Category World News

Cuba is battling a wave of mosquito-borne illnesses, with the country’s top epidemiologist warning that nearly one-third of the population has been impacted, with large numbers of workers taken ill.

On Thursday, fumigators armed with fogging machines probed alleys and crowded buildings in parts of the capital Havana, among the hardest hit by mosquito-borne viruses including dengue and chikungunya, authorities said.

It comes after Francisco Duran, the national director of epidemiology at the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, described the situation in the Caribbean island nation as “acute”.

“We are working intensely, as we did with COVID-19,” Duran said, referring to ongoing research projects to find medications and vaccines to help tame the virus’s impacts.

Dengue fever has long plagued Cuba, but has grown worse as the government’s ability to fumigate, clean roadside rubbish and patch leaky pipes has been hampered by an ongoing economic crisis.

The once-rare chikungunya virus – which causes severe headache, rashes and joint pain which can linger months after infection, causing long-term disability – has also spread quickly in recent months.

Chikungunya, which is spread primarily by the Aedes mosquito species that also carries dengue and Zika, has no specific treatment.

Duran said Cuban health authorities are conducting two clinical trials to test the efficacy of Jusviza, an injectable drug used to control hyperinflammation, in treating chikungunya.

He continued that another trial is under way to evaluate rectal ozone therapy as a treatment for patients with joint pain following chikungunya’s acute phase. This form of treatment involves administering ozone gas through the rectum.

Outbreaks of chikungunya have infected almost 340,000 people globally so far in 2025, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), resulting in 145 deaths in at least 16 countries. In July, the World Health Organization issued an urgent call for action to prevent another epidemic of the virus.

Cuba’s healthcare system, once among the best in Latin America, has suffered under a decades-long economic embargo orchestrated by the United States, seeking to pressure Havana’s nominally communist government into making political and economic reforms.

Citizens in the impoverished island nation routinely suffer from severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine, while the poorest are often unable to purchase insect repellent.

The issue is exacerbated by frequent power outages, which leave Cubans with little choice but to open their windows and doors to ease the heat, inviting mosquitoes in and facilitating the spread of the disease.

“The blockade is a policy of collective punishment,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in late October, as the United Nations General Assembly again overwhelmingly called for an end to Washington’s embargo for a 33rd year.

Here is how things stand on Friday, November 14:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv early on Friday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, with air defences in action and a series of explosions reported in the capital.
• Klitschko said falling debris had struck a five-storey apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the east side of the Dnipro River, and a high-rise dwelling was on fire in Podil district on the opposite bank.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near Ukraine’s southeastern front line, where he warned of the need to shore up defences after his troops lost ground in increasingly high-intensity battles far from Russia’s main offensive in the east of the country.
• President Zelenskyy said the situation near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region was “one of the most difficult” along a sprawling front line and that thwarting Russian forces there was key to shielding Zaporizhzhia city.
• Ukraine’s military said its troops hit a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea and also an oil depot in the occupied Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian oil facilities and other military targets were hit by domestically produced weapons, including the “Flamingo” ground-launched cruise missile, drone missiles, and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces have captured two more Ukrainian settlements: Synelnykove in the Kharkiv region and Danylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• Russian air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reports, citing daily data from the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Peace talks

• The Kremlin said Ukraine would have to negotiate an end to the war “sooner or later” and predicted that Kyiv’s negotiating position would worsen by the day.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.
• Lavrov said United States President Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and “demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution”.
• “We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine energy scandal

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Zelenskyy have discussed the $100m energy corruption scandal that has engulfed Kyiv, the German government said in a statement.
• Zelenskyy pledged complete transparency, long-term support for independent anticorruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors, the statement said.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also announced an audit of all state-owned companies, including in the energy sector, following the scandal that has led to the suspension of two cabinet ministers.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is lending 22.3m euros ($26m) to a Ukrainian energy firm as part of a pipeline of deals, signalling its ongoing support for the sector despite the corruption scandal.
• The EBRD cash will go to private Ukrainian energy company Power One to finance new gas-piston power plants and battery energy storage systems, the lender said in a statement.

Aid to Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soon begin a staff mission to Ukraine to discuss its financing needs and a potential new lending programme, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said.
• Ukraine is in talks with the IMF about a new four-year lending programme for the country that would replace its current four-year $15.5bn programme. Ukraine has already received $10.6bn of that amount.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the European Union could either borrow the money needed to cover Kyiv’s financial needs in 2026 and 2027 against the collateral of its long-term budget, or each EU country could borrow on its own and extend a grant to Ukraine.
• A third option was a proposal from the Commission to organise a loan that would effectively become a grant, on the basis of the Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU. European finance ministers agreed that funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most “effective” of the three options being considered.
• Europe’s top development banks and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz signed a deal to provide an EU grant of 127 million euros ($127m) in additional funding to the firm, on top of a 300 billion euro loan ($349bn) it outlined last month to secure Ukraine’s natural gas supply, amid the ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure by Russia.
• Nordic and Baltic countries will together contribute $500m to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List arms initiative, their defence ministers said in a joint statement.

Russian sanctions

• About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, or almost a third of the country’s seaborne exporting potential, remain in tankers as unloading slows due to US sanctions against energy firms Rosneft and Lukoil, according to US financial services firm JPMorgan.
• Bulgaria’s parliament has overruled a presidential veto on legislation allowing the government to take control of Lukoil’s oil refinery and sell it to shield the asset from looming US sanctions.
• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had attempted to veto a move by lawmakers giving a government-appointed commercial manager powers to oversee the continued operation of Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria beyond November 21, when the US sanctions are due to take effect, and to sell the company if needed.
• Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
• The group said critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilisers at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions. The attack was successfully repelled, and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has joined a lawsuit against California over the state’s redistricting effort, which was approved by a landslide in the November 4 election.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice said it would seek to overturn California’s new map of congressional districts, which was passed through a ballot initiative with approximately 64 percent support.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

She accused California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, of attempting to stifle Republican voices in his state. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

The ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, is poised to redraw the boundaries of electoral districts to favour the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

The proposition was designed as a counterattack against Trump’s gerrymandering in Republican states.

