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From Our Own Correspondent
Cuba's collapsing revolution
00:28:42
As Cubans struggle with the US fuel blockade, the revolutionary spirit is under strain
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- [00:00]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Hello. Today we're in Lebanon, where locals are struggling to imagine a future free of conflict. In Australia, we hear how teenagers are finding ways to sidestep the social media ban. In a Greek taverna, angry workers vent over the government's new labor laws and the introduction of a 13 hour day. And in Iceland, some inclement weather leads our correspondent to discover an unusual museum in Reykjavik. But first to Cuba, which is struggling to cope with America's near total fuel blockade, which has affected almost every facet of daily life on the island. The Trump administration has made no secret of its desire to remove the ruling Cuban Communist Party from power. And on May 20, Cuban Independence Day, Washington increased the pressure when it issued an indictment against Raul Castro, brother of former leader Fidel Castro. He stands accused of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and other crimes over the 1996 downing of two planes, allegations Cuba's president said were devoid of any legal foundation. Will Grant has been in the capital Havana.
- [01:16]
Ana Rosa Romero / Juana Garcia
Ana Rosa Romero can watch baseball matches from her balcony. From her apartment on the 11th floor of the 12 storey Grand Madoss Building, a stark modernist housing block in the Cerro neighbourhood of Havana, she enjoys stunning vistas across the city. Her elevated vantage point lets her see right into the Estadio Latin Americano, Cuba's national baseball stadium, next door. A decade ago, she witnessed history unfold on that baseball field. President Barack Obama watched a game there with then Cuban President Raul Castro in the last act of his remarkable trip to the island in 2016. The optics between the two men, indeed between the two nations, all smiles and warm handshakes and jokes. Today, things could hardly be more different. Ana Rosa looks out over an empty stadium, its floodlights switched off, its turnstiles locked, all games suspended until further notice amid the near total US fuel blockade of Cuba. The Americans say my nation is failing, says Ms. Romero in her kitchen. But they won't let us breathe. They're strangling us. The imposing image of Fidel Castro, Raul's late older brother, looks down on us from a frame on the living room wall as we sip coffee, an indication of where Anna Rossa's sympathies lie. Like many women of her generation from the rural provinces, she's grateful to the revolution for her education and a path to becoming a philosophy teacher. But her retirement wasn't meant to be spent on her own. Inside a dark apartment, her husband of 53 years had a degenerative disease which worsened after Covid. By the end, she was caring for him around the clock, with the elevator rarely working. Anna Rossa says she barely ventures out anymore. It's tough because I need the exercise and the interaction, she laments. But at her age, she says, she can't risk getting stuck in the lobby with bags of shopping and 11 flights of stairs to climb. The building superintendent, an energetic woman called Juana Garcia, tells me other residents are far worse off. Several have pacemakers, while one is in their 90s and bedridden. They often only get water into their apartment if someone physically carries it up to them. Juana says she's pushing the state to install solar panels on the roof to at least work the lift in the building's water pump. As the Fidel portrait on the wall suggested, Anna Rossa blames Washington and President Trump rather than her own government. I ask her about the murder charges the US recently brought against Raul Castro, the island's most important living revolutionary, for his role in the shooting down of two planes, which killed four people, including three Americans. I don't agree with it, she tells me. We grew tired of hearing the Cuban state warn the Brothers to the Rescue against flying over Cuban airspace. But of course they ignored it because they do what they want. They're the masters of the universe. She's referring to the Miami based group at the heart of the Castro indictment, Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban American group founded in 1980, used to airdrop supplies to Cuban migrants as they attempted to reach the US by sea and alert the Coast Guard to any in difficulties. However, they'd also cross into Cuban airspace to drop anti government leaflets over Havana. Cuba designated them a terrorist organization. It came to a head in 1996 when Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down two of the organization's Cessna aircraft, prompting outrage in the US and calls for the very charges now filed against the 94 year old Castro, then Cuba's defense minister. Fast forward 30 years and the charges from Washington. On the Malecon, Havana's waterfront promenade, the Cuban state did what it does best, mobilized its people for a demonstration outside the US Embassy. Speaker after speaker echoed the top leadership, insisting the indictment was a pretext for war. As the sun rose, two military officers fainted in the heat, perhaps a metaphor for a collapsing revolution. Privately, some elderly former revolutionaries admitted to me they just want it to all be over. In her youth, one had traveled to Angola to help spread socialism around the world. Another said she was a card carrying member of the Cuban Communist Party. Both were exhausted. The endless blackouts and the poverty, the scarcity and the miniscule pensions, the indignities in old age and the lack of opportunities for young people had even them almost willing the Americans to act. Ana Rosa remains resolutely loyal, though she doesn't expect to be watching any baseball games for a while, especially not one to celebrate cordial US And Cuban ties. I love living up here, she sighs, gazing at the stadium. Then, in the closest she comes to criticism of Cuba's leadership, she adds, but I do think they forget how tough things are in the high rises, will
