Category World News

US sanctions must be stopped as they reshape life in Cuba: UN rapporteur

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A senior UN official claims that the United States must lift unilateral sanctions against Cuba because they are “causing significant effects across all aspects of life” more than 60 years after they were put in place during the first half of Fidel Castro’s presidency.

The island nation’s “extensive regime of economic, trade, and financial restrictions” against them is the longest-running unilateral sanctions policy in American history, according to Alena Douhan, special rapporteur on the negative effects of unilateral coercive measures on human rights.

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Cuba’s government has argued that the country “will not surrender” to Washington’s “policy of collective punishment,” but only the US Congress has the authority to lift the Cold War-era embargo on the communist-run nation.

In a statement released on Friday, Douhan stated that “generations of Cubans have lived under unilateral coercive measures, which have shaped the country’s economic and social landscape.

According to the UN official, Washington’s measures have gradually increased since 2018, with additional sanctions being imposed on the already-existing ones, and that there will be significant increases in 2021 as a result of Cuba’s re-designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

Other nations and foreign businesses also abide by the embargoes in an effort to avoid being targeted by secondary sanctions, which, according to Douhan, “suffocate the social fabric of Cuban society” and affect the ability of the people to plan for long-term growth.

US governments have ignored international demands for decades to lift the sanctions against Cuba, such as the overwhelmingly popular UN General Assembly vote at the end of October, which demonstrated widespread support for a 33rd-year embargo.

On November 21, 2025, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Alena Douhan addresses a media conference in Havana, Cuba [Norlys Perez/Reuters]

The country is further strained by a growing emigration of skilled workers, including doctors, engineers, and teachers, according to the UN rapporteur, who claims there are shortages of food, medicine, water, essential machinery, spare parts, and supplies.

According to Douhan, the cumulative effect has “severe consequences for the enjoyment of human rights, including those relating to life, food, health, and development.”

The island of 10 million has been harmed by a number of power outages and grid collapses over the past year.

The UN expert noted that investors are cautious about investing in long-term projects because Washington may have changed its mind about its policies even though the US has very limited licenses and exemptions.

She urged all states to uphold international law principles and standards and to follow international law principles that are rooted in the values of reciprocity, solidarity, cooperation, and multilateralism.

Seven bodyguards arrested over Mexico mayor’s assassination

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by news organizations

According to the prosecutor’s office, seven members of the security detail of Mexican mayor Carlos Manzo have been detained as potential suspects in his death.

The guards, who were active police officers, were detained as part of an investigation into their “probable involvement in the crime of qualified homicide,” according to the prosecutor’s office on Friday.

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On November 1 in broad daylight, the mayor of Uruapan was killed in front of his family. A 17-year-old boy was allegedly killed by the politician’s security personnel. Organized crime is most likely to blame for the murder, according to local and federal authorities.

Manzo’s murder at a celebration in the city marking the Day of the Dead sparked widespread outcry and shock in the country.

It sparked anti-government demonstrations and led to the expansion of federal forces in western Mexico’s Michoacan.

Manzo, 40, had gained notoriety as a pro-organized crime fighter in the troubled state.

He had campaigned against Mexico’s notorious and powerful drug cartels while serving as mayor of Uruapan for a little over a year.

The seven guards were reportedly working until their arrests, and they were there to defend Manzo’s widow, Grecia Quiroz, who had been chosen by the state Congress to take his place as Uruapanes mayor, according to officials.

‘Mastermind’ allegedly detained

Federal authorities named Jorge Armando “N” as one of the “masterminds” behind Manzo’s murder on Wednesday and announced his arrest as “El Licenciado.”

El Licenciado, who is the head of an unidentified criminal cell, is reportedly the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to the federal security secretariat.

Local media released images of a midday raid by local prosecutor’s office, supported by military personnel and federal guards, to apprehend the bodyguards on Friday.

The detainees were transferred to a prison to be presented before a judge, according to the prosecutor’s office’s brief report, which was shared on social media.

Since then, authorities have confirmed that Manzo’s security detail’s members are municipal police.

In a massive Gen Z-heavy protest last Saturday, Mexicans marched in Mexico City to denounce Manzo’s murder. In the clashes between demonstrators and police, more than 100 people were hurt, and 19 were detained.

Australia’s Northern Territory braces for Tropical Cyclone Fina

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by news organizations

Residents of Australia’s Northern Territory region are being advised to prepare for Tropical Cyclone Fina, which is expected to cause severe winds and flooding in Darwin.

The remote Tiwi Islands and Cape Hotham, which are both in the Van Diemen Gulf, were to be hit on Saturday afternoon by Fina, a Category 3 cyclone traveling at a speed of 102 miles per hour (102 kilometers per hour), according to the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia.

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The Northern Territory’s capital Darwin, where it is known as a “severe tropical cyclone,” would then likely pass on Saturday.

It is anticipated to make its closest approach to Darwin by Saturday night. The bureau reported that this is where the worst of the city’s wind and rain could pour.

It urged people to “immediately begin or continue preparations, especially securing boats and property.”

Darwin, which has a population of about 140, 000 people, is expected to experience widespread heavy rainfall and damaging-to-locally destructive winds, according to Weather Bureau senior meteorologist Dean Narramore.

He told the ABC broadcaster, “Staying over water means that it’s likely to keep its intensity.”

The incident controller for the Northern Territory Emergency Operations Centre, Kirsten Engels, urged residents of the affected areas to make emergency plans for their homes and relocate to nearby public shelters if necessary.