In Texas, for instance, the Trump White House urged the state legislature to pass new congressional districts that would allow the Republicans the opportunity to win five more seats in the House of Representatives in 2026.

In August, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the new Republican-backed map into law.

Republicans also expect to gain one seat each from new maps in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially two more in Ohio. Civil rights advocates have argued that the new boundaries in Texas and Missouri illegally disadvantage minority communities at the ballot box.

Proposition 50 in California means that Democrats might win as many as five additional seats in the House in 2026, in an explicit attempt to offset the new Texas congressional map.

However, the California Republican Party and 19 registered voters sued the state in federal court on November 5, a day after the election was held.

They claimed California’s redistricting effort violates provisions of the US Constitution by unlawfully favouring Hispanic communities.

The Justice Department has echoed those concerns in its complaint. It argues that California’s map “manipulates district lines in the name of bolstering the voting power of Hispanic Californians because of their race”.

Tonight, California sent a powerful message to Donald Trump. We will fight for our democracy. And we will win. pic.twitter.com/tEcPlxVbi4

In response, Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Governor Newsom, said, “These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court.”

Newsom has emerged as a prominent Democratic critic of Trump, calling the president’s opposition to California’s ballot measure the “ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE”.

Newsom has confirmed he will consider a White House run in 2028 once the 2026 midterm elections are over.

California’s new district boundaries will apply for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.

Normally, congressional districts in California are drawn by an independent commission, based on the results of a national census taken every 10 years.

Proposition 50 suspends that commission’s work for the next three national elections and instead adopts a map created by the state legislatures.

In theory, electoral maps should reflect the people who live in a given state. In reality, most boundaries are rejigged by the parties in power, in a process called gerrymandering. Legislatures in many states determine how the districts are drawn.

California’s new congressional map aims to dilute Republican voters’ power, in one case by uniting rural, conservative-leaning parts of far northern California with Marin County, a famously liberal coastal stronghold across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

Ireland have stunned Portugal 2-0 to keep their narrow path to next year’s World Cup open and make the Nations League winners wait to book an automatic spot on a night where their captain Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off.

Ireland, who have not qualified for a major tournament in a decade and last reached a World Cup in 2002, needed at least a draw on Thursday to keep their qualification hopes alive, and a first half Troy Parrott double capped their best performance in years.

They still need a win in Budapest on Sunday to claim a spot in next March’s playoffs after second-placed Hungary won 1-0 in Armenia. A draw at home to bottom-placed Armenia is likely the most Portugal need to secure automatic qualification.

But they will have to do it without Ronaldo, whose initial yellow card for lashing out with an elbow to the back of Ireland defender Dara O’Shea was upgraded after review to his first-ever red card for Portugal in his 226th appearance.

Portugal, who were moments away from securing their seventh successive World Cup appearance a month ago before a stoppage-time Hungarian equaliser in Lisbon, fell behind on 17 minutes after Liam Scales headed a fizzed-in corner back across goal and Parrott could not miss.

Well worth the lead, Ireland went inches from doubling it when Chiedozie Ogbene struck the post with a fine effort before in-form AZ Alkmaar striker Parrott found the bottom corner with a brilliant finish from a similar distance just before the break.

Ireland, who defended gallantly in the reverse fixture before going down to a late goal, did not require a repeat once Ronaldo received his marching orders on the hour, sarcastically clapping the delighted home fans as he departed.

Portugal, who are assured at least a playoff spot, are two points clear of Hungary at the top of Group F with a superior goal difference. The Irish are one point further back.

Parrott told RTE that it was “probably the best night” of his life.

“It is such a relief and overwhelming feeling to see the hard work paying off,” he said.

“We all knew how important this game was for us, especially given the other result tonight [Hungary beat Armenia]. I am just overwhelmed, I don’t know what words to give now. I am over the moon.”

Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson praised the backing of the fans and suggested they may have gotten to Ronaldo.

“I can only praise the supporters. We have amazing fans as always. They have a lot of say in this win, they give us energy and help us at crucial times. They deserve this win,” he said.

“[Ronaldo] lost his focus a little bit. Maybe it was the fans as well that helped a little bit. He was frustrated and reacted in a way that he knows he shouldn’t.”

Elsewhere on Thursday, two goals from star striker Kylian Mbappe helped send two-time champions France to the 2026 World Cup with a 4-0 home win against Ukraine.

Midfielder Michael Olise and substitute forward Hugo Ekitike added the other goals in a dominant second half from France, the World Cup runner-up in 2022.

Late goals from Gianluca Mancini and Francesco Pio Esposito helped Italy to a 2-0 win away against Moldova on Thursday, keeping alive their faint hopes of automatic qualification for the 2026 World Cup with their fifth consecutive victory.

The result lifted Italy to 18 points, three behind group leaders Norway, who earlier beat Estonia 4-1, with the two sides meeting on the final qualifying matchday on Sunday. The Azzurri now face what looks an impossible task, needing to win and overturn Norway’s goal difference of 17.

England eased to a mundane 2-0 victory over Serbia with goals from Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze to make it seven wins from seven games in their World Cup qualifying campaign at a rain-soaked Wembley Stadium on Thursday.

Serbia put up more resistance than in the 5-0 home drubbing by England in September and Dusan Vlahovic twice went close to equalising but the defeat means his side can no longer finish in the top two and earn a playoff shot.