From the New York Times. I'm Michael about this is a day like today. What sparked this week, massive protests in Cuba, the country's largest in thirty years steady Herndon spoke with our colleague earnest London you about the protein stirs demands the government's response and what happen. Next, it's Thursday July fifteenth. And after what were you thinking when you first heard that there were mass protests that were breaking out across Cuba ever think to know about Cuba as people? Don't protest in large numbers. So when I started getting ex messages and clicking on the videos on Sunday. My jaw dropped

what happened was protesters took to the streets in this list Tell me it is not very well known San Antonio those biofuels, which is near Havana and started Broadcasting Life Programme, wait. I know and the more people that were taken today treats the more their neighbors wanted a sort of follow them. People started screaming freedom, leeway to what clear reference to the authoritarian system the Cubans have been living in four decades, people started protesting that government and invoking the president's name, which is something the Cubans dont want to free me, and certainly never and this kind of numbers, but then something remarkable happened. He no four

a year or so internet connectivity has become more widespread in Cuba in more Cubans are now glued to their phones like so many of us are in people across the country started clicking on those videos and became inspired to do same thing and all of a sudden we had this litany of grievances. Just pouring out into the street, people were out in the streets and very large numbers chanting. Thirty, I e that which means homeland and life, and this is a play on words. The communist parties motto over the years, which is bought that our way to which you know is essentially means that we will then our homeland with our lives. So what protestors

If we want a different kind of a country, we want a different kind of a homeland, and we are no longer wedded to these old revolutionary slogans that people associated with a very repressive system that has failed to transform the country until the utopian socialist, a nation that its founders. Imagine you both of these countries. Repression. and feelings to deliver on just the basic needs of its people. All of a sudden finding a chorus and echo, and it was clear that this was something in the government was ill equipped to put out like it has in the past, when small groups of people take to the.

streets to protest, so you started to hinted this, but what exactly are people protesting over the spark for the things that we saw in a nutshell? The cuban economy has just been in a downward spiral over the past couple of years and the government is in a cash crunch, which means it is. You know it's not able to buy enough food for its people or produce enough food to mess we for its people. So what this looks like on the street is you know it's a daily hustle for ordinary Cubans to find food to put on the table. People say wait and lines for hours to get into a story. And even when they get into the store they often find that the price of basic staples means and rice, you know, is double what they pay for. Just a few weeks ago, we ve heard from families who say that they now

I'll have to do with just one meal a day, because its physically impossible to find more food, so parents in our it very hard to feed their kids. We seem pretty horrific pictures of the conditions of hospitals, and we ve heard accounts that people are not even able to buy aspirin or find penicillin when they get sick, and this is how at a time when covered is exploding on the island. So you know across the board, people are hungry, they are afraid of the virus and the toilet taking on their communities and their families and to make matters worse, Oftentime the power out of the island is experiencing very long and disruptive power outage is that just leave people sort is doing and their sweat in the middle of summer. He officially the basic functions of government that are being defaulted here. Food, medical care, electricity, we're talking about data day,

tilities will be totally disrupted. I can see why anger would be pointed at the government absolutely and in the cuban system. You know order for government which has a central. planned economy and controls people's lives in a very, very tightly the train, for living in such a system was that the state was going to provide for your basic needs that health care would be free, that he would always have enough to eat and on these basic promises to government is clearly failing its people right now in ways we haven't seen for AIDS. The conditions you are describing are also surprising because it felt like just recently they Cuba was experiencing this kind of new moment. The countries seem to be Americans were travelling there. I went there with my family three or four years ago, after being legally barred from doing that,

without a barrage. Was that moment of optimism for the country? A true thing, I think, that's one of the recent this moment right now. This crisis that countries facing feels like such cruel, whipped As for cubans- and I think it for you- were wine- the tape to what happened at the end of the Obama administration it made many Cubans feel like prosperity was within reach, like we were on the cusp of a fundamentally different era for people on the island. good afternoon. Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba in them significant changes in our policy and more than fifty years, Obama, normalized relations with Cuba and essentially argue it back to the United States- should no longer be in the business of regime change. on the island which had been the Eu S policy. For many years today, America chooses