“We’re prepared, but the situation is serious,” he said. She told the ABC that the winds and rain are already picking up in Darwin and the Tiwi Islands.

In one of Australia’s worst natural disasters, Cyclone Tracy, which destroyed much of the city on Christmas Day 1974, killing 71 people, brings up painful memories of the warning for Darwin.

US warns civilian flights as military activity around Venezuela increases

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Published On 22 Nov 2025

Major airlines have been warned of potential dangers by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as a result of “heightened military activity” in the wake of the US forces’ significant expansion in the area.

The FAA’s NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) warning was issued on Friday, citing the “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around Venezuela,” and noting that it was skipping a flight over the nation.

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Due to the threats “at all altitudes, including during overflight, the arrival and departure phases of flight, and/or airports and aircraft on the ground,” the aviation regulator urged aircraft flying in the area to “exercise caution.”

According to the FAA, there has been more global navigation satellite system interference in Venezuelan airspace since September, which has “loosely caused lingering effects throughout a flight” and “activity associated with increasing Venezuela military readiness”.

The FAA noted that “Venezuela has at no point expressed an intention to target civil aviation” and that it has conducted numerous military exercises and directed the mass mobilization of thousands of military and reserve forces since September.

The FAA will continue to monitor the risk environment for US-based civil aviation in the area and make adjustments as necessary, it continued.

According to the Reuters news agency, US airlines operated direct flights to Venezuela in 2019 without using passenger or cargo carriers, despite the report that some do so on flights there.

American Airlines announced on Friday that it had suspended its October flights to Venezuela. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines did not respond to requests for comment right away.

In response to Washington’s alleged military operation against Latin American drug trafficking cartels, it has deployed its most advanced aircraft carrier strike group, navy warships with thousands of troops, and F-35 stealth aircraft to the area.

As the Trump administration intensifies its rhetoric against Caracas, including by accusing Maduro of drug trafficking, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has warned that Washington may try to overthrow him as a result of the military buildup.

In addition, US forces are currently attacking ships in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. More than 80 people have died in US attacks on more than 20 vessels since early September, which the US claims are involved in drug trafficking.

Legal experts accuse the Trump administration of conducting extrajudicial killings in international waters, but the US military has not provided any proof that the vessels and their occupants were engaged in criminal activity or had posed a threat to the US.

According to Flightradar24, US flight operators are now required to give the FAA 72 hours prior notice before entering Venezuelan airspace.

Colombia hails ‘historic blow’ after largest cocaine bust in a decade

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As President Gustavo Petro continues to defend his innocence in the wake of allegations from the administration of US President Donald Trump about his complicity in the drug trade, Colombian authorities have seize 14 tonnes of cocaine from its main Pacific port.

Bolivia, the country’s largest cocaine-producing nation, announced that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would be invited back into the country in 2017 to support the new conservative government’s efforts against cocaine.

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The Ministry of Defense of Colombia praised the “historic blow” to drug traffickers on Friday when it announced the scavenging of dozens of 50-kilogram (110-pound) sacks of cocaine inside a warehouse in Buenaventura, a strategic port for Colombian cocaine.

The container was headed for the Netherlands, according to the statement, adding that “the drug was camouflaged under the method of being mixed with plaster.”

“With this seizure, we prevented the distribution of 35 million cocaine doses and had a significant financial impact on those structures,” the statement read.

Petro confirmed the seizure in a post on X, calling it the largest seizure by Colombian police “in the last ten years” when he videoed officers and canines raiding a warehouse in the Port of Buenaventura.

He continued, “There was no single death during the operation.”

ALERT! Colombia’s police have recently conducted the largest seizure. In the Port of Buenaventura, 14 tons of cocaine have been seized without a single fatality.

Washington’s pressure

The Trump administration has increased its clampdown on Bogota over the past few months, calling its anti-drug policies ineffective, and threatening to have Colombia off its list of allies in its drug war.

President Petro, his wife Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, his son Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti were given sanctions by the US Department of the Treasury in October for their alleged involvement in the world drug trade.

Petro “allowed drug cartels to prosper and refused to stop this activity,” according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Since President Gustavo Petro took office, cocaine production in Colombia has soared to the highest level in decades, inflicting flooding and poisoning Americans, according to Bessent.

Petro demanded on Monday that Colombia’s Financial Information and Analysis Unit make his bank records&nbsp public, to show that he has no connections to drug trafficking.

Do you find it alarming that the president was democratically elected by Colombians in your eyes? On X, Petro wrote.

Petro has criticized Trump’s anti-drug policies since taking office, calling them “extrajudicial executions” for the repeated bombings of suspected traffickers in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean since September.

The Trump administration has used its military actions to combat illicit drug flows, including a recent surge in the number of warships stationed in the area.

As Caracas grows concern that Trump is preparing troops for an upcoming military conflict against Venezuela, Venezuela has decried it as a pretext to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office.

Bolivia’s shift toward conservatism

US ties to Bolivia are improving as Colombia and Venezuela continue to face off against each other as they approach Washington in a new era of conservative rule.

Ernesto Justiniano, Bolivia’s brand-new narcotics tsar, announced to the AFP news agency on Friday that the socialist former president Evo Morales had been invited to reappear.

According to Justiniano, who is a member of the new administration of President Rodrigo Paz, a pro-business conservative who took office on November 8, “there is a political commitment” for the organization to return to Bolivia, where cocaine production has allegedly gotten out of hand.

“We will no longer be a country that acts solely out of political necessity,” Justiniano declared.

He continued, “International cooperation is essential” in the fight against the drug trade.