5
#000000
#FFFFFF
War & Peace
Cuba Condemns Trump Claim That It Poses ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to US
The White House accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups as the Trump administration cut off much of the island's energy supply and threatened countries with tariffs if they continue to send Cuba oil.
Feb 02, 2026
Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said the country is open to expanding "bilateral cooperation" with the US, following President Donald Trump's comments that the White House is "going to make a deal with Cuba"—but diplomatic officials emphasized that they vehemently reject Trump's recent accusations that they harbor terrorists and pose an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the US.
"Cuba categorically declares that it does not harbor, support, finance, or permit terrorist or extremist organizations," said the ministry.
The statement was released days after the White House issued an executive order to address what it called threats that Cuba poses to the US, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Trump's invasion of Venezuela—which had been the top energy supplier to Cuba—and his push to take control of the South American country's oil has left Cuba's economy struggling with a virtual energy blockade and rolling blackouts. The US has also been pressuring Mexico to stop supplying energy to the island nation, prompting fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last month that the US has the right to take over any country if doing so furthers its interests, and said the Trump administration should "secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere."
In the executive order last week, the president made sweeping accusations against Cuba, claiming that it provides support for countries including Russia and China—though the Trump administration has also sought improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—and offering no evidence for the allegation that it also supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Cuban storytelling platform Belly of the Beast called the accusation "laughable, if it weren't so serious," and spoke to some of the hundreds of Palestinian medical students who are studying to be doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine and other institutions.
"The vast majority of Palestinians in Cuba are medical students," said Ihab Masri, who is studying there alongside students from about 100 other countries. "Trump is a person who says he stopped 10 or 12 wars... a person who not only justifies but also denies the genocide in Gaza that they commit and have committed. You can't trust someone like that."
In his attempt to block oil shipments to Cuba, Donald Trump now claims the country is a safe haven for Hamas and Hezbollah, without presenting any evidence. Cubans say it’s complete nonsense. The real story? Hundreds of Palestinian students training to be doctors in Havana. pic.twitter.com/3X24dhF6mN
— Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) February 1, 2026
Trump's executive order also accused Cuba of spreading "its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday emphasized that "Cuba does not host foreign military or intelligence bases and rejects the characterization that it is a threat to the security of the United States. Nor has it supported any hostile activity against that country, nor will it allow its territory to be used against another nation."
The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades and has had hostile relations with the country since the communist revolution gave rise to the late President Fidel Castro and overthrew authoritarian leader Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US.
US Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) warned that Trump's "latest economic assault against the island is designed to cause a humanitarian collapse, deepening our collective punishment of the Cuban people and forcing more migration."
"Cuba poses no threat to the United States, but that’s not the point. Trump is manufacturing an excuse for cruelty and regime change," added the congressman, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced Trump's executive order as "pure cruelty" that could "kill countless innocent Cubans."
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that Trump's threat against countries that continue to supply energy "reveals the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends."
On Monday, the global organization Progressive International joined Cuban officials in denouncing Trump's executive order as a "cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to [Cuba's] people."
"With this new executive order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: Sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire," said the Cabinet of Progressive International.
The group called on the international community to "coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights."
"History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally—from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics—and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force," said Progressive International."
"Stand with the Cuban people now," the group added. "Stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction."
Keep Reading
Show Less
US Military Told Mideast Ally That Trump Attack on Iran is 'Imminent': Report
"This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change," a former senior intelligence official told Drop Site News.
Jan 30, 2026
Senior officials in the US military have told a key Middle East ally that President Donald Trump may strike Iran as soon as this weekend, as part of an operation that may seek to decapitate the Islamic Republic's government, according to a report published Friday by Drop Site News.
While the Trump administration reportedly envisions attacks against nuclear, ballistic, and other military sites around Iran, a former senior US intelligence official who is acting as an informal advisor to Trump told the outlet: "This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change."
As Iran has been roiled by the largest wave of protests since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes, which he has claimed would be in retaliation for the nation's security forces killing demonstrators.
While counts vary widely, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Friday that Iranian security forces have killed more than 6,000 protesters in a brutal crackdown that has largely quelled the unrest seen earlier this month.
According to the senior official, who has worked as a consultant for Arab governments, Trump's war planners hope that a strike on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would galvanize Iranians to return to the streets and eventually deliver a knockout blow to their government.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought to push the US to engage in direct conflict with Iran, “is hoping for an attack,” and is “assuring Trump that Israel can help put in place a new government that is friendly with the West.”
In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump told reporters that the US has a “large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading towards Iran right now." He said that the armada was "larger than Venezuela," referring to the buildup of ships leading up to the US invasion of the Latin American country earlier this month to overthrow its president, Nicolás Maduro.
According to Drop Site, two senior intelligence officials from an unnamed Arab country said they received word that a US attack could come “imminently," potentially as soon as Sunday.
Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, Iran’s military spokesperson, in an interview on Iranian TV on Thursday, said that a strike against Iran would likely play out very differently from the one launched in June against three Iranian nuclear sites. Iran's response was limited: an attack on a single US military base in Qatar, which it telegraphed beforehand.
