BUSH speech on Cuba Today: US will allow Americans to Send Cell Phones

[magbana]

Sick, twisted stuff as always out of the Bush White House. Yeah, get those phones into Cuba so that the mercenaries can better communicate with one another to plan an overthrow.

US to allow Americans to send cell phones to Cuba

By DEB RIECHMANN – 34 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush announced Wednesday that Americans soon will be allowed to send cell phones to Cubans — a move that he hopes will push the communist regime to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens.

Addressing recent changes in Cuba, Bush said, "Cubans are now allowed to purchase mobile phones, DVD players and computers and they have been told that they will be able to purchase toasters and other basic appliances in 2010."

"If the Cuban regime is serious about improving life for the Cuban people, it will take steps necessary to make these changes meaningful," Bush said at the White House as he marked Cuba's 106th anniversary of independence this week.

If the Cuban people can be trusted with mobile phones, "they should be trusted to speak freely in public," he said.

Dan Fisk, National Security Council senior director for Western hemisphere affairs, said the Bush administration will be interested in seeing if the Cuban regime allows the cell phones to enter the country.

Fisk emphasized that the new policy, which is to take effect in a few weeks, is not a loosening of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, but a change in U.S. regulations that will allow cell phones to be in gift parcels that Americans can sent to Cubans.

Since becoming Cuba's first new president in 49 years, Raul Castro has done away with bans that prohibited Cubans from owning cell phones in their own names, staying in tourist hotels and buying DVD players, computers and coveted kitchen appliances. He also has acknowledged that state salaries are too small to live on, and pledged steady improvements.

"If Raul is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people," Bush said.

Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, when he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and relinquished power to Raul Castro. Fidel Castro formally stepped down as president in February, but keeps a presence through essays published in state media.

"The world is watching the Cuban regime," Bush said. "If it follows its recent public gestures — by opening up access to information, implementing meaningful economic reforms, respecting political freedom and human rights — then it can credibly say it has delivered the beginnings of change.

"But experience tells us this regime has no intention of taking these steps. Instead its recent gestures appear to be nothing more than a cruel joke perpetuated on a long-suffering people."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gfQlDxflKU_fBF9wEgOhzNrxnRDwD90Q3HP02

http://snipurl.com/29xwp

[Bacchus39]

1. a good idea, considering the price of the phones in Cuba versus what they are paid

are you saying the Cuban government is so paranoid that they don't want people to talk to each other?

[Texano78704]

2. If Bush is serious about improving life for Cubans...

Then why not allow US citizens to spend their tourist dollars in Cuba?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Well, his daddy's CIA clowns, like Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, and others

spent many happy years bombing companies which handle gifts Americans send to their friends, relatives in Cuba.

Now _Bush encourages it.

What about the fact that he has slashed the amount of remittances Cuban Americans have been allowed to send to their loved ones in Cuba? How does that figure in? Couldn't they just send them MORE MONEY so they could buy them for themselves IN CUBA?

Asshole. Thief. Murderer. Idiot. Liar.

[Mika]

4. Too bad the US won't accept Cuba's offers of help in med education and disaster aid.

If the Bush regime is serious about his responsibility pertectin' the 'Murican people and improving the quality of their lives, then he should accept the offers from Cuba.

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