<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Cuba has warned drivers of state-owned cars to pick up people at bus stops or face prosecution, as Havana faces painful shortages of diesel fuel, authorities said this week.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Diesel has been in very short supply since being diverted in March to run oil-fueled power plants.</div><div><br></div><div>As Cubans sweat out the island's worst economic crisis in three decades, public transport has become an ordeal; nearly 50 percent of buses are out of operation "for lack of tires and batteries," a ministry official told AFP last year.</div><div><br></div><div>So the Americas' only one-party Communist government announced it has begun implementing the old but previously unenforced rule on picking up riders.</div><div><br></div><div>People in Havana routinely wait hours for a bus to get to their schools or jobs.</div><div><br></div><div>Betty Pairol, a Cuban military officer, recently got a big surprise while trying to get to work. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>