- [06:04]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
grant now we're in southern Lebanon, where Israel has stepped up its offensive with daily air and artillery strikes, which have killed dozens more civilians. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press the pedal even harder in targeting Hezbollah. Following drone attacks targeting communities in northern Israel. Israel issued an evacuation order to Lebanese civilians on Wednesday, covering 14% of Lebanese territory. The ceasefire, announced in April, is now all but over, with both Israel and Hezbollah accusing each other of repeated violations. The scale of the displacement is now straining the wider region, with shelters reaching full capacity. John Sudworth reports on the ongoing conflict
- [06:53]
John Sudworth / Lebanese fishermen / Mohammed
on Beirut's Corniche, the stretch of seafront promenade that, in better days now almost forgotten, was once graced by European film stars and royalty. I meet a group of fishermen and tour boat operators sitting in the shade of an awning. They're smoking shishas, drinking coffee and talking war, politics and the tough financial conditions of a seafront empty of tourists. The men are members of the Druze community, part of Lebanon's complex ethno religious mix, whose armed militia fought on the side of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization, then based in Lebanon during Israel's invasion in the 1980s in a war that ripped this country apart. In the white heat of the sunlight beating off the waves of the Mediterranean upon which, before business ground to a halt, they were happily plying their trade. Their conversations are haunted by the dark shadows and spectres of that history. With Israel's troops fighting beyond their yellow line this week, one of the men tells me they might soon be in Beirut. There are real fears in this country that this latest conflict is escalating out of control. With this week's intensifying Israeli action, the wide evacuation orders, the heavy bombardments and the attempts to seize new ground beyond the swathe of land it already occupies on Lebanon's border marked by that so called yellow line. But the Druze men tell me they are not supporters and of Israel's modern day foe, Hezbollah, the Iranian backed militant group that reignited this war in early March, with a barrage of rockets fired in a defiant show of support for Iran far from it, in fact. Why did they do it? One of them says, referring to Hezbollah. It's not our war. Another tells me that they know that Iran is controlling and funding the group. We're against that, he says. They tell me they support Hezbollah's disarmament, towards which small steps were taken in 2025 as Lebanon's regular army began to take some of its weapons. But it's a difficult and delicate process, with the national army far less powerful than the force it's trying to dismantle. The effort quickly stalled, and Hezbollah remains militarily effective. Its new fiber optic drones used to increasingly deadly effect against Israeli sold. The stated reason that Israel is now intensifying its military action on the other side of the country, in the Bekka Valley, a stronghold of the Shia community from which Hezbollah draws much of its support. I witness one example of what Israel's action looks like on the ground in a street in the village of Mashgara. There's not much left standing, with the floors of the buildings pancaked down on top of each other after the air strikes. Here, in a nearby hospital, seven year old Mohammed is lying in bed with a bandage around his head. Dramatic social media video had shown him being dug out of the rubble of his home in Mascara. His father and two sisters were killed, but doctors tell us he's recovering well. I ask him if he knows who did this to him, and he answers without a moment's hesitation. The Israelis. Israel says it only targets combatants and military infrastructure, and it accuses Hezbollah of hiding in and operating from civilian areas. But with innocent lives undoubtedly being lost in large numbers, it is impossible not to meet those like Muhammad, and wonder whether the shadows of this current war will loom large over some future Lebanon. Back on the Beirut seafront, some of the fishermen remember well the efforts of Israel to destroy Yasser Arafat's forces all those decades go. It was out of the chaos of those years, the invasion on top of a brutal civil war fought along sectarian lines, that Hezbollah emerged. I ask them if today it would be fair to say that they are angry at both Hezbollah and Israel. Yes, one of them says, but you can't equate the two. No matter how much they may disapprove of the actions of Hezbollah, it is a disapproval tempered by their despair over the growing civilian casualties, by the loss of sovereignty as is again occupies Lebanese land and the weight of a history measured in generational cycles of violence. Those who haven't had their blood shed by the Israeli army, one of them tells me. Well, maybe they can make peace. But those who have, he goes on, those who've had parents or children killed. It takes too much time, he says. Maybe centuries.
- [11:49]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
John Sudworth it's nearly six months since Australia introduced a social media ban, booting under 16s off their favourite platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Governments around the world are eagerly looking on as they consider rolling out similar policies, including here in the uk. But is it working? Our Australia correspondent, Katie Watson, has been following the charge debate from Sydney.
- [12:18]
Katie Watson / Australian teenagers / Julie Inman Grant
A few months ago, I was getting ready to go live on BBC television when a bunch of teenagers approached me on their bikes. What are you talking about? They hollered. The social media ban, I replied. And before I had a chance to ask them what they thought, they volunteered. It's not working at all. We're all still on it. They scoffed. And off they cycled, laughing. Earlier that day, I'd been speaking to Australia's E Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. She's become a well known figure here in Australia, the public face of the ban and the target of online trolling among those who object to it. Which is unfortunate because it's not even her policy, she's just having to implement it as the online safety regulator. Interesting fact. She'd previously argued against the ban before coming round to the idea. The law isn't a silver bullet, she told me, admitting it's hard booting older teens off their favourite platforms. But the idea was that it would act as a circuit breaker, the hope being results will be seen in a few years time when younger kids would be off screens and playing footy, a dream of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's when he announced the plans back in 2024. It's still hard to judge how it's going. It's too early for results. Although the government did say that nearly 5 million accounts had been closed within weeks of the law coming into play last December. What it didn't show was how many others were opened, including on other platforms not covered by the legislation. And the government's yet to impose fines on any platforms flouting the rules. No matter. The UK is keen to push on with legislation of its own. And earlier this week, Kanishka Narayan, the parliamentary undersecretary for AI and online safety, sped through Canberra and Sydney trying to get a sense from Australians about how the ban is going. As part of his visit, he met some school children here in Sydney. He started by asking how many of them were still on social media. Almost everyone raised their hand. There was one girl who didn't, she'd not been on social media beforehand, and that remained the case after the ban. So there you have it, some evidence that little has changed. I often get asked what I feel as a parent of four children. My response is a bit vague. My eldest, at nine, is still too young to be on social media, so it's not really my problem yet. I would say, though, that from my experience, many parents love the idea. It's another tool for them to stop their kids from going online. When they're harangued by their offspring about getting a TikTok account, they can at least respond, well, the government says you can't, so that's that. But what I've also found is that overwhelmingly experts working in the tech space think it's a terrible idea. You need to teach kids how to stay safe online, not ban them from it, they say. I should probably point out that the government doesn't like to call it a ban. They prefer the word delay. But it's about the optics and so ban it is. Many teens I've spoken to feel a bunch of old people decided on a law without consulting them. During his visit this week, Kanishkin Orion was keen to emphasise that the UK government was involving teens in its consultation. Although I'm pretty sure if you ask the majority of under 16s in Britain, they'd advise not bringing in a ban at all. Back in December, I met Iris Nastasi, the principal of Rosebank College in Sydney. She told me that when Facebook arrived some 20 years ago and technology started being used in the classroom, she was all for preparing students for the future. But fast forward two decades and she doesn't want any of it. No phones, no tablets in the classrooms, thank you very much. We spend a lot of time dealing with the fallout of what happens when a young person is overtired. It's 2 in the morning, he or she does something they wouldn't normally do and the fallout happens here at school, she tells me. I feel really passionate that as long as we can, we should preserve the innocence that comes through childhood. Like or loathe the band, there does seem to be more of a conversation around online safety than ever before. Where are the threats and what can platforms do to make sure young people are protected? I wonder whether we would have reflected so much if there hadn't been the specter of such an overarching ban. Speaking to student 16 year old Willow, she offered a more pragmatic take, explaining how she's only just returned to social media after a brief hiatus. It's not the end of the world, she said. You'll get it back eventually and all will be well again.
- [16:46]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Katie Watson Next we're in Greece, where indignation over new labour laws introduced last October continue to simmer as the summer heat takes hold. The new law, which permits 13 hour working days, was met with fierce opposition and nationwide strikes. The government has been keen to make clear that the new, longer workday is purely optional. Heidi Fullalove heard some full throated views on the subject in a local taverna.
