The decision was announced through Meliá’s Portuguese subsidiary, Ilha Bela Gestão e Turismo, which said a combination of “unforeseen circumstances” had undermined the viability of the operations. 

The company pointed to growing concerns over the legal certainty, security and economic stability of its Cuban business, prompting it to withdraw from the affected hotels. The move marks another blow to the island’s struggling tourism sector amid geopolitical pressures in the Middle East.

Meliá, one of the largest foreign hotel operators in Cuba, has been present on the island since the early 1990s. However, contributions to the group’s earnings have declined sharply in recent years, with most of the properties affected by the withdrawal already closed or out of operation.

The company emphasised that the decision was taken with a “deep sense of corporate responsibility” as external factors increasingly constrained normal operations.

The withdrawal comes as the U.S. intensifies pressure on Cuba through tougher sanctions and measures. The Trump administration has set 5 June as a deadline for foreign companies to cut ties with businesses linked to GAESA, the island’s military-run conglomerate, which controls a significant share of the Cuban economy.

According to Reuters, sanctions target entities operating in sectors such as energy, defence, mining and financial services, as well as those providing funds or services to individuals designated by Washington, including military officer Ana Guillermina Lastres, a GAESA director.

Foreign companies operating hotels associated with GAESA have faced growing scrutiny, prompting several hospitality groups to reconsider their presence on the island. Despite the withdrawal, Meliá said it is working to ensure an orderly transition from the affected properties and to keep suppliers, customers and other stakeholders informed throughout the process.

La cadena hotelera Meliá, también cesa sus operaciones en Cuba.
GAESA (el conglomerado militar cubano que tiene secuestrada la economía de la isla), se está quedando sin los aliados que durante décadas fueron clave para su expansión y supervivencia. #Cuba #España #Miami #GAESA pic.twitter.com/hip49lpKro

— Cuba y España (@pastvict) June 3, 2026

According to Euronews, Iberostar has stopped operating and marketing 12 properties in Cuba as of 1 June, ending contractual ties with assets managed by the Gaviota Tourism Group, GAESA’s operational arm, while saying it will retain a limited presence in hotels not affected by sanctions-related restrictions. Canadian chain Blue Diamond had earlier announced it was ending its operations in Cuba, where it managed 62 properties.

The downturn reflects the broader struggles of Cuba’s tourism industry, which has been hampered by recurring power outages, fuel shortages and weaker visitor demand, remaining below pre-pandemic levels and undermining recovery efforts.

The challenges extend beyond the hotel sector. Spanish carrier Iberia recently suspended its direct Madrid–Havana route until at least November, citing fuel supply issues. Air Canada, Air France and Turkish Airlines have also temporarily suspended operations to Cuba due to similar logistical constraints, further complicating efforts to attract visitors. Meanwhile, Air Canada has operated special flights to repatriate around 3,000 stranded passengers.

Cuba received 328,608 international tourists in the first four months of the year, a 55.8% decline compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI). In April alone, arrivals fell to just 30,551 visitors.

The downturn follows an already difficult 2025 for the country’s tourism sector, which recorded 1.8 million visitors — the lowest annual figure since 2002, excluding the pandemic period.

For Cuba, the loss of one of its most prominent foreign hotel partners underscores the growing difficulties of sustaining tourism investment amid economic hardship, international sanctions and declining connectivity with key overseas markets.

L’article Spanish hotel group Meliá exits Cuba amid economic pressures on tourism sector est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Spanish carrier Iberia is ceasing flights between Madrid and Havana until at least November 2026, following a previous decision made in April to suspend operations between the two capitals between June and October.

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Havana’s now extended absence from the airline’s schedules until November reflects jet fuel shortages and operational difficulties since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the end of February 2026. The lack of supplies of A1 jet fuel on Cuba, including at Havana’s main hub José Martí, had already led to Iberia progressively reducing timetables and needing to make refuelling stops and technical calls in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

The decision from Iberia puts them among what seems to be a growing list of international airlines that have now stopped flying to Cuba. Air Canada, Air France, and Turkish Airlines have also temporarily suspended their Cuban operations due to similar logistics and supply issues, with Air Canada laying on special flights to bring around 3,000 otherwise stranded passengers home. 

