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Cuba Has Authorized Store Chains Without Creating a Market
Natalia Suyos · Aug 30, 2026
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DispatchesShort editorial pieces on the country in transition — politics, sanctions, day-to-day shifts.
Cuba’s Prison Door Still Opens Inward
The reported detention of former 11J prisoner Andy García Lorenzo after he filmed a protest in Santa Clara raises a harder question than whether Cuba has released its political prisoners. A prison sentence that follows a citizen home is not a sentence with an end.
Cuba’s Medicine Cabinet Is Now a WhatsApp Group
Havana’s new Farma Joven program uses WhatsApp, volunteers, and donated medicines to reach patients. Its kindness is real, but so is the institutional collapse it quietly records.
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TravelHigh-end travel features — hotels, regions, operators, the changing logistics of getting there.
Cuba’s Hospitals Are Being Supplied by a Lifeboat
A sailboat carrying dialysis supplies and powdered milk has returned to Havana’s cruise terminal less than six weeks after its first relief mission. The repeat voyage is not merely a gesture of solidarity; it is a measure of what Cuba’s hospitals can no longer reliably provide.
Cuba’s Departure Board Now Ends in 2027
Iberia has pushed the return of its direct Madrid-Havana route to June 2027. The cancellation is more than an airline decision: it is a public timetable for Cuba’s lost normality.
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Art & MusicCuban artists, concerts, exhibitions, the Havana Biennial; son, salsa, jazz, trova heritage.
Close But No Cigar: A True Story of Prison Life in Castro's Cuba
Cuban Artist Featured In D.C. Art Exhibit
Companies + markets
BusinessFree reporting on Cuban and Cuba-facing companies, deals, executives, regulatory enforcement, and the economic conditions operators work under.
Cuba Has Authorized Store Chains Without Creating a Market
Cuba has authorized nationwide chains of shops and restaurants under Decree 167. But a chain is not a market, and the links that make commerce reliable—inventory, power, currency, and trust—remain dangerously weak.
Cuba’s Private Businesses Are Being Called to Heel
Miguel Díaz-Canel’s meeting with private entrepreneurs offered recognition wrapped in warning. Cuba needs its small businesses to keep the country moving, but still insists on holding the leash.
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WatchWatch the Cuba Journal staff bring Cuba alive with video.
In Conversation: Cuba After Castro with Lanie Millar
After Castro with Lanie Millar
VIDEO: Cuba's Watery World
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PhotographyGalleries by subject — reefs, streets, faces, vehicles, weather, the country in light.
Annenberg Space for Photography Opens Cuban Photography Exhibit
Humans of Havana Website Profiles Cubans' Lives Beyond The Old Havana Scene
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