As tensions between the US and Cuba rise to the highest levels since the Cuban Missile Crisis, the mood was grim at a recent staff meeting at the US Embassy in Havana.

Caribbean correspondent Dánica Coto has returned to Cuba after more than three years. She finds the island changed, with garbage piling up and fuel shortages affecting daily life.

Priests and priestesses of the Afro-Cuban religion known as Santería have offered gifts to deities and asked for peace as tensions rise between the United States and Cuba and the island braces for more economic difficulties.

With Venezuela effectively neutralized as a regional adversary, Cuba has re-emerged as the next unresolved target of U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere.

In response to a media inquiry regarding the Cuban government recently condemning the illegal US blockade on Cuba's oil supply, which has severely impacted the Cuban economy and the daily lives of its people,