Though flights may be sought-after by some travellers, in general, demand for the island locals call El Cocodrilo has fallen, as the shortages on Cuba ripple through the travel sector, affecting services at hospitality venues, for tour operators, and even taxi providers. The lack of oil imports on which the nation relies is affecting electricity supplies and has caused hours-long power outages, as well as lengthy fuel queues, reduced bus timetables, and cut opening hours for key businesses such as banks.

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Cuba’s once-thriving tourism industry hit a peak around 2017, with hard currency revenues hitting $3.3 billion USD, but has been severely stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic and various international sanction packages. In contrast, between January and April 2026, the island received just 328,608 international tourists, down 55.8% from the same period in 2025, according to figures linked to Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information.

So, the sector, formerly a major contributor to the national economy, is now increasingly isolated in terms of air connectivity and suffering the duress of the worldwide fuel crisis on top of its own wider energy and infrastructural issues, with aging and inefficient facilities. Some commentators also point out the problems have been made worse by regional policies pursued by United States President Donald Trump, which have further restricted the island’s fuel access.

L’article Iberia suspends Madrid-Havana flights until November as Cuba tourism struggles est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

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A key annual gathering for cigar aficionados, the festival normally attracts more than 1,300 participants from 70 countries, who come to sample cigars and visit plantations and factories across the island. In a statement, the organisers said that the festival aims to offer participants ‘a comprehensive experience reflecting the international relevance and prestige of this event’, and added that the postponement was intended to preserve the event’s high standards.

The decision represents a significant blow to Cuba’s struggling economy. The 2026 edition was set to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Cohiba, the world’s most famous cigar brand. Last year’s festival attracted worldwide attention when a batch of hand-rolled Cohiba humidor cigars sold for $19 million (roughly €17.8 million) at auction, while the festival organiser and exporter, Habanos S. A., recorded revenues of $827 million (€689 million) in 2025.

Habanos S. A., a joint venture between Cuba’s state tobacco industry and international investors, holds a monopoly over Cuban cigar exports. Cuba’s state tobacco company later described the current crisis as stemming from the long-running US economic, commercial, and financial embargo, which has been exacerbated in recent months by disruptions to oil shipments. The situation worsened following an executive order on 29 January 2026 by US President Donald Trump, which declared a national emergency and authorised steep tariffs on any country that ‘directly or indirectly’ supplies oil to Cuba.

Cuba imports around 60% of its energy and this ‘oil siege’ has deterred long-standing suppliers such as Mexico and Venezuela. Shipments from Venezuela – reportedly amounting to around 35,000 barrels of oil per day – have effectively ceased since the US operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in January 2026. In early February, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, paused shipments to Cuba to avoid potential US tariffs.

Consequently, tourism, one of Cuba’s few remaining sources of foreign currency, is suffering. Due to fuel rationing, some hotels have temporarily closed to save energy, travel agencies have cancelled trips and other cultural events, including a national book fair, have been postponed.

The country is also experiencing aviation fuel shortages, prompting several airlines to suspend flights. A NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) has been issued stating that Jet A-1 fuel is unavailable at all nine Cuban international airports from 10 February. The United Kingdom has updated its travel advice, warning against non-essential travel to Cuba. Several Canadian airlines have suspended routes, while other carriers are refuelling in neighbouring countries, such as the Dominican Republic, to maintain operations.

Hospitals have also been affected, particularly patients requiring daily treatments such as dialysis or respiratory support, as blackouts lasting up to 18 hours a day are disrupting homes, businesses, and essential infrastructure. President Trump has urged Cuba’s leadership to reach an agreement with Washington, or face further pressure. For now, it seems that the island is facing that ‘or else’. Nevertheless, festival organisers said they hope conditions will improve, and that they are working to announce new dates once the situation has stabilised. 

L’article Energy crisis forces Cuba to postpone major cigar festival est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Yet what happens when there’s no coffee left? It seems like a nightmare question for those who can’t get their feet out of bed without a cup in the hand, yet some regions in the world are actually facing what’s called a coffee shortage. Cuba, in particular. Because even though the country used to be one of the most important coffee producers in the world – the plant having been introduced in 1748 – these last decades, the once prestigious coffee exporter has seen a decay. After reaching an absolute high in produce in 1961 with more than 60.000 tons, that number is now down to 10.000 tons.

