Cuba Analysis

In the next episode of Cuba’s Analysis podcast, Nina Blodau speaks with US army veteran Zue Jernstedt, who served in Afghanistan before leaving the army and becoming an anti-imperialist activist. Zue has worked as a human rights observer in the West Bank, participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, and organised with anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) groups in the United States. In March 2026, she met the Cuba Analysis team in Havana during the Nuestra América Global Convoy of international activists who came together to oppose US threats of military aggression against Cuba and to demand an end to the US blockade, recently compounded by a genocidal oil siege. The conversation connects anti-imperialist struggles in Cuba and Palestine to the US domestic front. Zue discusses how the US military exploits poverty as a recruitment tool, the role of the naval base in illegally occupied Guantanamo Bay as a site for torture, US support for the genocidal Israeli state, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. She reflects on her own political awakening in Afghanistan, where she realised that far from bringing democracy and women’s rights, the US were pursuing its own imperialist interests. This same logic now targets Cuba, she says, not with bombs but with a blockade that starves the population. More recently, Trump has also threatened Cuba with military attack. Zue contrasts propaganda about Cuba with the reality she experienced on the ground: free universal healthcare, a strong sense of community, and a society which, despite crushing sanctions, still cares for each other. Her story is ultimately a call to action. She urges international audiences not to remain passive in the face of imperialism: to engage, to challenge, and to disrupt complacency. As she puts it, “We shall overcome – our day will come. It is absolutely inevitable that we rise up.”Follow us for updates and new episodes:Website: https://www.cubanalysis.orgSocial: @cubanalysisInstagram / Facebook / Telegram / YouTube / TikTokSpotify: https://tinyurl.com/cubanalysisspotifyApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../cuba-analysis/id1846065440

In this episode of the Cuba Analysis Podcast, Helen Yaffe and Nina Blodau talk to Alan MacLeod about the Trump administration’s use of propaganda, misinformation and psychological warfare to facilitate regime change in Cuba and Venezuela. MacLeod is a researcher and investigative journalist for MintPress News, and author of ‘Bad News from Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting’, based on his PhD thesis. Through interviewing the western journalists posted in Caracas, MacLeod’s research showed that they acted as ‘ideological foot soldiers’ for US imperialism, deliberately manufacturing consent for regime change. MacLeod tells us how one journalist, who he names in the podcast, admitted to planting fake news about Venezuela, describing himself as ‘mercenary for hire’. He traces how this playbook of distortion, exemplified in propaganda against Cuba and Venezuela, creates a false reality for the general public, one where fake narratives about ‘narco-states’ and ‘authoritarian dictatorships’ counter the hard evidence from institutions like the United Nations. The conversation connects the dots between the role of individual journalists, media platforms, think tanks, US government funding and Miami-based opposition leaders, revealing a coordinated campaign aimed at overthrowing sovereign governments. He describes the merging in Southern Florida of the right-wing opponents of the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutionary states who receive generous funding under regime change programmes. We discuss the sordid trajectory of the opposition leaders, people such as María Corina Machado from Venezuela, and Cuban American politicians Marco Rubio, and María Elvira Salazar, who promote violence and US intervention. MacLeod shows how information warfare lays the groundwork for economic and military aggression. This episode is a masterclass in media deconstruction and a vital tool for anyone seeking to understand the battle over truth and sovereignty in Latin America. It is also a stirring appeal for genuine international solidarity.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE58GqF9fv8

Historian and Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad, joins Cuba Analysis to examine Cuba’s revolutionary endurance, the legacy of the Tricontinental movement, and the ongoing global struggle against imperialism. With the 60th anniversary of the Tricontinental Conference taking place in January 2026 at the University of Havana (12–14 January), Prashad calls for renewed debate on South–South solidarity and internationalism. Prashad reflects on his first visit to Cuba during the Special Period of the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged the island into severe economic crisis. He argues that Cuba’s survival under extreme pressure revealed a central political truth: socialism, when confronted by empire, becomes an essential defence of sovereignty, dignity, and collective survival. We discuss the historic 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, which united revolutionary movements from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and laid the foundations for anti-imperialist internationalism. Prashad explains how the conference fused the Bandung Movement’s demand for sovereignty with Marxism’s commitment to human dignity, forging a tradition of national liberation socialism that continues to shape struggles across the Global South. Prashad delivers a sharp analysis of ongoing U.S. aggression against Cuba, identifying the blockade as the central human rights violation—an illegal and permanent siege aimed at undermining the Cuban Revolution. He situates today’s economic crisis within a “permanent Special Period” driven by sanctions, financial warfare, and political isolation, and calls for stronger international solidarity, particularly from Latin America and the BRICS countries. He stresses that defending Venezuela is inseparable from defending Cuba. The conversation also explores the continued relevance of Marxist analysis, critiques moralistic and idealist tendencies on the left, and highlights the importance of understanding history’s contradictions and reversals in the long struggle for social transformation. This episode offers a rigorous political and historical analysis of Cuba’s revolutionary project and its international significance, through the lens of one of the most influential critical thinkers of our time. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggYOvUyNbU4

Leading Cuban neuroscientist, Mitchell Valdés Sosa joins Cuba Analysis to discuss Cuba’s commitments to sovereignty, socialism and science. He explains how the National Centre for Scientific Research, founded by Fidel Castro in 1965, trained Cubans in biomedical sciences, and incubated multiple research and development centres, including the Neuroscience Centre that he directs. Cuba’s unique state-founded, state-owned biotechnology sector, organised today under BioCubaFarma, emerged from this process in the 1980s.Valdés Sosa outlines the ‘grand strategy’ behind Cuba’s investment in education and science, and the creation of ‘full cycle’ research centres that combine basic research, production, and foreign trade. He argues that this socialist model, free from speculative private interests, allows the sector to prioritise public health, produce affordable medicines, and tackle neglected diseases that big pharma ignores, including meningitis B in Africa. We discuss recent crises in which Valdés Sosa played a key role: the US allegations of ‘sonic attack’ on diplomats in Havana during the first Trump administration, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Having investigated the US accusation, he provides a scientific rebuttal of the so-called ‘Havana Syndrome’, highlighting the lack of medical evidence - a conclusion subsequently reached by US intelligence agencies – and the political motivations behind them. He describes how during COVID-19 the Neuroscience Centre pivoted to manufacture medical ventilators and swabs in collaboration with international partners, to circumvent US sanctions.Valdés Sosa describes the suffocating impact of the US blockade on Cuba’s medical science sectors, from obstructing access to equipment, spare parts, databases, and bank transactions, to ‘invisible mechanisms’ to scare off scientific partners. It is a ‘crime against Cuba’, he says, designed to strangle the economy and overthrow a system whose example of successful social policies the US establishment fears.Looking to the future, we discuss Cuba’s three innovative treatments in the pipeline for Alzheimer’s, a disease that will affect 30 million people globally by 2030. Most advanced is NeuroEPO, which has shown extremely promising results in clinical trials, with very few side effects and should be available to Cuban patients in 2026.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myc4iAXuoWs

Interview with Irish legend David Hickey, whose extraordinary life bridges three worlds, as Irish surgeon, sports legend, and solidarity activist. Deeply inspired by Cuba’s public healthcare system, Hickey condemns the US blockade as a war crime. He founded the Irish Cuban Medical Association, which shipped medical supplies to Cuba and donated to a kidney disease education centre. Hickey talks about personal battles with cancer and the loss of his Cuban wifeYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q1m46KjwcY