Cuba makes another step into the modern world this week as President Raul Castro lifted the ban on personal computers. The desktop computers cost almost $800 in a country that the average wage is under $20 a month. Some Cubans have plenty of extra spending money as their relatives send it to them. Right now they are restricted to certain workplaces schools and universities. It is unable to connect to giant fiber-optic undersea cables due to the U.S. trade embargo. However Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, Cuba’s ally and a critic of the US, is laying a new cable under the Caribbean. It remains to be seen once they are connected if they will have uncensored internet or not.
Cubans have recently been allowed such items as cell phones and DVD players. How much longer are we going to maintain our embargo on Cuba? Doesn’t it seem to have gone on long enough? I know it does to me.