The cut loose the shackles of the past so as to reach for a better future for the cuban people, for the american people and for the work of the Obama pro, which was to build as many bridges between Cuba and the outside world and swore to create an incentive for the government to reform gradually and for people to gradually gain more rights for access to capital, just the ability to be in control of their lives. You know I'm thinking of what Havana filled sorted. in the hay day of that IRAN will cover quickly becoming the place to be that's vacation hotspot, we're in the magnet axiom limiting our work day, we are applying to you how crucial all of a sudden role again from states interests. You know thousands of tourists pouring in and you may be able to apply from Philadelphia Non Stop to Cuba real soon, airline,

from the United States were allowed to fly, and there were just dozens of flights every week in beneath us, Cuba Yes, I'm gonna buy any loss Yentl barrel. That's all the spanish I can really hostelry I visited Cuba. Rihanna went to a restaurant miracle, has really arrive in Cuba is liquor, duchesse, rolling stones will be performing in Cuba, they'll be the biggest active in essence, the nineteen fifty nine revolution, you know the streets of Havana became Lake, Instagram, favorite, spot or celebrities. There were incredibly twenty restaurants, every sort of all the rage it truly felt like the country was undergoing radical transformation. So what happened? How did things turn from that era of her to what you seem to be describing now, Israel desperation on the island. But I think there are three

The main contributing factors to this crisis and the first one was the election of Donald Trump who campaigned promising. reverse the Obama era policy engagement with Cuba, you know which was meant to attract and appease voters and South Florida, and he made good and I promised soon after taking office. He rules out a number of measures that, if China with it We make it harder for Americans to invest in the island to do business in Cuba to consider a fine sure relationships with Cubans on the island and to even spend money travelling there as tourists, so That means that money that you know the cuban government have become used to starts drawing a pretty suddenly and all the sun. They can't afford things they had been able to afford it.

asked and their ability to invest in their infrastructure, their ability to buy food for their people, their ability to invest in their healthcare system. All of a sudden looks a lot more challenging than it had just a year before he. So if the Trump Administrations goal was to inflict pain, it caused paying. So that's reason one of three. What was the second reason that the cuban economy plummeted so quickly? Well, the Cubans have come to rely a lot on Venezuela, which is an oil rich nation in which had been given Cuba subsidized oil for years. You know in the past, this relationship had essentially entailed Cuba.

Receiving subsidized oil in exchange for medical professionals it sent to Venezuela. But what happens in two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen has been a swell. I entered into an economic downward spiral in its ability to continue meeting Cuba's energy needs degrades over time because the Venezuelans themselves, or having a really hard time, keeping the light so Cuba, already frozen out by the United States, have

to rely on Venezuela as a kind of financial lifeline and eat that is pulled out from under the motto that's right, and that leaves them with very few places. To turn to what's the final reason for the Economic Collapse Cove it, the cuban switch in a pride themselves on their medical system did a fairly good job, add containing the spread of the virus early on, but in recent weeks the virus has been exploding in Cuba. We seen record numbers of daily infection. and and deaths. So this is now an epidemic that is out of control in the country and they just sort of you know, adding just a new layer of misery to people who were already at wits end. What, if anything,

the cuban government down to mitigate this crisis. I think the government's playbook has been always to urge their people to blame the United States further problems, and in recent months ass things became worse and worse for Cubans. The government in o predictably pointed to the United States, pointed to the tightening of sanctions.