“If such a miscalculation is made by the Americans, it will certainly not unfold the way Trump imagines—carrying out a quick operation and then, two hours later, tweeting that the operation is over,” Akraminia said.
“The scope of war will certainly extend across the entire region, he added. "From the Zionist regime to countries that host American military bases, all will be within range of our missiles and drones.”
Trump has said "time is running out" for Iran to come to the table to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with the United States, one with much more stringent restrictions than the one the president ripped up in 2018.
According to the New York Times:
US and European officials say that in talks, they have put three demands in front of the Iranians: a permanent end to all enrichment of uranium and disposal of its current stockpiles, limits on the range and number of their ballistic missiles, and an end to all support for proxy groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis operating in Yemen.
As the Times pointed out, "Notably absent from those demands... was any reference to protecting the protesters."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on Friday that Tehran would “welcome negotiations that ensure Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear activity” and that it would not “negotiate anything related to our conventional arms, including missiles. This is something we cannot risk.”
He said Iran would not agree to any deal that halts uranium enrichment on its soil, which it has said it has the right to pursue under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). "We do not want to enter into any kind of negotiation that is doomed to failure and can then be used as another pretext for another war," he told Al-Monitor.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said Iran “wants to make a deal” but did not elaborate on what that meant. “We’ll see what happens. I can say this: They do want to make a deal."
Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, has condemned Trump's threats.
"The continued unilateral threats of a military strike against Iran in the absence of any clear and present danger and in violation of international law, bring to mind the same grim scene before the illegal and immoral Iraq war with its lies and horrifying consequences," he wrote on social media. "Human life and regional destruction don’t seem to matter."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Under Pressure From Trump, Venezuela's Leader Signs Bill Opening Oil Industry to Privatization
"Trump is deploying drone and gunboat diplomacy to coerce Venezuela into serving up its oil resources to Big Oil," said one US watchdog group.
Jan 29, 2026
Venezuelan scholars and a US watchdog group were among those expressing concern on Thursday after Venezuela's government caved to pressure from President Donald Trump and signed a bill opening up the South American country's nationalized oil industry to privatization.
After US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores—who have both pleaded not guilty to federal narco-terrorism charges—the Trump administration installed the deposed leader's former deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, as acting president.
On Thursday, Venezuela's National Assembly—which is led by the acting president's brother, Jorge Rodríguez—approved and Delcy Rodríguez signed legislation that "promises to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil and allow for independent arbitration of disputes," according to the Associated Press.
As AP reported:
Rodríguez's government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major US oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela's state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
The revised law would modify extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30% and allowing the executive branch to set percentages for every project based on capital investment needs, competitiveness, and other factors.
It also removes the mandate for disputes to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors have long viewed the involvement of independent courts as crucial to guard against future expropriation.
Malfred Gerig, a sociologist from Central University of Venezuela, said on social media that the Rodríguez siblings' United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) "has just approved the most anti-nationalist and damaging oil law since, at least, 1943. The absolute surrender of the state as an oil producer and a sudden conversion of the property rights of the Venezuelan nation into private rights of foreign companies."
Victor Lovera, an economics professor at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, said that "it must be really fucking tough for the Rodríguez siblings to end up as the empire's lapdogs and open up the oil sector, taking us back to the 1970s, before the nationalization of oil. All just to cling to power for a few more months."
Trump—who returned to office a year ago with help from Big Oil's campaign cash—has made clear that his aggressive policy toward Venezuela is focused on the country's petroleum reserves, which critics have blasted as a clear effort to further enrich his donors and himself.
"Trump is deploying drone and gunboat diplomacy to coerce Venezuela into serving up its oil resources to Big Oil," said Robert Weissman, co-president of the US watchdog group Public Citizen, in a Thursday statement.
"Imperfectly, Venezuela has for most of the last century sought to manage its oil and gas reserves to advance its national interest, rather than that of outside investors," he noted. "Brutal sanctions and the threat of still more military action from the Trump regime are now forcing Venezuela to turn from that history and make its oil available to Big Oil at discount rates and to agree that investor disputes should be resolved at corporate-friendly international tribunals."
"This is imperial policy to benefit Big Oil, not Americans—and certainly not Venezuelans," Weissman stressed. "Even still, US oil companies are likely to be reluctant to invest heavily in Venezuela without US government guarantees—a likely next step in Trump’s oil imperialism, unless Congress moves proactively to block it."
Both chambers of the US Congress are narrowly controlled by Trump's Republican Party, and they have so far failed to pass war powers resolutions aimed at stopping more military action in Venezuela and the administration's bombings of boats allegedly smuggling drugs in international waters—all of which some American lawmakers and other experts have argued are illegal.
When Trump's secretary of state and acting national security adviser, Marco Rubio, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—on which he previously served—on Wednesday, he insisted that the president wasn’t planning for any more military action in Venezuela, but would take it, potentially without congressional authorization, in "self-defense."
Rubio also laid out how the United States intends to continue controlling Venezuelan oil and related profits, telling senators that Venezuela's government will submit periodic budgets, and as long as they comply with preset restrictions, the Trump administration will release funds from a US Treasury blocked account.
