Cuban president defiant in face of rising U.S. pressure

Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel speaks during the 16th Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) Summit in Havana, Cuba, December 14, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Wednesday that no one could rip the island away from Cubans, after the Trump administration lifted a ban on U.S. lawsuits for the use of properties seized by Cuba's government since its 1959 revolution. "No one will rip the (fatherland) away from us, neither by seduction nor by force," Diaz-Canel wrote on Twitter. "We Cubans do not surrender." (Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Leslie Adler)