US President Donald Trump this month warned that Cuba "is ready to fall" and told Havana to "make a deal" or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose ousted leader Nicolas Maduro was taken to America by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
Diaz-Canel on Saturday supervised military exercises that included a tank unit from Cuba's armed forces.
He was accompanied by Cuban General Alvaro Lopez Miera, who is the minister of the armed forces, and other high-ranking military officials.
"The best way to prevent aggression is for imperialism to have to calculate the price of attacking our country," Diaz-Canel said in remarks broadcast on Cuban television.
"And that has a lot to do with our preparation for this type of military action... This takes on significant importance in the current circumstances," he added.
Cuba's National Defense Council, which is led by Diaz-Canel, recently met "with the objective of increasing and improving the level of preparedness and cohesion" among the country's leadership, according to an official government statement.
The council met to "analyze and approve the plans and measures for transitioning to a State of War," the statement added, without providing further details.
These military exercises are part of the country's preparation "under the strategic concept of the War of the Entire People," a term used by authorities for the mobilization of civilians in the event of armed conflict.
Lebanon PM says international force needed after Unifil
Paris, France (AFP) Jan 24, 2026 -
Lebanon will need some sort of international force after the withdrawal of the United Nations's Unifil mission scheduled for 2027, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said during a visit to Paris Saturday.
Some 10,800 UN peacekeepers have manned a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon since March 1978, but they will have one year to leave Lebanon starting 31 December, under a resolution passed last August under pressure from the United States and Israel.
"We will always need an international presence in the south, and preferably a UN presence, given the impartiality and neutrality that only the UN can provide," Nawaf Salam said the day after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The force would need a mix of observers and peacekeepers, largely because of a "history of hostility" with Israel, he added.
UN peacekeepers current operate in southern Lebanon in cooperation with the Lebanese army, part of a ceasefire between Israel and the pro-Iranian Shiite movement Hezbollah in place since November 2024.
While Israel was supposed to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, it has maintained them in five areas it considers strategic.
It regularly conducts airstrikes in the country on what it claims are Hezbollah sites and members, whom it accuses of rearming.
Questioned about Hezbollah's promised disarmament, Salam said Phase 2 of this process had begun "two weeks ago".
The Lebanese army says it has completed the first phase, which calls for disarming Hezbollah south of the Litani River.
The second phase will involve disarmament between the Litani and the Awali River, an area further north that has significant Hezbollah influence.
"I can clearly see that Phase 2 has different requirements than Phase 1," said Salam, adding that Hezbollah's rhetoric had been "rather harsh".
"But let me be clear, we will not back down," he added.
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