The cellphone on Friday joined the growing list of once-banned items in Cuba, where Raúl Castro's month-old government has begun lifting decades-old prohibitions on household goods like microwave ovens and computers.

And while most of that merchandise was already available on the black market -- and the Cuban government has not taken action toward political reform -- the moves could signal the first steps toward economic changes on the island.

http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/474667.html

Cell phone industry is a big money industry. Hey its something..

You can't keep cell-phones even from prisons, how then could they really expect to keep them out of the island? Raul had a Reality check.

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Also he lifted the ban on computers about a couple weeks ago.

CUBA IS WHERE I WANT TO GO BEFORE THE FIDEL/RAUL REGIME BREAKS DOWN AND FALLS. I WANT TO SEE CUBA BEFORE CONSUMERISM AMERICAN STYLE HITS THE ISLAND.

Those items were prohibited?!? Okay a phone and a 'puter I could probably deal without, but I would miss a microwave, I could do w/o it, but yeah I'd miss it. Seems as though things are changing more and sooner than everyone thought. I think I'd like to go like Gonzo, just to see how things are now before it totally changes. :yup:

caker wrote:Those items were prohibited?!? Okay a phone and a 'puter I could probably deal without, but I would miss a microwave, I could do w/o it, but yeah I'd miss it. :

thats what i was thinking ........thats crazy though

My husband has gone to cuba a few times, your are NOT allowed to have red meat or seafood ( although part of the black market). This food is for tourists. If You get caught fishing your dead papas.

I just cant imagine a regime that gives their own people the scraps of the litter.

Castro reforms: DVDs, farms for Cubans


By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 14 minutes ago



HAVANA - Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro's new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.

Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.

"Cuban people can't survive on the salaries people are paying them. Average men and women have been screaming that at the top of their lungs for many years," said Felix Masud-Piloto, director of the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. "Now after many years, the government is listening."

Many of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn. But that didn't stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.

"They should have done this a long time ago," one man said as he left a store with a red and silver electric motorbike that cost $814. The Chinese-made bikes can be charged with an electric cord and had been barred for general sale because officials feared a strain on the power grid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/ap_ ... G0dtqs0NUE

iPedro wrote:Castro reforms: DVDs, farms for Cubans
HAVANA - Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro's
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/ap_ ... G0dtqs0NUE

dayum, they barely got to buy and use pressure cookers, aint that a bitch