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War & Peace
Reporting Says Rubio 'Deliberately' Lying to Trump About US-Cuba Talks
According to Drop Site News, said one organizer, "Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation."
Feb 10, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration's current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal.
The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the "deal" that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions.
Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is "talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens."
But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that "he’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him."
If the public and the president himself believe that high-level negotiations are taking place, "in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence," Drop Site reported, asserting that Rubio is "deliberately" blocking Trump from the talks and misleading him.
A lie like the one Drop Site's sources alleged, said reporter Ryan Grim, "would be a defining scandal in any other administration."
The idea that talks are taking place has been "accepted as fact" in Washington, DC, reported the outlet, which pointed to Politico's recent reporting that said the son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico for talks with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Politico's article was sourced to a Cuban dissident blogger and a "single, fantastical Facebook post made by a Spain-based Cuban journalist."
Drop Site noted that while Trump is currently threatening Cuba's economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people with an oil blockade, having cut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the island after ordering an invasion of the South American country over a month ago, he doesn't appear to be driven by an "ideological confrontation with Cuba" and in fact holds potential financial interests in normalizing relations with the country because he holds a registered trademark for a Trump property in Havana.
Rubio, whose family immigrated to the US from Cuba before the Cuban Revolution—but didn't flee Fidel Castro's takeover as he claimed early in his political career—has long called for regime change in the country.
The US State Department refuted the accounts of Drop Site's five sources and told the outlet that diplomatic talks—which Cuban leaders have said they are entirely open to holding—are taking place, but did not provide evidence or details.
“As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal. Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil," the State Department press office said.
That claim contradicted a comment from Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba's deputy minister of foreign affairs, who told CNN last week that the government has had "some exchanges of messages" with the White House.
"We cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” he said.
Drop Site News' reporting indicates, said Cuban-American organizer and New York City Council candidate Danny Valdes, that "Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation," while Cuban leaders "want dialogue and a way forward, without surrendering their sovereignty."
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Investigation Reveals Israel 'Evaporated' Nearly 3,000 Palestinians With Thermal Weapons in Gaza
“We found nothing of Saad. Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
Feb 10, 2026
An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera based on evidence collected by the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip has concluded that nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been "evaporated" by Israel through the use of thermal weapons—some of them supplied by the US.
As reported by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, the investigation found that 2,842 Palestinians were killed due to Israel's "systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit]."
The heat generated by these weapons is so intense, investigators noted, that they leave behind almost no detectable human remains other than blood stains or pieces of flesh.
Israel's use of such weapons was flagged last year in a social media post by Omar Hamad, a Gaza pharmacist who posted a video purportedly showing a thermobaric bomb being detonated in Beit Hanoun.
Israel is using thermobaric (vacuum) bombs in Beit Hanoun. These are shock waves that spread in a circular and low pattern near the ground surface, preceding the appearance of the dust cloud by far, indicating a speed faster than the speed of sound.
This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/tA7jC61g33
— Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 (@OmarHamadD) July 13, 2025
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, said hat the investigation was not a mere estimate of Palestinians incinerated by thermal and thermobaric weapons, but the result of painstaking forensic work.
"We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered," Basal explained. "If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps."
Unlike the explosions caused by traditional bombs, the thermobaric weapons used by Israel in Gaza first disperse clouds of fuel in a given area that are then ignited to create an enormous and intense fireball.
The investigation found that the fuel typically used in Israeli thermobaric weapons was tritonal, a mixture consisting of 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder often found in US-manufactured weapons such as the Mark 84 aircraft bomb.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the heat generated by these weapons is so intense that any living creatures' bodily fluids will immediately boil.
"When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly," al-Bursh explained. "The tissues vaporize and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable."
Gaza resident Yasmin Mahani told Al Jazeera that her son, Saad, was incinerated by a 2024 Israeli strike that hit a school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.
“We found nothing of Saad," Mahani said. "Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
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'War by Another Means': Union Movement Condemns Trump Economic Siege of Cuba
"Recent actions by the Trump administration have further exacerbated an already US-manufactured humanitarian crisis," said Public Services International Inter-America.
Feb 10, 2026
The inter-American branch of a global labor federation representing tens of millions of workers issued a statement Monday condemning the Trump administration's intensifying economic assault on Cuba and threats of regime change, calling such actions "war by other means" and violations of international law.
"They are incompatible with peace, the human right to dignity, and the principle of national sovereignty," said Public Services International (PSI) Inter-America as the Trump administration's blockade of oil imports fueled a worsening humanitarian crisis for the island nation, bringing rolling blackouts, straining hospitals, and causing shortages of food and other necessities.