After the legislation passed Thursday, the Trump administration began easing sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, with the Treasury issuing a general license authorizing certain activities involving Venezuelan-origin oil.
Keep Reading
Show Less
After 2 Years of Denial, IDF Confirms 70,000+ Killed in Gaza—But Denies Famine
"The real figure is much higher," said one UK lawmaker. "This is a 'ceasefire' in name only. The slaughter goes on."
Jan 29, 2026
After two years of denial and deception, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged Wednesday for the first time that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, while continuing to deny the famine Israel caused by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the obliterated strip.
Israeli media including the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and others reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accepts the accuracy of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's (GHM) death toll, which currently stands at least 71,667, with more than 171,000 others wounded and 9,500 missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
"How many years did we spend screaming, with checked and re-checked figures, lists showing names and ID numbers, being told the numbers were completely fanciful despite rigorous, transparent verification, and now the IDF quietly accepts that they were correct all along," Beirut-based journalist Séamus Malekafzali said on X in response to the IDF admission.
Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported. Last June, a study published in Nature reported 84,000 deaths in Gaza. Others say the toll could be even higher, with one Economist study estimating between 77,000-109,000 Gazans killed by Israeli forces.
"We should not care what the IDF accepts or not—they perpetrated the genocide," said Jake Romm, the US representative for the Hind Rajab Foundation, which tracks suspected IDF war criminals and is named after a 5-year-old Palestinian girl massacred along with relatives and rescue workers by Israeli occupation forces on January 29, 2024. "Their communications are in service of that project."
"This is, in any event, an admission that will only be used to discredit the real, much higher death toll as the scale of the atrocity becomes known," Romm added.
Israeli academic Ori Goldberg was also skeptical of the IDF's admission, asserting on X: "'Accepts' means that even the vast network of lies no longer holds. If the IDF 'accepts' 70,000, it has killed innumerably more."
While the IDF accepted GHM's death toll, it argued that the famine in Gaza—which officially lasted from August-December 2025, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the standard international framework for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition—did not happen.
GHM says at least 453 Palestinians, including 150 children, have died of malnutrition in Gaza since October 2023. The IDF contends that the figure is a mix of lies and misleading reporting about people who had preexisting health conditions before they starved to death.
However, famine experts argue that Israel orchestrated a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in Gaza.
Throughout the war, Israeli leaders, their supporters abroad, and mainstream US media attempted to discredit GHM casualty figures by casting aspersions upon the "Hamas-run" ministry. This, despite Israeli military intelligence deeming the figures accurate and historical confirmations of their reliability.
"The phrase *Hamas* Health Ministry was used as a slur for years to signal unreliability, even though it was pointed out again and again that its numbers had always held up," noted journalist Jasper Nathaniel, adding sardonically that "I’m sure the 'Pallywood' crowd will be rushing to apologize today."
The International Center for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on social media that "every media outlet that cast doubt over these figures with dogwhistling phrases like 'Hamas-run MoH' is complicit in these killings."
"In truth, the 71,000+ figure is conservative," ICJP added. "Palestinian bodies are buried under the rubble and can't be counted and many more have died from malnutrition due to Israel's deliberate starvation of Palestinians. Different tools, same outcome: Israeli genocide of Palestinians."
In the United States—which has supported Israel's annihilation of Gaza with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions during both the Biden and Trump administrations—the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment in June 2024 that banned US officials from using State Department resources to cite GHM casualty figures.
The amendment's lead sponsor, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.)—whose all-time top campaign contributor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—contended that “at the end of the day, the Gaza Ministry of Health is the Hamas Ministry of Health."
Former President Joe Biden faced genocide denial accusations for casting aspersions upon GHM reports. President Donald Trump has also said he does not believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A senior IDF official told the Times of Israel that the military is in the process of determining how many of the Gaza dead were members of Hamas or other militant groups.
While the Israeli government has claimed a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, classified IDF intelligence data obtained last year during an investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were civilians.
Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who led the IDF through most of the war—acknowledged after retiring last year that "over 10%" of Gaza's population, or about 220,000 Palestinians, had been killed or wounded as of September 2025.
“This is not a gentle war," Halevi said at the time, "we took the gloves off from the first minute."
Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.
Through it all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders claimed that the IDF, "the most moral army in the world," went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians.
While Israeli leaders scoffed at war crimes allegations, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The ICJ, a UN body, subsequently issued multiple provisional orders for Israel to prevent genocidal acts. Israel has been accused of ignoring these orders, and last September a panel of UN experts concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Later, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The killing isn't over. Since a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last October 10, Israeli forces have killed more than 500 Palestinians in over 1,200 violations of the truce. Palestinians—mostly children and infants—are also still dying of exposure to cold weather as Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid into Gaza.
"They said Palestinians were exaggerating. Lying. Propagandists," Independent UK Member of Parliament Shockat Adam said on X Thursday. "Now, even the IDF accepts 70,000+ killed in Gaza. The real figure is much higher. This is a 'ceasefire' in name only. The slaughter goes on."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular