Cuba cancels May Day parade because of fuel shortages

Cuba's communist authorities has cancelled Monday's accepted May Day parade due to the fact that of acute substance shortages.

Every twelvemonth hundreds of thousands of radical are bussed successful from crossed the land to capable Havana's Revolution Square connected International Workers' Day.

It is the archetypal clip since the 1959 gyration that the celebrations person been cancelled for economical reasons.

In caller weeks agelong queues person formed astatine petrol stations, with drivers often waiting for days.

Earlier this month, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Cuba was lone receiving two-thirds of the substance it needs, adding that suppliers were failing to fulfil contractual obligations.

While Cuba has entree to low-grade crude, the US-sanctioned land lacks the facilities to process it.

Deliveries of higher prime crude from Venezuela, Cuba's largest supplier of fuel, person dropped by 50% successful caller years.

Analysts accidental Venezuela is experiencing terrible problems itself and finds it progressively hard to subsidise its socialist ally.

The shortages person added to regular pressures faced by Cubans. According to Spain's El Pais newspaper, a emblematic monthly wage is $150-200 (£120-160), portion a litre of cooking lipid costs $30.

The authorities insists that its state-driven socialist exemplary is champion for the state and blames the problems connected longstanding US sanctions.

Cuban authorities person traditionally mobilised immense resources to guarantee the occurrence of the May Day parade, transporting workers en masse to Havana.

Before this year, the lawsuit had lone ever been cancelled successful 2020 and 2021, due to the fact that of the Covid pandemic.

Local events are expected to spell up instead, with radical marching connected foot.

Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, the caput of the Workers' Cuba's main commercialized national said connected Tuesday specified acts would item "the obstacles to the improvement programmes owed to the ironclad economical blockade".