Cuba eases consumer controls

Shoppers snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time as Cuba loosened its control on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by new president Raul Castro, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.