Comments on: Ban on cell phones lifted in Cuba

President Raul Castro has lifted the government ban on ordinary citizens owning cell phones.

[thurston24]

author forgot allot of other things...

They will have toasters in 2010, after the power grid is updated to handle all the electricity needed to run the appliances.

Investment in Cuba has been deteriorated for decades. Obama wants to regulate the economy, Fidel Castro could offer Obama some great advise on how to impose regulation effectively.

I hope one day this country we live in goes so far as to introduce price controls. Especially on gasoline, I cant wait to see deterioration of investment here at home. I tend to think Cali, and Oregon will be the first to pass such regulations.

[kwiswall]

Here is to Tec Baby Generation!

Here is to Tec Baby Generation! Over throw the traditional ways, and move on!

[itango]

Thank you for doing articles like this

The great Cuban misinformation machine would have people believe that Cuba is a "paradise" where everyone has great health care ("better than in the US", it is stated), everyone can read, and life is wonderful.

Unfortunately, major US newspapers have also been fooled and bought into the propaganda by reporting the misinformation verbatim, not knowing or caring that their access to most of the Cuban population was severely restricted, and anyone to whom they spoke whilst in Cuba had to "toe the party line" or suffer reprisals against themselves and their families, so that their responses to questions about their lives were usually not true.

I have had many arguments with self-styled "experts on all things Cuban", whose only source of information is what they read in the newspapers. I can usually shut them up with one question - If life there is so wonderful, why are people willing to risk their own lives and that of their children to leave the country, and arrive at a foreign country with nothing except the clothes on their back? Would most American be willing to endure such a sacrifice?

Those of us that are old enough to remember a pre-communist Cuba, and have ACTUALLY LIVED in Cuba, before and after the revolution, know how a first world country (pre-revolution) was turned into a pitiful third world country thanks to the "great communist experiment" of Castro.

Sadly, he is revered in most of Latin America, not for his dubious "accomplishments" but for being one of very few who stood up to the United States, and actually won. I can only hope that if the US embargo is lifted, conditions for Cubans will improve, just like they have for the Chinese.

[mikeburek]

Super tracking of citizens

I wonder if the change of "heart" is because they will only allow cell phones that have constant location tracking and conversation listening.

[dsirek]

How can they not afford cell phones?

I thought communism was supposed to redistribute the wealth? Fidel was estimated to be worth $500 million in 2006, so why not divide that up amongst the 11+ million residents of Cuba?