Cuba's crisis deepens
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kate Adie introduces stories on Cuba's multiple crises from blackouts to food shortages, what it's like living under another war in Lebanon, how Persian new year festivities were muted this year, what China thinks about the war in the Middle East, and how an archaeological dig in Georgia led to a political purge.
More than ten million people were left in the dark this week in Cuba, as the third major blackout in a month hit the island. The US fuel blockade is taking its toll, but locals are now finding the courage to publicly criticise the communist government, finds Will Grant in Havana.
Lebanon was quickly drawn into another war following the US-Israel bombardment of Iran. For many Lebanese, much of their life has been spent living amid conflict or the aftermath of war. Carine Torbey reports from Beirut.
The Spring equinox marked the Persian new year festival of Nowruz, though celebrations were muted this year with the country at war, and emotions still raw from the thousands of protesters killed in January. Leila Molana Allen is British-Iranian and reflects on how Iranians inside the country - and in the diaspora - have been trying to draw strength from this ancient tradition.
China has so far kept its distance from the US-Israel war with Iran - a strategy designed, perhaps, with an eye on longer-term advantages over the United States. But it might not be quite so straight-forward says Laura Bicker in Beijing.
And in the Southern Caucasus, archaeologists are once again digging for fossils in Georgia following a political purge of the country's museum sector. William Dunbar went to see what new discoveries are being made.
Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinators: Katie Morrison and Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.9 | Hello. Today, we're talking Trump in a Chinese taxi, as the government weighs up how to respond to the war in the Middle East. |
| 0:14.6 | In Lebanon, citizens are counting the days, weeks and years they've spent living amid conflict. This week, Iranians across the world |
| 0:23.4 | celebrated the New Year Festival of Nauruze, with fear and uncertainty. And finally, we're in Georgia, |
| 0:31.0 | where an archaeological dig for fossils sparked a political purge. But first to Cuba, where more than 10 million people were left in the dark, |
| 0:41.5 | after the country's electrical grid collapsed. |
| 0:44.5 | It's the third major blackout this month, |
| 0:47.1 | after the US imposed a fuel blockade, |
| 0:50.1 | cutting off the oil imports required to keep power stations running. |
| 0:54.7 | President Trump is reported to want the removal of Cuba's president, Miguel Diaz-Cannell, |
| 1:00.7 | as a condition of lifting the fuel embargo, and he's also suggested there could be a friendly takeover of Cuba. |
| 1:09.0 | Meanwhile, vital health services, such as as maternity care are on their knees, |
| 1:14.3 | finds Will Grant in Havana. Indira Martinez had every right to be foul-tempered. Seven months |
| 1:21.0 | pregnant, hungry and exhausted, all she'd wanted that morning was a warm shower and a hot breakfast. |
| 1:28.8 | Neither were available. |
| 1:34.4 | The electricity had been cut off to her home since the previous afternoon, and the fridge was bare of fresh food. Even the classic Cuban morning staple, a milky coffee and a bread roll, |
| 1:40.5 | wasn't on offer, at least not until the power came back and her husband returned with supplies. |
| 1:46.3 | Under such trying circumstances, you might expect Indira to be tetchy and terse. |
| 1:51.2 | Instead, she was impressively good-humoured and welcoming, as she ushered me into her darkened kitchen |
| 1:56.6 | and apologised for not being able to offer me the aforementioned coffee. |
| 2:01.3 | It was early, but Indira had already been up for hours. |
| 2:05.1 | Being so far into her pregnancy, it was difficult to get comfortable in bed. |
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