On a related note. Cuba now tops in giving away pressure cookers to women. BTW, the irony in this story is that he made the announcement on the eve on Interntl Women's Rights Day.
Castro to Distribute Pressure Cookers
29 minutes ago World - AP Latin America
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - Pressure cookers and rice steamers, essential tools of the Cuban kitchen, are the new weapons in Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s latest battle to reassert control over the nation's economy.
During a 5 1/2-hour speech broadcast on state TV, Castro said 100,000 pressure cookers would be made available each month — an announcement that underscored the communist country's continued retreat toward greater political and economic centralism.
The move "will do away with the rustic kitchen," Castro told the Federation of Cuban Women on Tuesday night, saying the new cookers would use half the energy of the homemade ones they will replace.
The program could wipe out what has become a popular, and in most cases legal, private business that uses molds to make pressure cookers from cheap aluminum. Although imported cookers are sold in stores for about $25 — more than the average Cuban earns in a month — homemade ones cost about $5.50.
At subsidized prices, the government-distributed cookers will cost about the same as the homemade ones. And the government's cookers can be paid for in monthly installments.