U.S. grants Cuba access to some Venezuelan oil
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What recent decision did the U.S. make regarding Venezuelan oil and Cuba?
As tensions continue in the Caribbean, the U.S. allows Cuba to get access to some Venezuelan oil. Live from the U.K., this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning. The United States says it will allow some small Venezuelan oil shipments to reach Cuba through its private sector, providing a lifeline to the Caribbean island. as Washington's blockade is worsening a crisis there. Tensions between the White House and Havana are high. Just yesterday, Cuba reported that its border forces killed four people and wounded six when a Florida-registered speedboat crossed into its waters. The thing is, Cuba's entire electricity system runs on imported fuel. Its own production is limited.
Its infrastructure is decades old. And without foreign oil, the lights simply don't stay on. One resident recently told the BBC about the impact of the oil shortages.
How is Cuba's electricity system affected by oil shortages?
Some days it feels like the whole town is standing still. No public transport and extremely limited private transport. Nothing's moving in town. Power cuts, which were bad before, are now even worse. We barely have two hours of electricity a day on average.
For more, here's the BBC's Michelle Flurry in New York. Very slowly and gradually, daily life starts to grind or halt. And that's why you're starting to also see countries like Canada saying that they will try and provide some aid to Cuba. But we've also seen, obviously, the US administration and the Treasury Department now taking action. Essentially saying they're going to let companies in the US who want licenses to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba, they will let that proceed as long as the sale of that oil is to private companies and not to the Cuban government or anything tied to the Cuban government. The thing to remember here is that the US has had a blockade on Cuba for many years. But this latest squeeze really has pushed things kind of to another level.
And that humanitarian concern you can start to see is creeping in.
Michelle Flurry there. Now, let's do the numbers. Shares of the advertising giant WPP are down about 7% after it revealed plans to cut $670 million a year in costs by 2028. But shares of Rolls-Royce, the UK aerospace company, are up 5% after it raised its profit targets and announced a share buyback of up to $12 billion. Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice has upheld a $915 million fine on 13 airlines for running an air freight cartel, which collaborated on pricing between 1999 and 2006. The case has been in the courts for the past 16 years, and this latest ruling dismisses an appeal by the airlines on an earlier verdict. Now, for years, the UK has been grappling with the decline of retail in many places, often blamed on out-of-town malls, online competition and high overheads.
A proliferation of charity or thrift stores is often considered to be a sign of this decline. But James Graham's has been to the north of England, where one town is trying to make a virtue of its 13 charity shops.
Anita Jones is showing me around her charity shop, Mamana Matoto in Selby, Yorkshire, about 200 miles north of London. It raises money for maternity projects in Kenya, but also provides new mums in the town with free supplies.
I think it's really good to have charity shops. I think it shows that people are giving locally, but also you're benefiting the local people.
In the UK, most thrift stores are run by non-profit organisations, so are known as charity shops. Anita's store is one of the 13 charity shops that line the main street in Selby. They're now part of a trail that is being promoted to attract shoppers to the town.
The trail's been brilliant. People are coming to Selby to do the charity trail. We get a lot of people in. I think the footfall's increased.
a short walk away at the town's 1,000-year-old abbey, I meet Matt Fisher from Up for Yorkshire, which supports communities in the region and has developed the charity trail.
Really the mission is to make Selby thrive. Unless you've got a reason to come here, that you know people or you live locally, we don't get a lot of visitors.
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