Castro: Cuba to continue military building against U.S.
Cuba will continue to boost its defense capacity against the United States, said Cuban leader Fidel Castro in an article published on Monday.

"We will continue acquiring the material and firearms needed, even though the capitalism's gross domestic product will not rise," Castro said in his commentary in Cuba's official newspaper Granma.

"Mr. Bush, don't you doubt it either. I assure you that you will never have Cuba," he added.

Cuba will soon witness the 50th anniversary of the U.S. economic blockade against the island, said the article entitled Reflection and Manifesto for the Cuban People.

"Thousands of Cuban children have died or been mutilated because of the dirty war against Cuba," he said.

After recalling the fall of European Socialism in the 1990s, and the economic difficulties of the so-called "Special Period" it triggered in Cuba, he said that it was in this period that Bush's plan to occupy the island grew more severe.

This is the 18th article the 80-year-old leader has published since he resumed writing on March 29, the first sign of Castro's recovery after he underwent an intestinal operation last July, which has kept him from the public since.

He temporarily handed the reins of government to his brother Raul Castro.

In recent weeks, Castro also met with the presidents of Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.