A trio of United Nations rights experts on Tuesday demanded that the US government “cease all threats” against Cuba and accused President Donald Trump of furthering a “disturbing trend of lawlessness” with preparations to attack the island nation; a indictment of its former president; and a protracted oil blockade that has left Cubans facing blackouts and a breakdown of their lauded healthcare system.

“Efforts to change the constitutional order of a sovereign state through threats and coercion echo colonial-era practices,” said George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic international order; Zaina Jallad, special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures; and Ben Saul, special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights.

The experts pointed to Trump’s declaration of what’s become known as the Donroe Doctrine, “asserting US predominance over the Western Hemisphere” through military might, and his repeated comments regarding the possibility of taking over Cuba, whose communist government, Trump has said, has turned the country into a “failing nation.”

“Statements by the US president regarding the ‘honor of taking Cuba’ reflect a deeply concerning strategy of coercion against a sovereign state,” said the experts. “This assertion is not mere rhetoric, but part of a broader strategy involving the long-standing embargo on Cuba, its listing as a state-sponsor of terrorism, the recent fuel blockade, and the imposition of coercive measures on third parties.”

Experts @profbensaul, @gkatr and Zeina Jallad express concern regarding US escalating threats, coercive measures & judicial weaponisation against #Cuba.

“Efforts to change the constitutional order of a sovereign State through threats and coercion echo colonial-era practices.” pic.twitter.com/9feklXLRuQ

— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva) June 3, 2026

In January, Trump issued an executive order centered around the assertion—a laughable one, according to Cuban and international officials—that the country poses an “extraordinary threat” to the US, and warned other countries to stop providing oil to the island. The Trump administration had already cut off Cuba’s main energy source earlier that month when it abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and took control of the country’s oil reserves.

The oil blockade—which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has recently denied the existence of—has left hospitals facing shortages of supplies and medicines, forced schools to cut hours, caused trash to pile up in streets as sanitation operations have struggled to continue, and left cities and towns across the country with just a few hours of electricity per day.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who left the country for the US years before Fidel Castro took power following the 1959 revolution, has long called for regime change in Cuba and has resisted efforts to normalize US-Cuban relations.

The UN experts said the blocking of oil imports to Cuba is “part of a disturbing trend of lawlessness and contempt of multilateralism and the UN Charter. The normalization of coercion and threats of regime change undermines the integrity of the entire international legal order.”

The experts also condemned the US indictment last month of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, which they said appeared connected to the administration’s “efforts to undermine Cuba’s sovereignty” and characterized as a “misuse of domestic judicial proceedings.”

The also said that the indictment—“an instrument of coercive foreign policy”—represents “an abuse of process that violates the principles of sovereign equality and self-determination under the UN Charter.”

Additionally, the deployment of the USS Nimitz to the southern Caribbean, they said, contravenes articles 2(4) and 2(7) of the UN Charter, which, respectively, prohibit the threat or use of force and demand non-intervention in domestic affairs by the UN.

The experts called on UN member states to “refrain from recognizing or implementing measures that violate the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention” and urged the UN Security Council and General Assembly to “urgently address the threats against Cuba as a matter affecting international peace and security.”

“A democratic and equitable international order,” they said, “requires that all states, regardless of size or power, participate on equal footing, free from undue pressure.”

In what a number of scientists suggested was the Trump administration’s latest effort to stop tracking the changing climate in hopes of convincing the public that the climate emergency isn’t happening, the National Science Foundation announced Monday that it was dismantling a crucial deep-ocean monitoring system that for years has helped researchers understand the impacts of the crisis on the world’s oceans.

The NSF said it plans to send ships this month to remove more than 900 instruments, part of a project called the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The project collects data on temperatures, currents, and the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide off the coasts of Oregon, Alaska, Washington, and North Carolina, as well as in the Irminger Sea between Iceland and Greenland.

A spokesperson for NSF told The New York Times that the dismantling of the initiative will help the NSF in “prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”

The reasoning given for the shuttering of the project, said Tara Blume, a journalist at Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR, was “a master class in obfuscation and doublespeak.”

Genevieve Guenther of the group End Climate Silence shared her own interpretation of why the $368 million ocean observation system is being discontinued, despite the fact that it had been set to collect data for 25 years.

“We need to track ocean currents to assess how close we are to climate tipping points that will essentially destroy the world as we know it,” said Guenther. “The GOP doesn’t want us to be able to do that. That’s why they’re dismantling ocean monitoring.”

"By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership." https://t.co/TSKsORuTX9

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) June 2, 2026

Scientists have used data gathered by moorings, robotic vehicles, and other instruments that transmit the information to research laboratories, to study changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC), a current system that moves warm water northward and cools the Arctic and Northern Atlantic regions while absorbing carbon dioxide deep into the ocean and keeping it out of the atmosphere.