Shortage in coffee

No biggie, right? Well, it is if you consume 24.000 tons of coffee a year. Because that’s how much Cubans like their coffee. The spectacular fall in produce can be linked to a number of factors, such as plagues, cyclones and climate change. But what to do if you’ve got 14.000 tons of coffee to be found and little means? Well, you make a mix. The Cuban government, which greatly oversees the coffee distribution, has decided to make up for the lack of coffee by making a mixture of half coffee, half roasted peas. And that doesn’t go down very well.

Ufff you were probably given coffee laced with chícharo (split peas). Communist cuba has been adding split peas to ground coffee as a filler for years because they dont produce enough coffee. Funny, albeit shameful given that Cuba EXPORTED coffee during its Pre-Castro glory days.

— Christian (@ChristianCamara) April 6, 2020

At the moment, every Cuban has the right to 115 grams of coffee a month. Knowing that half of that coffee actually exists of peas, that’s not what you’d call a lot. Even though “real” coffee is still available, most Cubans can’t afford to buy some – one kilogram of the stuff costing 15 dollars, the average income being 32 dollars a month.

According to Elexis Legrá, director of coffee at the Agroforestry Group, there are now plans for Cuba to switch from Arabica coffee to the Robusta kind in order to counterbalance the shortages. Robusta often delivers bigger beans and therefore bigger harvests. Experiments so far are going well and the Cuban government hopes to be back at a produce of 30.000 tons by 2030.

L’article Why Cubans are making coffee out of peas est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The program, rich in Afro-Cuban percussion, ancestral songs and indigenous sounds, focuses on the one side on the history and the origins of the island and celebrates on the other side a most exciting modernity. A day of festivities and art in every sense, with artists from every corner of the world.

1. Congas Masterclass by Yaroldy Abreu Robles

Yaroldy is an imaginative and expressive percussionist with great technical virtuosity. He is one of the many talents from the new generation of Cuban experts in rhythms of French-Haitian origin and knowledge of Afro-Cuban folklore. He is very well known in percussion in Belgium, and stands out through his genius and mastery.

He radiates vitality and joy and his hands seem to fly yet at the same time caress the drums, with a magical and contagious effect on those who listen to him. He is currently one of the members of Maestro Chucho Valdés’ quintet and El Comité. With this masterclass, Yaroldy offers the opportunity to discover and learn from his percussion talents.

11 June 2022 at 2:00 PM

2. Sigba la girafe: A musical fairytale in the great tradition of African storytelling

“One very windy day, hunters from far away countries came to the savannah and captured the entire herd of giraffes. Only Sigba, the little giraffe with the tiny neck, escaped the hunters’ traps. Despite the teachings of the wise Elephant who took her in, Sigba does not want to learn to observe nature and find out the good acacia leaves so she can feed herself well and make her neck grow.”

A musical fairytale in the great traditon of african storytelling, for young and old.

Fatima Tchiombiano story teller
Fabienne Van Den Driessche cello
Béatrice Princelle text
Charlotte Fallon director

11 June 2022 at 3:00 PM

3. Nosotros la música: A historical documentary on Cuban music

In 1964, Cuban artistic culture, and especially musical culture, experienced intense development in all its manifestations. The documentary “Nosotros la música” (Rogelio París, 1964) brings together and reflects the most significant and transcendent personalities and musical genres in the history of Cuban popular music, with a bold formal language that allows it to appear today as a historical document of primary importance. This film highlights the most essential characteristics of the Cuban identity, in the context of the great popular music that is on the international scene today more than ever.

11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM

4. Meet the Writer: Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

We might call him one of the greatest Cuban poets still living. Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has already published seventeen collections of poetry, all of which have received awards and been republished and translated into numerous languages. At Bozar, he will present Ceniza de Infinito (1979-2018) (The Infinite’s Ash) an anthology of his poetry.

Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (Havana, Cuba, 1955) is a poet, journalist, essayist, translator and teacher. As a poet, he has been a guest at literary events in over 40 countries. In the 1980s, he was an editorial board member and later editor-in-chief of the high-profile Cuban literary journal El Caimán Barbudo, in which he published numerous contributions on literature and film. In addition to three anthologies portraying his own generation of poets, he is also the author of the standard work La Poesía del siglo XX en Cuba.

Rodríguez Núñez will be interviewed by Nicky Aerts.
11 June’22 – 16:30

5. The Way Beyond: The cultural heritage of Cuba in photos

A Cuban artist based in Belgium, Jorge Luis Álvarez Pupo conceives of art as an ongoing process, an eternal quest for oneself, one’s identity and one’s roots. Coming from a Haitian community taken to Cuba in the time of slavery, he inherited the respect for ancestors and oral traditions specific to West African cultures.

In The Way Beyond, he draws on the body language of ceremonial dances to create his own imaginary and metaphorical visual world. This world-renowned artist has exhibited his works in Paris, Madrid, Bamako and New York, and some are in the collections of the Pinacoteca do Estado São Paulo and the Albertina in Vienna. During the CubaLandz festival, discover his photographs which are both personal in their cultural references, and universal in their depth and the questions which animate them.

11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM

6. Cuba and her Rumba

Rumba is a genre of music and dance that originated in Cuba in the 19th century. It is a traditional folklore event, as well as a lively and festive expression of social connection. In November 2016, UNESCO included Cuban rumba, a festive blend of dance and music, and all the cultural practices that stem from it, on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The members of the associations Moyubao – promotion of Afro-Cuban culture in Belgium, in collaboration with CAMINA – School of dance and social artistry and other invited Cuban artists, will present a multi-coloured show with the energy and atmosphere of Cuban “solares”.

11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM

7. Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita – “Suba”

In 2018, Cuban musician Omar Sosa stepped onto the stage at Bozar with a candle in his hand. Placing it on his piano as if performing a ritual, he set the atmosphere that would linger throughout the musical evening and the encounter with his loyal partner, Senegalese griot Seckou Keita.

After Transparent Water (2017), the two virtuosos and poets of sound will present Suba (“dawn” in Malinke), their new album recorded during the pandemic: a hymn to hope and a profound reiteration of humanity’s eternal prayer for peace and world unity. On stage, the two masters are joined by their mutual partner, outstanding Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles. Experience this vibrant human and musical reunion, and discover their ethereal and bewitching universe, at the crossroads of Afro-Cuban, Mandingo and jazz music.

Omar Sosa fender rhodes, piano
Seckou Keita kora, vocals
Gustavo Ovalles percussion

11 June 2022 at 8:30 PM

8. Ariwo – “Quasi”

Ariwo literally means “noise” in Yoruba. This four-piece band chose the name because they combine traditional rhythms and electro in their live performances to produce a unique sound – a sound that constantly challenges the perception of ancestral music, in a quest exploring different cultures from across the globe. The result is a mix of tradition and contemporary electro that takes you on a journey through a simmering and hypnotising soundscape. Following appearances at the Barbican in London and at the Fusion Festival in Berlin, they will now be showcasing their latest album Quasi on stage at BOZAR.​​​​​​​

Pouya Ehsaei composition, electronics
Hammadi Rencurrell Valdes drums, percussion
Oreste “Sambroso” Noda congas
Regis Molina saxophone
Sam Warner trumpet
Matteo Musetti sound engineer

11 and 12 June 2022 at 11:00 PM

9. DJ Rafael Aragon

Rafael Aragon aka Rafiralfiro is a DJ/producer musically rooted in Arab and Latin cultures, having grown up in a cosmopolitan world in the Paris suburbs. At the age of 20 he started producing beats, obsessed with the idea of combining folk music with more electronic rhythms and creating a balance between organic and synthetic.

A jack-of-all-trades, he then composed soundtracks for films and documentaries, instrumentals for rappers and performed live. He carries the notion of travel at the heart of his artistic projects, and his music evolves between latintronics, oriental bass and electronica with Balkan and African accents.

11 June 2022 at 8:30 PM and 12:30 AM

L’article A day dedicated to contemporary Cuban art and culture at Bozar in Brussels est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

1. Response to COVID-19

Cuba has long been a popular Caribbean destination. This year, the island was betting on tourism to power 4% of its economy after the harsh consequences of the pandemic. As a result, food and medicines shortages and power outages have led thousands to protest against the government of Raul Castro.