- [17:15]
Yorgos / Greek workers
We are anthropy. We are humans, not machines. Yorgos's anguished cry silences the buzz of conversation in the taverna where he's worked for more than 30 years. With wages more or less frozen since the economic crisis began over a decade ago, he's obliged to do two jobs in order to make just enough money to get by. He's talking about a controversial bill legalising a 13 hour working day. It's been branded a legislative monstrosity by opposition parties, but it's been voted in despite massive protests, strikes and demonstrations throughout Greece. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsutakis, better known as Mitso to most Greeks, says that the measure is voluntary and will modernise the labour market and address staff shortages, whilst Greece's main public sector union has said it signals the end of family life and the legalisation of overexploitation since the country's long drawn out economic crisis and subsequent COVID lockdowns. Yorgis tells me he has struggled with his mental health. Even with all the money we make with tourism, there's nothing for sick in the head people like me, he confides, drumming his fingers in a nervous rhythm on one of the taverna's check cloth covered tables. Like a modern version of the chorus who keep up a running commentary about on stage happenings in the plays of Euripides or Aristophanes, Tavernas are the best place to gauge the mood of Greeks who come here to discuss their olive trees, share their struggles and comment on the latest scandals they've seen on TV. It's 2pm and the taverna buzzes with conversation as Yorgos hands out tongue loosening carafes of white spirit raki made in local stills to avoid paying stiff taxes. This popular 60% proof alcohol is the strongest but also the cheapest available. What's more, it's served with complimentary mezze snacks, plates piled high with dacos, rusks, fruity gruyere cheese, crisp cucumber cubes and shiny black olives that can easily pass for lunch. Today the locals are discussing the new bill. According to Eurostat, Greeks already work some of the longest hours in Europe. Surely 13 hours isn't so bad because you can just work extra hours at the same job instead of having two different jobs, one pensioner suggests. Heh, you can say that you are in the public sector and get a good pension, a builder with cement covered fingers replies. Why should anyone have a second job? Are we animals to be working such long hours? Good pension, the old man grumbles. If you call €1,200amonth good when food costs are so high. Come off it, kid. You're so mean you measure your change with an eyedropper. A black clad man in the corner jokes and the taverna rings with laughter. Omizo has promised that an employer can't dismiss a worker for refusing overtime, says a pizza delivery man. Huh, sure. Snarl's a 50 year old seasonal worker. He tells me that he supports his entire family on just €540 unemployment benefit, along with small Christmas and easter subsidies and €28 benefit per month for each of his two children. At our hotel, the owner held back our pay this year so that we couldn't leave. He made us wait until the end of the year to be paid, he goes on. Do you really think anyone will check if an employer is blackmailing his staff to work 13 hours? We're nothing but slaves. All eyes swivel to the widescreen TV hung above the olive wood fuelled cast iron sombre or stove which fills the room with its smoker's fog. It's playing a news clip about a man in his 60s who'd been arrested for allegedly killing his elderly parents. The TV commentator tells us that Greece has the highest cost of housing in the eu and countless people are living in their parents homes homes because they can't afford to move out. That guy had mental health problems too, yorgis tells me. He sighs. We never heard things like that happening before. Now it's all the time. This government maskatastrefsi is destroying us. According to official reports, the Greek government has been working on a national action plan to reform mental healthcare provision in the country, but services remain underfunded and fragmented. Yorgas wipes his eyes. They're red with fatigue as a plate piled with dakos slips from his hand and smashes on the floor. I get up at 6am and work till late at night, he says as he bends to clear up the mess. Imagine if I was working a lathe in a factory or something dangerous around us. The discussion ends with the usual well worn phrases. Tina Kaname what can we do? Says one. Epamoni. Patience, says another. Eponastasy Revolution, adds a third and suddenly the room is energised once more as glasses clink in a toast.
- [22:21]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Heidi Fuller Love and finally, when a correspondent is on deployment, one of the aspects they have to navigate is unpredictability and sudden changes of plan. Sandra Kamtal recently found herself diverted by bad weather from an assignment reporting on Iceland's Arctic defences, which led her down a staircase to an altogether different story and a museum with an unusual theme.
