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Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Cuban Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel said Mon­day that his gov­ern­ment should “im­me­di­ate­ly” fo­cus on im­ple­ment­ing ur­gent trans­for­ma­tions to the is­land’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial mod­el as oil re­serves in the Caribbean coun­try dwin­dle.

The com­ments made dur­ing a meet­ing of the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters come as Cu­ba feels the squeeze of a re­cent oil block­ade cou­pled with a halt in oil ship­ments from Venezuela af­ter the U.S. at­tacked the South Amer­i­can coun­try in Jan­u­ary.