Cuba has announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what the government calls "a range of enemy actions".

President Raul Castro fired Cuba's transportation minister for professional mistakes and replaced the head of the Sugar Ministry after he admitted incompetence, the latest in a growing series of leadership shake-ups.

Fidel Castro has led hundreds of thousands of people in a march in Havana to ratify the socialist state as "untouchable".