Protests erupt in Havana as Cuba struggles to restore electricity

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By Dave Sherwood and Ayose Naranjo Reuters Scattered protests broke out across Havana on Tuesday evening, with residents banging pots, honking horns and shouting “turn on the lights” as millions ‌of Cubans remained without power amid a six-month-long U.S. fuel blockade. Cuba experienced a nationwide outage on ‌Monday — its third this year — but while authorities said most of the country had been reconnected to the island’s grid by late ​Tuesday, many remained in the dark and without electricity as the island doesn’t have enough fuel. The country’s grid operator UNE said it had reconnected the grid from Pinar del Rio, in far western Cuba, to Holguin in the east. Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, remained disconnected and without power, authorities said. The U.S. in January ‌cut off Cuba’s fuel supply, then ⁠imposed fresh sanctions that have prompted an exodus of foreign businesses and a near-complete collapse o...
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More than 200 children killed in Lebanon in past two months, UNICEF says

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More than 200 children have been killed and 1,100 injured in Lebanon in the past two months, the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

The more than year-old conflict in Lebanon spiralled into all-out war in late September when Israel launched a major offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah.

“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told a Geneva press briefing. “For the children of Lebanon, it has become a silent normalisation of horror.”

He declined to comment on who was responsible for the killings, saying that it was clear to anyone who follows the media.

Elder said there were “chilling similarities” between the conflicts in Lebanon and in Gaza, where a significant portion of the more than 43,000 people killed in the 13-month-old war between Israel and Hamas are reported to be children.

UNICEF is providing psychosocial support to children and providing medical supplies, meals and sleeping kits to the hundreds of thousands of children who have fled the fighting.

“In Lebanon, much the same as has become the case in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into the acceptable,” he added.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/WfyvG6i

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