• Cuba lived on Venezuelan oil, money for years: Trump
• Trump suggests Rubio would become next Cuba leader.
• US intelligence not clear if island nation “ready to fall”.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested Cuba should strike a deal with Washington, warning that the island nation would no longer receive oil or money from Venezuela.

Venezuela is Cuba’s biggest oil supplier, but since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces, Trump has successfully pressed interim President Delcy Rodriguez to send Venezuelan oil to the United States.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA — ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela,” Trump said.

US intelligence has painted a grim picture of Cuba’s economic and political situation, but its assessments offer no clear support for Trump’s prediction that the island is “ready to fall,” Reuters reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the confidential assessments.

The CIA’s view is that key sectors of the Cuban economy, such as agriculture and tourism, are severely strained by frequent blackouts, trade sanctions and other problems.

The potential loss of oil imports and other support from Venezuela, for decades a key ally, could make governing more difficult for the administration that has ruled Cuba since Fidel Castro led a revolution in 1959.

For Cuba, the loss of Venezuelan oil is devastating. Between January and November of last year, Venezuela sent an average of 27,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the island, covering roughly 50% of Cuba’s oil deficit, according to shipping data and documents from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.

Separately, Trump reposted a social media message suggesting that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, born to Cuban immigrant parents, would become the next leader of Cuba.

Trump republished a Truth Social message from user Cliff Smith, posted on January 8, that read “Marco Rubio will be president of Cuba,” accompanied by a crying laughing emoji.

Trump’s comment on the repost was “Sounds good to me!”

The largely unknown user, whose bio refers to him as a “conservative Californian” has less than 500 followers.

Trump’s repost comes a week after US forces seized Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime operation in Caracas that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.

Nordic diplomats rejected US President Donald Trump’s claims of Russian and Chinese vessels operating near Greenland, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

There have been no signs of Russian or Chinese ships or submarines around Greenland in recent years, the FT said, citing two senior Nordic diplomats with access to Nato intelligence briefings.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and Nato did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

“It is simply not true that the Chinese and Russians are there. I have seen the intelligence. There are no ships, no submarines,” the FT quoted one senior diplomat as saying.

Another Nordic diplomat said claims that waters around Greenland were “crawling” with Russian and Chinese vessels were unfounded, adding that such activity was on the Russian side of the Arctic.

Trump has repeatedly said Russian and Chinese vessels are operating near Greenland, a claim Denmark disputes. He has not provided evidence to support it.

Trump said on Friday the US must own Greenland, an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from occupying the strategically located and mineral-rich territory.

“The image that’s being painted of Russian and Chinese ships right inside the Nuuk fjord and massive Chinese investments being made is not correct,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said earlier this week.

Vessel tracking data from MarineTraffic and LSEG show no Chinese or Russian ship presence near Greenland.

Greenland’s assembly said late on Friday it would bring forward a meeting to discuss its response to US threats to take control of the island.

Trump’s renewed push for Greenland, after US military intervention in Venezuela, worries many of the island’s 57,000 inhabitants, whose widely held goal is to eventually become an independent nation.

India proposes requiring smartphone makers to share source code with the government and make several software changes as part of a raft of security measures, prompting behind-the-scenes opposition from giants like Apple and Samsung.

The tech companies have countered that the package of 83 security standards, which would also include a requirement to alert the government to major software updates, lacks any global precedent and risks revealing proprietary details, according to four people familiar with the discussions and a Reuters review of confidential government and industry documents.

The plan is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to boost the security of user data as online fraud and data breaches increase in the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with nearly 750 million phones.

IT Secretary S Krishnan told Reuters that “any legitimate concerns of the industry will be addressed with an open mind”, adding it was “premature to read more into it”. A ministry spokesperson said it could not comment further due to ongoing consultation with tech companies on the proposals.

Apple, South Korea’s Samsung, Google, China’s Xiaomi and MAIT, the Indian industry group that represents the firms, did not respond to requests for comment.

Indian government requirements have irked technology firms before. Last month, it revoked an order mandating a state-run cyber safety app on phones amid concerns over surveillance. But the government brushed aside lobbying last year and required rigorous testing for security cameras over fears of Chinese spying.

Xiaomi and Samsung, whose phones use Google’s Android operating system, hold 19% and 15%, respectively, of India’s market share, while Apple holds 5%, according to Counterpoint Research.

Among the most sensitive requirements in the new Indian Telecom Security Assurance Requirements is access to source code – the underlying programming instructions that make phones work. This would be analysed and possibly tested at designated Indian labs, the documents show.

The Indian proposals also require companies to make software changes to allow pre-installed apps to be uninstalled and to block apps from using cameras and microphones in the background to “avoid malicious usage”.

“Industry raised concerns that globally security requirements have not been mandated by any country,” said a December IT ministry document detailing meetings that officials held with Apple, Samsung, Google and Xiaomi.

The security standards, drafted in 2023, are in the spotlight now as the government is considering imposing them legally. IT ministry and tech executives are due to meet on Tuesday for more discussions, sources said.

Companies say source code review, analysis ‘not possible’

Smartphone makers closely guard their source code. Apple declined China’s request for source code between 2014 and 2016, and US law enforcement has also tried and failed to get it.

India’s proposals for “vulnerability analysis” and “source code review” would require smartphone makers to perform a “complete security assessment”, after which test labs in India could check their claims through source code review and analysis.

“This is not possible … due to secrecy and privacy,” MAIT said in a confidential document drafted in response to the government proposal, and seen by Reuters. “Major countries in the EU, North America, Australia and Africa do not mandate these requirements.”

MAIT asked the ministry last week to drop the proposal, a source with direct knowledge said.

The Indian proposals would mandate automatic and periodic malware scanning on phones. Device makers would also have to inform the National Centre for Communication Security about major software updates and security patches before releasing them to users, and the centre would have the right to test them.

MAIT’s document says regular malware scanning significantly drains a phone’s battery, and seeking government approval for software updates is “impractical” as they need to be issued promptly.

India also wants the phone’s logs – digital records of its system activity – to be stored for at least 12 months on the device.

“There is not enough room on the device to store 1-year log events,” MAIT said in the document.