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Saturday, March 21, 2026

Tone-deaf radicals flock into Havana, staying in 5-star hotels while island in crisis

 Hundreds of tone-deaf lefty radicals flocked into Havana this weekend to meet with Communist Party officials — staying in luxury hotels and traveling in air-conditioned buses — as the rest of the island grapples with a worsening economic crisis that’s starved it of electricity, food, water and medicine.

The “Nuestra America Convoy” sent socialists from North America and Europe to Cuba by air, sea, and land, under the guise of handing out 20 tons of humanitarian aid to protest the United States oil blockade on Cuba.

Isra Hirsi, the 23-year-old activist daughter of embattled “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar, is also in Havana.israhirsi/Instagram
Hirsi was in a picture shared by controversial nonprofit The People’s Forum, who’s also taking part in the convoy.peoplesforumnyc/instagram

The convoy includes Mayor Zohran Mamdani ally and influential streamer Hasan Piker – who recently went on a Beijing-sponsored propaganda trip – to Havana, from where he broadcast to his 1.6 million Instagram followers Saturday with a somehow spotless internet connection and promised to film “content.”

Isra Hirsi, the 23-year-old unemployed activist daughter of embattled “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), is also taking part in the voyage — as is a delegation of Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America comrades.

The convoy also includes groups identified by the US State Department as vectors of Chinese influence – like Neville Roy Singham’s People’s Forum and his wife’s, Jodie Evans’ Code Pink. Evans was all smiles as she posed for a picture with Piker Saturday, wearing a pink keffiyeh.

Some delegates were reportedly staying at the 5-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection, where a room costs between $130 and $520 a night.

Others posed for pictures riding in comfy air-conditioned buses, and meeting with President Miguel Díaz‑Canel at the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana.

A room at the 5-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection costs between $130 and $520 a night.Melia
Hundreds of far-left activists flocked to Havana by air, sea and land this week.REUTERS

Cuban officials reported an island-wide blackout this week in the embattled communist nation of some 11 million people, after President Trump in January threatened tariffs on any nation selling it oil, effectively choking off its energy supply.

“While nearly the entire country is suffering from power outages lasting over 20 hours, the left is welcomed with air conditioning and wasteful electricity consumption,” slammed Mayra Dominguez, a Cuban living in exile in the US.

“More than 100 homes wouldn’t be without power today if the Castro regime didn’t spend on communist propaganda with the international left,” Dominguez said.

Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel spoke to activists at the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana Friday.via REUTERS

“This is a gigantic mockery of the entire Cuban people. The left visits Cuba as if it were a party at a zoo and they go to admire the misery from a luxury hotel. It is outrageous,” she added.

The stunt was organized by Cuban politician Mariela Castro through a nonprofit called Progressive International. Few details have been released about how the hundreds of boxes and suitcases of aid will be distributed once they arrive on the island, the local press noted.

Castro is the daughter of Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president who maintains substantial behind-the-scenes influence in the country — and is Fidel Castro’s brother.

Influencer Hasan Piker, left, and Code Pink’s Jodie Evans posed for a picture together in Havan,CODEPINK / X

One of the organizations involved with the distribution is the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, which has been identified by the CIA as a front for Cuban intelligence services

The convoy has enraged Cuban exiles who are barred by the ruling communist party from ever returning home, and say the government is also to blame for the hardships people have faced for decades.

Cubans are facing a worsening economic crisis that’s starving them of food, electricity, water and medicine.AP

“After causing more than a million Cubans to leave in just five years and denying many the right to return to their own country, they are now open to a foreign humanitarian expedition,” Cuban artist Salomé García Bacallao, who lives in exile in Miami, blasted on Facebook.

“If they get in, so will we,” she vowed.

Many, like Code Pink activists here, traveled around in comfy air-conditioned buses.CODEPINK
After US forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in early January, critical oil shipments to Cuba were halted.

Cuba’s president said the island had not received oil shipments in more than three months since.

https://nypost.com/2026/03/21/world-news/tone-deaf-activists-flock-into-havana-staying-in-5-star-hotels-while-island-in-crisis-mockery-of-cuban-people/

Hundreds of delivery drivers hang outside LES mosque, overwhelm locals, force NYC businesses to close

 Hundreds of Muslim delivery drivers who congregate outside an East Village mosque have transformed the area into a noisy, violent, trash-strewn junkyard while driving businesses and residents out, fed-up locals said.

At least three businesses near the Islamic Council of America Madina Mosque on First Avenue and East 11th Street have shut down in recent months, as longtime residents say the city has ignored their cries for help.

The Post witnessed no less than 100 deliverymen last week pouring in and out of the mosque, with hundreds of electric bicycles piled along the curb, fouling the tony neighborhood where a three-bedroom townhouse just sold for $14.8 million.

Hundreds of Muslim e-bike delivery drivers have overwhelmed a street corner in the East Village, driving out businesses and residents as the city does nothing,Helayne Seidman for the NY Post

“I lived on that block for 13 years, it was very, very different,” said Francisco, 40, who moved to Stuytown in October with his 2-year-old child and wife because of the chaos. “The block itself changed incredibly since the second those guys came in.”