from Para as the reason Cubans or suffering, is there any truth to that argument? I mean we did just talk about the United States, applying what amounts to a policy of paying to the cuban government. I do now if the embargo words were lifted overnight. I think there is no question that life would be easier for Cubans and it would be easier for Cubans to start putting food on the table. Many people, I think, make you the argument that the embargo is at the heart of what ails cuban people and what puts them in this sort of perpetual. They'd of misery and scarcity. But I think other people feel the government could have you no taken any number of opportunities to modernize its economy, to loosen its grip on people's lives, to allow the private sector

to truly take hold on the island, and that has been too afraid to do so. It's been two afraid of what it would mean to empower citizens to be self sufficient and to be less dependent. And the state. So the only thing that the government did in response was point to the United States as the enemy point to the embargo, but has not actually ease Suffering that is happening on the island in any fundamental way has not been able to respond to the cause of improvement on those kind of basic functioning of government and that's been fuelling ass protests. Absolutely I don't have the government has anything in its toolbox to alleviate the pain in the short run No, but I think what we saw on Sunday was so dramatic and so different from what we seen in Cuba in recent history in other really backs the quest

of whether the government is going to be able to contain this frustration. And and either persuade or scare enough people to prevent a movement for change for transformational change from taking a brute or if it's going to successfully I'm down and turned to draconian means to make the price of dissent so high. That people will just go back home in wait this out all the way back Migraine suffers often feel a bad day coming on nor Tech, Odp Remit, Japan. Seventy five milligrams is the first and only medicine that can treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines with payment

If, in as little as sixty minutes and protection that can last up to forty eight hours, don't take if your allergic to nurture Odp the most common side effects were nausea, stomach pain and indigestion for important safety prescribing and patient information visit. Any warty, easy, darken, Nerd Tech take control of your Migraines daily listeners, it Jane Christian posted the argument, a podcast from your chance opinion. I spent years, is a reporter talking to people from across the political spectrum. I've heard a lot of arguments to in person and online. Some are based, listen mean, but some of made me think differently or helped. Me understand other people's points of view and that's what they are human is about each week on the show, you'll hear people who disagree with each other, respectful civil debate that gets behind the Big news stories and beyond party lives like powder reform.

policing in America, whether we should cancel student dead, raise the minimum wage or killed the filibuster. You might not agree with everything you there and that's the point. You might even walk away some new opinions of your out. You can listening you have the sense of the argument every Wednesday, wherever you're listening to this body guest list. doing what you know about Cuba's government and having covered the country for years when these protests erupted. What did you expect the government to do? I expect that the government act ruthlessly. You know the government has perfected the art of stifling descent and really making the price of being any opposition insurmountable. So the

and went on national television, and he called on government supporters to take back the streets. He said this move into will succeed over our dead bodies. That was remarkable. It also coincided with the government launching a crack down and arresting lots of people who protested. What we ve seen in the last couple of days is some of the key activists to easily lead these movements are behind bars, there are not really able to mobilise and also internet connectivity was shut down and then throttled in the last few days. So that's also made it very hard for Cubans to organise you know, but was also

Sure thing is the government then launched into a kind of a conversation and national dialogue of sorts with its people and set it understood that they were suffering that it understood how unpleasant did was to live in this era of constant power shortages of food scarcity in it effectively said, please bear with us, we are doing the best we can under very difficult circumstances. He. How does that play out? How does it received by the cuban people? So I think a lot of Cubans are kind of a wait and see approach they're going to spend the next few days kind of getting a sense of whether the terrain looks permissible to call for new demons reasons or whether the government is going to manage to stifle this by just inflicting enough pain enough of the leaders of this movement to discourage people from a repeat of what we saw on Sunday, the classic government dilemma of carrot versus stick your saying

evidence points to. Usually the cuban government relies on that day, o absolutely and I think, we're in an era where the government doesn't have much in the way of carrots to offer the people, and it still has a pretty effective and ruthless police state which can wield the stick. You know, as I have been thinking of what the weeks and months ahead are likely to look like. You know it's hard, not to think about what I think is the closest presidential or seeing which is the uprising back in the mid nineties, Nanking Andy forth. It became known ass, a medical NASA tell me about them, sir. You know the Soviet Union for many years treated Cuba S, sort of its special ally and kept Cuba financially

