Cuban president condemns "aggression" against Venezuela

HAVANA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sunday reiterated his condemnation of the "brutal aggression" against Venezuela and accused the United States of the actions.

"The U.S. empire intensifies its criminal and brutal aggression against Venezuela," Diaz-Canel wrote on his Twitter account Sunday, referring to a prolonged national blackout in Venezuela.

"The attempt against the electrical system brought the lies and cynicism of the false humanitarian discourse of the empire to light. We condemn the aggressions against the homeland of Chavez. Hands off Venezuela," he wrote.

In a Saturday Twitter post, Diaz-Canel called the power outage "a dirty terrorist act" to "crush the resistance of the Venezuelan people and encourage military intervention."

Since Thursday afternoon, Venezuelans have been hit with a prolonged nationwide blackout, which the authorities blamed on sabotage at a central hydroelectric plant.

Electricity was restored Friday afternoon in at least 10 Caracas districts after 20 hours' outage, and also in several eastern states. However, the capital was hit by another blackout on Saturday.