Data gathered at the observation station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding AMOC, which scientists fear is gradually weakening due to planetary heating and could ultimately collapse, likely causing major global weather changes.

“This is absolutely crazy,” said David Doniger, a senior strategist and attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and energy department. “Wouldn’t you want to know if the ocean currents are changing? Wouldn’t you want to know ocean temperatures? These things affect everything from fishing to hurricanes.”

Following the announcement that the stations will be dismantled in the coming weeks, said Blume, “science gasps for breath.”

President Donald Trump has attempted several times to shut down or drastically reduce the budget of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which costs $48 million annually to run. Congress has restored the program’s funding.

The dismantling of the program comes months after the Environmental Protection Agency repealed the “endangerment finding,” which for years had underpinned the department’s environmental regulations; after the administration closed down the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which had gathered data on hurricanes and extreme weather to help improve forecasts; and after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released a statement on record-breaking temperatures in 2024 and 2025—without any mention of the climate crisis or climate change.

“Blinding the public to climate change won’t make it go away. It will only accelerate its profound consequences,” said clinical researcher Iris Gorfinkel.

According to the Trump administration, said historian Nick Kapur, “apparently climate change doesn’t exist if you prevent scientists from measuring it.”

A leader of Bolivia’s main labor federation, the Bolivian Workers’ Union, said late Monday that the country’s public prosecutor is “trying to silence” mass protests that have included Indigenous communities, miners, peasants, and teachers in recent days, as the government issued arrest warrants for labor and grassroots organizers.

TeleSUR reported that State Attorney General Roger Mariaca confirmed his office was charging Mario Argollo, executive secretary of the union, known in Spanish as Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), with public instigation to commit crimes and terrorism.

“They will not subdue us in the struggle we have undertaken,” Argollo said in a statement. “They are trying to silence us as leaders with popular actions and criminal charges.”

Drop Site News also reported that the public prosecutor issued an arrest order targeting Justino Apaza Callisaya, a leader of the Federation of Neighborhood Councils of La Paz (FEJUVE), “an influential grassroots organization tied to urban protest movements and labor mobilizations.”

BREAKING: New documents purport to show arrest and detention orders issued by Bolivia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office in La Paz against protest leaders and labor organizers connected to recent nationwide strikes and road blockades.

It says prosecutors are investigating several… https://t.co/9lVZV3IL1R

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 19, 2026

The office is also reportedly investigating “several individuals” following COB’s declaration of a general strike on May 1.

“The accused are being investigated for extremely serious offenses including: public incitement to commit crimes, criminal association, terrorism, financing terrorism, attacks on transportation security, [and] attacks on public services,” reported Drop Site.

The mass mobilization has included dozens of road blockades across the country as the union and other groups have demanded the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz, whose administration ended a fuel subsidy amid an economic crisis; higher wages; and an end to privatization, including through Law 1720, which opponents say would allow the transfer of Indigenous and peasant land to corporations.

Protesters have spent days marching from their communities to La Paz, where thousands were met by riot police armed with tear gas canisters on Monday.

🇧🇴 Protesters from Bolivia’s indigenous movements filled the streets of central La Paz on Monday, with demonstrations stretching across Plaza San Francisco, Plaza Murillo, the Casco Urbano Central, and near the Casa del Pueblo and national legislature.

Photos obtained by Drop… pic.twitter.com/FaXpVu4K6o

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 19, 2026

Al Jazeera reported that some protesters brandished “dynamite sticks and slingshots” as they arrived in the capital city.

An unspecified number of protesters were injured Monday as the government deployed the police and the military to try to break the road blockades, Al Jazeera reported. TeleSUR said that at least four demonstrators were reportedly killed. About 90 arrests were made.

The US State Department said Sunday that it supported Paz’s efforts to “restore order for the peace, security, and stability of the Bolivian people.”

COB said the government was responding with “militarization and repression instead of listening to the people.”

“History will remember who defended the citizenry and who turned their backs. No force should be above the people or their rights,” said COB.

The arrest documents and government investigations, said Drop Site, showed that “the Bolivian government is escalating its response to the protests by describing parts of the strike movement not simply as civil unrest, but as potential terrorism and organized criminal activity.”

A student leader at the Public University of El Alto told Drop Site, “No matter what the Paz government attempts to do, repress the protesters or sanction us as terrorists… we will continue to uphold the sovereignty and rights of our peoples.”

A former Altiplano mayor and Aymara social leader was direct about the betrayal: "This government was clearly elected with a mandate from the social movements and from indigenous peoples — who have been stabbed in the back the minute they entered office. They have attempted to… pic.twitter.com/tS80WqG1Zi

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 18, 2026

An Indigenous leader told the outlet that Paz’s government “was clearly elected with a mandate from the social movements and from indigenous peoples—who have been stabbed in the back the minute they entered office. They have attempted to use the state to go after the very forces that got them to power.”