CUBANS WERE QUEUING outside state-owned telephone offices yesterday to buy their first legal mobile phones.

Previously only the communist elite and foreigners were allowed to have mobiles, although there was a thriving black market for contracts and handsets.

When President Raul Castro took power in February, however, he promised to free things up a bit. This has so far meant that electronic goods, once seen as the trademark of Western Capitalism, have also gone on sale.

Illegal phones, which have been traded for years on the black market under foreigners' names, are now being allowed to be registered properly for the first time.

A mobile might cost the same as nine months of 'official' salary to the average Cuban, but apparently a lot of them will get money from family abroad to help them out. µ

L'Inq
Reuters