The labor federation said Monday that the Trump administration's policies are an extension of the catastrophic, decades-long economic US blockade on Cuba, "which constitutes a violation of the United Nations Charter and has been condemned year after year by the overwhelming majority of the international community."
"Recent actions by the Trump administration have further exacerbated an already US-manufactured humanitarian crisis," PSI Inter-America said, pointing to the White House's blockade of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threats of economic retaliation against any country that provides the island nation with fuel.
"These measures deliberately deepen suffering and place lives in danger," the union federation said. "The blockade itself causes avoidable hardship, illness, and death among the Cuban people every year. Its intensification follows months of sanctions, seizures, and interference targeting Venezuelan oil shipments, further depriving Cuba of essential energy supplies."
The federation called on all of its affiliates worldwide and trade unions in the Americas to:
- Stand in active solidarity with the people of Cuba and publicly oppose the US blockade by raising their voices in protest, in every possible arena, to condemn this arbitrary and immoral measure;
- Demand that their governments take immediate and concrete action to defend international law, continue trade relations with Cuba, and ensure the delivery of all contractual and humanitarian goods;
- Advocate in all multilateral bodies for continued support for Cuba in the face of this ongoing economic aggression.
- Mobilize members to contact elected representatives through coordinated phone calls, emails, and letters demanding an end to the blockade;
- Press national labor centers to carry these demands forward on behalf of the entire labor movement;
- Organize and collect humanitarian and solidarity aid for Cuba; and
- Where possible, organize delegations to Cuba, including participation in the May 1 demonstrations in Havana and the Solidarity Conference on May 2, and consider earlier solidarity visits.
During a news conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the Trump administration's escalating economic warfare against Cuba as "deeply unjust" and vowed to "continue supporting Cuba"—even as her government halted oil shipments to its ally amid the US president's threats.
"You cannot strangle a people in this way," said Sheinbaum, who this past weekend authorized a shipment of more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, including food and other necessities.
"No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing because of the sanctions that the United States is imposing in a very unfair manner," the Mexican president added.
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US Forces Board Tanker in Indian Ocean as Trump Targets Venezuelan Oil
"The Donroe Doctrine is not simply a vision for the hemisphere. It is a doctrine of global domination," said one critic.
Feb 09, 2026
President Donald Trump's blockade of Venezuelan oil—condemned as "piracy" by critics around the world—continued on Monday, with the US Department of Defense announcing that overnight, "military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident" in the Indian Ocean.
"When the Department of War says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DOW from defending our homeland—even in oceans halfway around the world," the Pentagon declared on social media, using Trump's preferred department name. "The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It ran, and we followed."
"The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean," the department continued. "No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain. By land, air, or sea, our armed forces will find you and deliver justice."
"You will run out of fuel long before you will outrun us," the Pentagon added. "The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies the ability to defy American power in the global maritime domain."
The department also shared a video and photos from the operation, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged during a visit to the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, a stop on his national Arsenal of Freedom tour.
According to the Associated Press:
Following the US raid to apprehend then-President Nicolás Maduro in early January, several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight.
Hegseth vowed to eventually capture all those ships, telling a group of shipyard workers in Maine on Monday that "the only guidance I gave to my military commanders is none of those are getting away."
"I don't care if we got to go around the globe to get them; we’re going to get them," he added.
Citing an unnamed dense official, the AP also reported that "the Aquila II has not been formally seized and placed under US control," unlike seven other Venezuela-linked tankers previously taken by the Trump administration. Instead, the news agency explained, the Panamanian-flagged ship "is being held while its ultimate fate is decided by the US."
Reuters noted that Aquila II "was carrying about 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude bound for China," based on schedules from the Venezuelan state oil and gas company, PDVSA.
In addition to Trump's efforts to hand Venezuela's nationalized oil industry over to fossil fuel companies that helped him secure another term, the president is ramping up US pressure on the Cuban economy by depriving the island nation of Venezuelan oil.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Monday, David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, accused Trump of "laying siege to the island of Cuba: asphyxiating its people, shuttering its hospitals, starving them of food."
After news of US forces boarding the Aquila II broke, Adler added: "Jesus christ. The United States is now intercepting oil tankers in the INDIAN OCEAN that dare to carry oil to starving Cuba. The Donroe Doctrine is not simply a vision for the hemisphere. It is a doctrine of global domination."
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