Some analysts blame Cuba for the extreme caution with which it has led the pandemic. With the majority of its population vaccinated, the Caribbean island kept its borders largely shut until mid-November 2021. This decision saw Cuba attract 67% fewer visitors in 2021 versus 2020, and less than 10% of the 4.3 million arrivals in 2019.

In contrast, the Caribbean as a whole saw tourist numbers rebound by 63% in 2021, while Cuba remained largely off-limits, according to United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) data.

In 2020, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Latin America suffered a contraction of 110 billion U.S. dollars due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism. Meanwhile, the global travel restrictions imposed due to the health crisis caused a GDP decline of 34 billion U.S. dollars in the Caribbean. In consequence, tourism employment was also severely affected in those regions that year.

2. Slow uptake

In January, a popular month for travel to the Caribbean, only 84,000 tourists visited Cuba, down by 80% from around 394,000 in 2020, and well shy of the pace necessary to hit the country’s goal of 2.5 million visitors in 2022, according to UNWTO.

Empty beaches and hotels could prove yet another blow to Cuba’s ailing and inefficient state-run economy, dependent on foreign exchange from tourism (which accounts for 10% of GDP) to purchase basics, such as food and medicine, on the global market.

Cuba is an adventure, one-time destination for many and with the pandemic these people look for familiar, safe places and not risk.

Paolo Spadoni, expert on the Cuban economy at Augusta University in Georgia

Independent experts and Cuban tourism operators told Reuters that Cuba will struggle to recover lost ground during the pandemic, largely because of the US restrictions that have all but eliminated travel between Cuba and the large US market.

3. US restrictions

There is little doubt that the US restrictions, adopted by US President Donald Trump, which ended cruise ship dockings, restricted flights, and blacklisted a long list of hotels and other entities, has had a huge impact on Cuba’s tourism industry.

The cruise ships are gone. There are many hotels that were built but are still empty because tourism has decreased. It has hurt us economically.

Pablo Perez, a 53-year-old who sells artisan crafts to tourists in downtown Havana

The country is still hopeful that Trump’s successor Joe Biden will revoke the sanctions. However, with the Cuban government’s heavy-handed response to the protests last year, the Communist island got a sharp rebuke from the US administration. 

According to Paolo Spadoni, an expert on the Cuban economy at Augusta University in Georgi, news about the protests, the reaction, and economic woes have also been putting off the return of tourists from outside the US. That includes Canadian and Latin American travellers, previously both frequent visitors to the island, he said.

“All those negative headlines didn’t help Cuba attract a greater number of tourists,” said Spadoni. “Cuba is an adventure, one-time destination for many and with the pandemic these people look for familiar, safe places and not risk,” he added. “Cuba now has competitive (health) protocols, so let’s hope the headlines improve.”

L’article US restrictions and COVID-19 are killing the rebirth of Cuba’s tourism industry est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

For many months, the number of flights arriving in Cuba has been very limited, with only a few Russian and Canadian tourist charters arriving regularly at some of the country’s designated resorts. Authorities require travelers to arrive with a negative PCR test, then perform a new one at the airport upon arrival and be quarantined until the results of a second test five days later.

Given the progress of the vaccination process in Cuba, its proven effectiveness and the prospect that more than 90% of the population will be fully vaccinated in November, we are preparing the conditions to gradually open the country’s borders from November 15

Cuban Ministry of Tourism

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At the complete reopening of the borders, hygienic and sanitary protocols on arrival of travelers will be relaxed, with monitoring of symptomatic patients and temperature taking.

In addition, diagnostic tests will be carried out randomly, PCR will not be required on arrival and the vaccination certificate of travelers will be recognized. Currently, all travelers are tested for Covid and must comply with a mandatory quarantine in government hotels. Authorities plan to also allow domestic tourism.

Tourism, one of the Cuban government’s main sources of foreign exchange, has collapsed with the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the island to partially close its borders since late March 2020.

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Between January and July, the country received more than 270,000 foreign tourists, barely a quarter (21.8%) of arrivals in the same period of 2020. Deprived of foreign currency from tourism, the authorities have drastically reduced the country’s imports, aggravating shortages of food and medicine for Cubans.

L’article Cuba to start welcoming international tourists in November est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

1. Campesino (2018)

Documenting the relationship between American amateur photographer Carl Oelerich, and the tobacco-farming community of Viñales two hours west of Havana, this tender and award-winning debut film, by Mia Tate, gives viewers an insight into today’s rural Cuba. Against a backdrop of red earth, the lush green Viñales Valley and the looming Sierra de los Organos mountains, we meet characters such Modesto, a 100-year-old philosophising cowboy; Lazara, a teenage physics buff; and Giovanni, a beguiling tobacco farmer and devout Santero, nicknamed the Professor, who claims to be the best dancer in town.

In normal times, tours to Viñales are possible, with warm and simple home stays and the chance to see and try out cigar-making by hand, guided by an expert in a fragrant wooden drying hut. This film will give you a flavour of that experience, but more than that – a rare glimpse into a side of Cuba few tourists get to see.

2. Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

The phenomenal success of this album and companion film since their release more than 20 years ago makes it hard to believe its stars could have languished in relative obscurity for years. The story starts when American musician Ry Cooder went to Cuba in the mid-nineties but his Malian guitarists were held up in Paris due to visa issues. As a result, Cooder and Cuban musician Juan de Marcos González went searching for specialists in the son Cubano, a type of music originating in eastern Cuba, combining Spanish vocal and guitar style with African rhythm and call-and-response structures.

Before the call, singer Ibrahim Ferrer had been shoe-shining and selling lottery-tickets for a living. 89-year-old Compay Segundo and others were persuaded out of retirement, and together, in Havana’s dilapidated Egrem studio, over just seven days in 1996, they improvised and recorded Buena Vista Social Club. The album would go on to win a Grammy and sell over 12 million copies.

Wim Wenders’ film was made when Cooder returned to Cuba for a follow-up. Wenders avoids expert talking heads. Instead, he lets the musicians – in the studio, out and about in their city, and in their apartments – tell their own tale. Glorious concert performances in Amsterdam, and finally Carnegie Hall, sit alongside footage of Havana’s ramshackle streets. If music is the lifeblood of Cuba, this film will transfuse into you a little of that magic.

3. Fresa y chocolate (1993)

Set in 1979, Strawberry and Chocolate explores sexual politics and repression in Cuba, where homosexuals faced widespread and institutional persecution and labour camps. The multi-award-winner was made as part of a 1990s’ government programme to recognise diversity, and its tone and attitude were designed to reflect and promote growing tolerance.

The plot involves David, a straight student, who is asked to spy on Diego, a gay artist. Despite this dark premise, charming conversational scenes in a classic Havanero ensue, riffing on music, art, literature, and philosophy. David and Diego form an unconventional friendship and navigate various crises, until both their lives reach a turning point.

The building used for filming, the mansión Camagüey, belonged to then-engineer Enrique Nunez. The romantic image many have of a Havana tenement’s faded grandeur is perfectly encapsulated here. Afterwards Nunez created a paladar or private restaurant in the top of the building, naming it La Guarida after its fictional counterpart and turning into what he has called ‘an altar of Cuban culture.’ Guests climb magnificently carved but broken stairways, passing billowing white laundry left to dry on abandoned floors, before reaching the dining rooms, where yellow walls are filled with dark-framed paintings and candelabra hang gracefully above patterned floor tiles. After seeing this film, you’ll want to go there. Advance reservations are a must.

4. Viva Cuba (2005)

An independent film and the first to be awarded Cannes’ Grand Prix Ecrans Juniors, Viva Cuba is a coming-of-age movie about two childhood friends from very different backgrounds who run away to the east of Cuba together to avoid being separated forever. In the Truffaut tradition of children’s films, director Juan Carlos Cremata gives us camera angles to show the world through the two young protagonists’ eyes, taking us into the heart of Cuban classrooms, elaborate neighbourhood games and, once the road-trip commences, the island’s natural scenery of mountains and windswept beaches.

