Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the culmination of seven decades of collective punishment of the Cuban

people from a blockade of sanctions, with the Trump administration now turning the screws

on the island, cutting off oil, which is causing blackouts as the long-suffering Cubans

run out of food, water and electricity,

while children beg in the streets filled with garbage that is piling up.

Joining us to discuss rumours that Rao Castro's son is negotiating with the CIA in Mexico City

for a regime transition along the lines of Venezuela is Marco Bustamante, Associate Professor

of History and the Emilio Bacardi-Morrow Chair in Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University

of Miami. He serves as the director of academic programs at the Cuban Heritage Collection,

the largest archival repository dedicated to Cuban

materials outside of the island, and the largest collection of materials on the Cuban

diaspora in the world. And is the author of Cuban Memory Wars, retrospective politics in

Revolution and Exile, and the co-editor of the revolution from within Cuba,

1959 to 1980. And we'll discuss his article at the Journal of Democracy with Maduro

Gone is Cuba ready to fall? Then we will go to the Munich Security Conference

where Secretary of State Marco Rubia made nice without one mention of Ukraine and

speak with Charles Cupschen, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security

Council during the Clinton administration.

He's now a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University School of Foreign

Service and spent the last three years of the Obama administration as special assistant to

...