Cubans are getting wired.
The island’s communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time on Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new Cuban President Raul Castro.
A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780.
PHOTO :AFP
While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding against its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.
Inside, four clerks tore open boxes, hastily assembling display computers. By the time a sign went up listing the PC’s specifications, more than a dozen shoppers were lined up to get in.
“Look at that!” murmured Armando Batista as he pressed against the window. Although he can’t afford to buy one, he said, “these are good for a start.”
The gray and black QTECHs, complete with DVD players, bulky CRT monitors and standard-issue black mice and keyboards, are the only model available.
The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM and are equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.
Both could be violations of a US trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana.
Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China. For about US$80 or less, buyers in the US can get a desktop with more than twice the memory, an 80GB SATA hard drive and 22-inch LCD flat screen monitor.
The crowded store in central Havana’s Carlos III shopping center is the only outlet in the country now selling the PCs. Clerks at a few other government-run stores — where Cubans must buy everything — said they expect to receive deliveries sometime after this week.
Brian Brito, 14, saved his allowance for two years to buy himself a PC for his upcoming 15th birthday.
“It’s good for playing games,” he said, while lugging his new computer from the mall.
But his mother had other ideas.
“He’ll use it for school, for learning,” she said. “And besides, it’s a form of healthy entertainment.”
Except for some trusted officials and state journalists, most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. So many of these new computers may never be connected to the Web.
Some people buy limited e-mail access on the black market, usually sharing an account with the authorized holder, who usually works for the state.
Even if they could gain access the Web, Cubans can’t shop online because they don’t have credit cards.
Raul Castro promised to eliminate many of these prohibitions when he assumed the presidency on Feb. 24, after former Cuban president Fidel Castro, Raul’s ailing 81-year-old brother, resigned. Besides selling consumer goods, he has ended bans that kept most Cubans from having cellphones, staying in luxury hotels or renting cars.
An internal government memo had indicated that PCs, DVD players, motorbikes and plug-in pressure cookers would be sold for the first time last month.
Everything but the computers made it to the shelves before the end of the month.
Computers have been sold on Cuba’s black market for years — at prices comparable to the US$780 now seen in the store.
But now that computers are available legally, some consumers expect black market prices to fall.
The government controls more than 90 percent Cuba’s economy, paying an average state salary of US$19.50 per month. But most Cubans have access to extra income through jobs with foreign firms, tips from working in tourism or money sent by relatives living abroad.
Thousands have snapped up phones and coveted kitchen appliances in recent weeks.
“Hotels, cellphones, DVD; Cuba is changing a lot,” said Oscar Perez, who came to help his 14-year-old cousin carry his new computer to the car. “That’s positive. But we want more.”
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS