cannot continue like this. It cannot continue like this.
How are residents coping with extended blackouts in Cuba?
A resident of Havana there speaking to the BBC. Right, let's do some numbers. And to Ghana, where the government has cut the price of cocoa by 28%, blaming a fall in global prices and a financial crisis which has left many farmers unpaid. Now, the centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party has secured a landslide election victory. It comes 18 months after the previous government, led by Sheikh Hasina, was overthrown following nationwide street protests. So what does this election result mean for the economy? BBC's Azadeh Moshiri is in the very noisy capital city, Dhaka. Hi, Azadeh. Hi, Nick. So what economic challenges will the BNP be facing?
The BNP will be inheriting an economy suffering from high unemployment. The group that is the most affected by unemployment are young graduates, the same young graduates who got us to this point, who led that uprising so that the increasingly authoritarian rule of Sheikh Hasina
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What are the daily challenges faced by Cuban residents due to power outages?
0:01–0:55
2
How is humanitarian aid from Mexico impacting the energy crisis in Cuba?
0:55–1:33
3
What is the significance of the Trump administration's oil blockade on Cuba?
1:33–3:45
4
How are residents coping with extended blackouts in Cuba?
3:45–7:48