US sanctions Cuba for repressing protests

The United States imposed sanctions on Cuba's defense minister and a special forces unit Thursday for repressing peaceful protests, a step President Joe Biden warned is "just the beginning" of punitive measures against Havana. The US Treasury Department said its Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the assets of minister Alvaro Lopez Miera and the Special National Brigade (SNB), a division of Cuba's interior ministry, in relation to human rights abuses committed during a crackdown on protests on the island earlier in July. The sanctions were imposed under the Magnitsky act, which allows a US president to take action against human rights abuses and corruption.