The city’s second oldest mosque operated for decades without incident, but things began to change about two years ago. Residents described a perfect storm of a surge in migrants, the city’s installation of bike corrals on the block, and the ever-growing popularity of delivery apps.

The drivers, who are mostly migrants from Islamic African nations, flock to the house of worship, which is under renovaiton, five times a day for prayer. But they also mill about near the side entrance, gab on their phones, scarf down food from a halal truck, and toss trash where they please — attracting a veritable army of rats, said locals.

Two men even set up an al fresco barber shop offering fresh cuts and shaves. During the warmer months, as many as six barber chairs are active all day, locals said. Some of the men also bathe outside.

The chaos is especially acute during Ramadan, which this year ended on March 18.

“It’s insanity. . . . Its not fair to the residents who live there,” area landlord Christine Renzi, who estimated she’s lost six residential tenants and one commercial tenant in the last two years because of the mayhem, told The Post.

Three businesses on 1st Avenue closed with owners saying their customers were scared off by the mass of e-bike riders who overwhelm the sidewalk.Helayne Seidman for the NY Post

And it’s getting worse.

“Tenants have been attacked by delivery drivers. They’re washing their clothes outside. During the summertime they actually shower outside,” Renzi said.

In August, a naked, bathing delivery driver allegedly threatened to assault a resident of one of Renzi’s buildings who objected to the shameless display, according to a formal complaint filed by the landlord on March 18 with the Manhattan Borough President’s office.

Former block resident Francisco said a similar encounter in front of the mosque finally prompted him to leave the nabe.

“I was walking by, and this guy in his underwear, pretty much naked, is taking a shower. And I wasn’t going to confront him but I pulled out my phone and started recording him,” the 40-year-old said.

A man clad in just underwear took a shower on the residential street
last August, sending one local over the edge.Obtained by NY Post

“He looked over and he said, ‘Do you mind not recording me.’ I said, ‘You’re taking a bath in the middle of the street of a residential neighborhood,'” Francisco said, adding, “After that one I went home to my wife and said, ‘I’ve seen enough.'”

There have been at least 30 complaints to the city’s 311 hotline since July, including three for noise, nearly a dozen for dirty sidewalks and street conditions, and others about the horde of e-bikes, according to city data.

There have been 105 inspections for rat activity on the block in the last five years, according to NYC’s Rat Information Portal — far outpacing neighboring blocks, including the entirety of nearby Tompkins Square Park.

Rats regularly crisscross the sidewalk, even during the day, because of the trash problem, according to Francisco. “Got to the point where we wouldn’t walk on the sidewalk,” he said.

Barbers chairs are set up to cater to the mass of e-bike riders with locals reporting that as many as six stations are active during the warmer months.Helayne Seidman for the NY Post

The problem feeds on itself, with the huge corral of e-bikes preventing the Department of Sanitation from properly cleaning the area, Renzi said in her complaint.

The e-bikes also take up parking spaces, forcing motorists to double-park. On Tuesday, an ambulance with sirens blaring was stuck behind a double-parked car for nearly 10 minutes, said Renzi.

Yet Democratic City Councilman Harvey Epstein and Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer have done little to get the bikers off the corner, and instead have pushed for more parking stations for the e-bikers — and even shifted some blame to residents.

“This is a failure of government as there is no infrastructure to accommodate the workers and the bikes,” Stetzer wrote in a Feb. 19 email to Renzi. She said the board “is continuing to advocate for sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the bikes and workers as long as the community continues to order food.”

“This is not an anti-delivery worker issue. It is a public safety, sanitation, and zoning issue,” Renzi said. “Tenants are leaving. Businesses are struggling. Quality of life has declined sharply.”

As many as 400 e-bikes crowd the curbs of East 11th and 1st Avenue, taking up spots and preventing the Sanitation
Department from cleaning the streets.Helayne Seidman for the NY Post

Three storefronts on the corner of First Ave. have shuttered for good — including a Black Seed Bagels, Uz Grill House, and vintage shop Revampd, which closed its doors last month.

“I had really high hopes. I invested a lot,” Revampd co-owner Mary Fadrowski told The Post. “The fact that the bikes are there making us look like ‘Sanford and Son’ is what blocked the money.”

“It was shocking to see so many people just hanging on the street. It was scary,” said a 27-year-old shopper who was only there to patronize Revampd. “If I wasn’t looking for Mary’s store I would avoid the block completely.”

Chris Ng, the owner of Bananas restaurant on First Ave, has repeatedly reached out to 311 over the course of a year.

“I have not heard back,” Ng said.

E-bike riders mill about on the corner of East 11th and 1st Avenue and are catered to by a food truck on the block.Helayne Seidman for the NY Post

The mosque meanwhile, is in the midst of a fundraising effort to pay for renovations that include facade work, an expansion of the prayer hall, and the construction of community spaces, according to the group’s website.

They’ve raised $285,000 towards a goal of $500,000. A special permit obtained by the mosque allowed it to stay open during Ramadan and through April 5, according to the Department of Buildings.

The mosque’s imam, Mufti Mahdi Chowdhury, did not respond to a request for comment.

https://nypost.com/2026/03/21/us-news/hundreds-of-delivery-drivers-hanging-outside-east-village-mosque-overwhelming-locals-forcing-businesses-to-close/