5. Lucía (1968)

Director Humberto Solás was only in his twenties when he made this epic about the lives of three different women called Lucía at three different points in Cuba’s history, each with a different cinematic style.

The first Lucía’s story takes place during the last Cuban-Spanish War of Independence in 1890. In a wild high-drama, a middle-aged, aristocratic woman from Havana commences a torrid affair with an attractive Spaniard, but she cannot escape the tides of time or history.

Our next Lucía is a bourgeois girl who becomes pregnant during a love affair with an idealistic radical, set against the 1930s’ uprising to overthrow General Machado’s brutal regime. This section is more a surreal ‘new-wave-style’ romance, but the young lovers’ search for intellectual and social equality is doomed to fail.
Finally, we come up-to-date. In keeping with the post-revolutionary literacy campaigns of Fidel’s new regime, this third Lucía is almost an archetypal Soviet-style heroine. A working peasant, she leaves her women’s brigade to marry a macho truck driver. She must battle his dominant mindset and concept of Revolution to assert herself as a free woman.

L’article 5 films to make you fall in love with Cuba est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Up until recently, Cuba has managed to handle the pandemic in a quite effective way. But in the last few days, the island has reported a rising number of cases. For this reason, last week the government imposed a lockdown for La Havana.

Francisco Duran, head of epidemiology at Cuba’s public health ministry, announced on Tuesday that his country set as a top priority the finding of an efficient vaccine.

Rolando Perez, director of science and innovation at Cuban biotech firm BioCubaFarma, added that in the face of the pandemic, Cuba now has two priorities: “To develop enough capacities for quick mass testing and to develop vaccines to fight the disease,” he said.

Eduardo Martinez, president of BioCubaFarma, published a Twit saying that “a look at the nation’s Finlay Institute showed how much progress could be made in this field in a very short time.” This Institute is a science center in La Havana focused on research and the production of vaccines.

Lograr el primer candidato vacunal en tan poco tiempo ha sido un gran reto, los resultados son alentadores, la alegría es inmensa, pero aún falta para llegar a la meta final. Como nos dijo el Presidente, ahora la vacuna disponible es nuestra responsabilidad individual y social. pic.twitter.com/VgqEkRQ1ww

— Eduardo Martínez Díaz (@EdMartDiaz) August 20, 2020

Cuba: a leading country in the production of vaccines

According to Jose Moya, the director for Cuba of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Cuba produces around 80% of the vaccines included in the national immunization program thanks to the Finlay Institute and a big technology and innovation sector.

Cuban scientists are currently working on four potential vaccines, with testing already in an advanced phase. The research is carried out at CIGB, a center for molecular immunology and genetic engineering and biotechnology.

According to Gerardo Guillen, director of biomedical research at CIGB, their research is focused on the development of vaccines using virus-resembling particles that are able to activate and strengthen the immune system. These vaccines are usually administered after the infection and are therefore also known as therapeutic vaccines. 

Guillen cited as an example the therapeutic vaccine against hepatitis B developed by Cuba. It was the first global vaccine against a chronic infectious disease that was administered through the nose. “Now that we’re again talking about a respiratory disease, we believe that immunizing the mucous membranes may have the most efficient impact when it comes to neutralizing the virus,” he explained.

As Cuba has accumulated years of experience in developing vaccines, the country is now interested in cross-border cooperation. Guillen has proposed to participate to research projects with the EU and China.

Some media reports believe that Cuba would be capable of jointly producing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.

According to Kirill Dmitriev, director of the state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Cuba has become a leading country in the production of vaccines and has excellent abilities in this sector.

Russia's #covid19 vaccine, the #SputnikV may be manufactured in #Cuba, according to Russian Direct Investment Fund #RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev. Mass production and distribution at affordable prices are the keys to combatting this #globalpandemic: https://t.co/mw5wKhyRF9

— Cuba Business Report (@CubaReport) August 11, 2020

The Russian director declared that the production of Sputnik V could start in Cuba as early as November.

However, Cuban epidemiologist Duran warns that an efficient vaccine won’t be available in huge quantities anytime soon. He concluded reminding that “the only effective protection against the virus is to wear a mask and observe hygiene and distancing rules.”

L’article Cuba joins the race for vaccine against Covid-19 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.