- [22:49]
Sandra Kamtal / Theodor Olof Torresson
My assignment to Iceland was filled with unexpected events. First, I was meant to get a tour of one of the Coast Guard's ships at Reykjavik harbour. The Coast Guard is Iceland's most trusted institution, so it made sense when they told me the ship had been sent to another part of the island due to avalanche warnings. Instead, they asked if I'd like to ride along on a helicopter search and rescue training flight. My first thought was of course. My next thought was I haven't filled out the correct risk assessment forms for that. The second unplanned event was a severe storm which cancelled all flights in and out of the country on the day I was meant to travel home. So what to do in Reykjavik when you can't venture out to enjoy the beautiful Icelandic waterfalls, lagoons and glaciers? Well, you could head to the city center down a flight of stairs in a modern steel and glass building to visit the Icelandic Phallological Museum. We are a penis museum, but we are a serious penis museum, explained Theodor Olof Torresson, the museum's curator, which is not a job just anyone can apply for. This is a family business. Theodor is married to the late founder's granddaughter. He was Sigidor Hjartersen, a former teacher who remains an important presence here. His ashes are in an urn on display near the exhibit's entrance because, according to Thord, he wanted to be preserved with his penises. Thord has an easy charm about him, and he seems well versed in fielding the curiosity the museum attracts. Like my first question to him, why? According to Thordur, it all began decades ago when Sigidor was given a whale's penis as a joke. Rather than being offended, it inspired him, and he decided to collect a phallic sample from all the mammals native to Iceland. When his home collection got too large, his wife rebelled. So Sigidor decided to share his passion with the public, and in 1997 he opened a museum. Since then the collection has grown to approximately 400 penises from 150 species, only one of which is human. From a deceased 95 year old local bachelor who claimed to have had a prolific sex life. He decided his penis would be of no use to him when he was dead, so he gifted it to the museum in 2011. Theodore says it's science, but it's still supposed to be fun. Which explains the cast of Jimi Hendrix's penis, donated by the American artist Cynthia Plasticaster, who found fame in the 1960s and 70s and creating moulds of famous rock stars. Anatomy this one has pride of place in a glass case along with a certificate of authenticity. Most of the exhibits are in plexiglass jars preserved in formaldehyde. Each display has a phallological profile which lists features like size and width and oddities. One of Thordur's favorites is a German beech marten, a type of weasel with particularly romantic inclinations because they prefer to mate on bright moonlit nights, often on rooftops. A young giraffe penis, which measures an impressive 18 inches flaccid, catches the attention and in the nearby rodent section is the smallest specimen in the museum, the hamster penis bone. Apparently rodents have this anatomical feature to support quick fire mating rituals. In another room I stood under the penis of a killer whale which juts out of a wall, though Thoreau lamented it lost a lot of girth in the taxidermy process. The museum gets about 120,000 visitors a year who get to sign a guestbook. Some of the more artistic clientele leave doodles behind. The most interesting get framed and hung on the walls alongside some published cartoons, often featuring jokes aimed at the museum's expense. The venue also hosts the occasional school trip and sometimes local businesses begin a company night out here, though the museum closes at 7pm when you've finished your tour, which takes under an hour and pose for a selfie with a giant sculpture of a yellow phallus adorned with a painted face called Mr. Lonely. There's a phallic themed cafe with waffles in a shape you would never get away with in a school cafeteria and of course, the requisite gift store. If you are ever in the market for a phallic themed T shirt, board game, poster, keychain or the like, I know just the place for you, Sandra
- [27:25]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Cantal and that's all for today from our own Correspondent is produced by Serena Tarling and Polly Hope. The production coordinators are Katie Morrison and Sophie Hill. The studio manager is Jonathan Greer and the editor is Richard Fenton Smith. You can hear more stories from around the world on from our own correspondent on BBC Sounds, including the story of a young Afghan girl, Shaikha, and a correspondent's return to his home city of Khartoum. I'm Kate Ady and we'll be back with a new episode next Saturday.
- [28:04]
John Sudworth / Lebanese fishermen / Mohammed
This is a nightmare. I need to get out of here because I do not want them to see me.
- [28:09]
Katie Watson / Australian teenagers / Julie Inman Grant
A search across borders is some tricky situations.
- [28:13]
John Sudworth / Lebanese fishermen / Mohammed
Shoot. There's a boat in the back of that car.
- [28:15]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Yeah, there is.
- [28:15]
John Sudworth / Lebanese fishermen / Mohammed
No, no, no, no.
- [28:16]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
Don't get out.
- [28:16]
Katie Watson / Australian teenagers / Julie Inman Grant
Watching smugglers who bring thousands of people to the uk.
- [28:20]
Will Grant / Katie Watson / Heidi Fullalove / Sandra Kamtal / Kate Ady
They have gone, they have knives.
- [28:22]
Yorgos / Greek workers
They have no shame.
- [28:24]
Katie Watson / Australian teenagers / Julie Inman Grant
And at the top, a man who keeps his identity well hidden.
- [28:28]
Yorgos / Greek workers
If they know I'm talking about him, they come tonight.
- [28:31]
Sandra Kamtal / Theodor Olof Torresson
They will kill me.
- [28:32]
John Sudworth / Lebanese fishermen / Mohammed
Pop, pop, Pop, Pop.
- [28:33]
Katie Watson / Australian teenagers / Julie Inman Grant
Can we find out who he is? From Radio 4, this is Intrigue to Catch a King. Listen. First on B.