afloat. So when the Soviet Union goes under, things changed dramatically for the Cubans and the Cubans find themselves with no back of plan and nowhere to turn to four people were going hungry. You know something reminiscent we are seeing now and people took to the streets. How did the government respond in eighteen? Ninety, four to those protests. It responded with repression, but you know something happened. That was really unique. Unvarying listing the government at the time said. If so, many of you are fed up, and if so many of you don't want to believe in the cuban socialist project, you can leave, enjoying your trader relatives in Miami so effectively board a mass exodus of people took to the seas in rats and small boats and indeed, in the day, added up to tens of thousands of people who managed

leave, Cuba and that era, and in it was, I think of it. We find ourselves in a completely France situation in twenty twenty one in what ways well effectively has become a lot harder for Cubans to wait to the United States. They are no longer welcomed, asserted the vip immigrants that they once were in the past. They are now hunger entitled to a green card just by virtue of showing up on american soil, and there are few- were visa that are being issued for people who want to join their families legally. So I think what this has led to is a feeling of, being stuck, and there is nowhere to run away and is there that same desire to day to flee Cuba? as there was then in the ninety nineties. Absolutely you know, I think we could yet again see another exodus of people taking to the seas we have already seen.

you know an uptick in that in the last few months, but nowhere near will be sign the 90s. So it's an open question. If you know of this a recent upheaval we saw this wave of protests finds a new with a valve in once again taking to the seas or, if there's just going to be a steady buildup of pressure on the government, and if that's the case, you know, I think the government will find itself cornered and will find itself with few tools at its disposal to make people's lives better. To me, They are incentives to rise up to protest to complain, go away. I cannot but think that, isn't this chaos in Cuba, the goal of? U S, posse, isn't that

the policy that has shut them off economically and globally. Isn't that what has been designed to do? I mean absolutely, I think, if you look at the past few decades of youth policy towards Cuba, the goal has been to squeeze the government hard enough to inflict so much pain that system reaches a breaking point and that a new state is built from within. I think that's me The goal of several administrations- it's been, the goal of exile groups, tat just inflict so much harm in so much pain and the cuban state, that it is no longer tenable for them to stay afloat. If Obama was the exception to how american presidents have treated keeper, what does Joe Biden thing? He was part of that administration is now the president. Can we expect him to follow

those footsteps, or is this someone with their own mind about how America relate to the ILO? The great question I dont think we saw Biden S as president play a leading role in this re, imagining what the relationship with Cuba could look like you know, and so far I dont think with the rhetoric. The statements we ve seen from the bite in administration in the wake of these protests, give us any reason to think about we're going to go back to this era of engagement. This era of trying to treat the cuban state

in a more respectful and deferential way. What were hearing and what we're seeing from Washington very much fits within the older playbook of confrontation of accusations of recrimination, of pointing fingers to the cuban government, which then turns points fingers to the United States. It is a return to form to return to the past in the past. That has not really delivered a more prosperous, a better life for cuban I think, sitting in the. U S, it is easy to see any protest against a communist regime, particularly those in Cuba, as a inherent rejection of the government of the whole core of revolution of their system of government, but should we think of these protests as Cubans demonstrating against

their government wholesale, or is it about wanting the government that they have to perform better? I guess I'm asking. Is it about revolution, or is it about reform? I think it's a little bit a bow. I think it's people rebelling feeling trapped in their status quo. Being sorted pawns in this very acrimonious dysfunctional relationship between the? U S and Cuba being victims of a state that is very repressive and that has been unable to build an economy that provides for people that allows them to live, decent lives. So I dont think people are just rebelling against their government. I think they're rebelling against the constellation of events to very complicated history. Brought us to where we are, and that made life on the island so unbearable him this moment

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is now a very first continent that presents a comprehensive architecture to meet our climate ambitions. We have the goal: But now we present a road map to how we gonna get there. On Wednesday in the European Union announced the world's most aggressive plan to fight climate change are planned. if achieved, would make its twenty seven countries carbon neutral by twenty fifty the planned calls for, among other things, pleasing the price of using fossil fuels, creating a carbon tax on imports, eliminating the sale of new gas and diesel powered cars within just fourteen year, There are some who will say we should go slower. You should go lower, we should do less, but when it comes to climate change, doing

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