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Hit It! What's No. 1 On World's Music Charts

Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world.

Worldcrunch's pick of the week is Bob Dylan's "Pretty Saro", a single which features on the latest album of his bootleg series Another Self Portrait (1969–1971), released on August 27.

The compilation revisits the songs of what is commonly considered as Dylan's worst album, Self Portrait. The liner notes were even written by Greil Marcus, who wrote the original Self Portrait review for the magazine Rolling Stone in 1970 that infamously asked, "What is this shit?" Out of 24 songs, there are five new tracks, four are 1969 live performances, and the rest are covers of traditional and popular folk songs. All the tracks offer a new approach of Dylan's forever changing mood and music.

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Economy

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Noel, a Cuban engineer who had to emigrate to the faraway island of Saint Lucia, tells about the Cuban government's systematic intimidation techniques and coercion of its professionals abroad. He now knows he can never go back to his native island — lest he should never be allowed to leave Cuba again.

Forced Labor, Forced Exile: The Cuban Professionals Sent Abroad To Work, Never To Return

Next stop, Saint Lucia

Laura Rique Valero

Daniela* was just one year old when she last played with her father. In a video her mother recorded, the two can be seen lying on the floor, making each other laugh.

Three years have passed since then. Daniela's sister, Dunia*, was born — but she has never met her father in person, only connecting through video calls. Indeed, between 2019 and 2023, the family changed more than the two little girls could understand.

"Dad, are you here yet? I'm crazy excited to talk to you."

"Dad, I want you to call today and I'm going to send you a kiss."

"Dad, I want you to come for a long time. I want you to call me; call me, dad."

Three voice messages which Daniela has left her father, one after the other, on WhatsApp this Saturday. His image appears on the phone screen, and the two both light up.

The girls can’t explain what their father looks like in real life: how tall or short or thin he is, how he smells or how his voice sounds — the real one, not what comes out of the speaker. Their version of their dad is limited to a rectangular, digital image. There is nothing else, only distance, and problems that their mother may never share with them.

In 2020, Noel*, the girls' father, was offered a two-to-three-year employment contract on a volcanic island in the Caribbean, some 2,000 kilometers from Cuba. The family needed the money. What came next was never in the plans.

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