Relations for the first time in decades. We are expecting remarks from the Cuban Foreign minister as the cuban flag is raised for the First Time Since the early 1960s. Live coverage gets underway in just about a half hour on cspan. We expect white house spokesman josh earnest to talk during todays briefing. Lots of discussion expected on the United Nations vote to approve the around nuclear agreement. That vote happening within the last hour. We have a light briefing with josh earnest here at 12 30. Secretary of john state secretary of state john kerry talks about the around deal. We expect that about 1 45 here today on cspan. Tonight on the communicators we will speak with the communication ages on why this is a danger. If you go back to earlier technologies like railroads and the telephone monopoly. Those are regulated as common carriers. Regulators set prices, set terms, set rules. We all know what happened. There was very little innovation and railroads and in tracking. And in telephones until they were all the regulated all the regulated. Those commentary or statutes were undone by congress when it was so clear that innovation was being suppressed and that the u. S. Was falling behind in its competitiveness. I was the backdrop for the bipartisan consensus in the 1990s that the internet was going to be different. This was during the clinton administration. A clear consensus. Democrat and republican unlike those earlier technologies, the internet would be largely unregulated. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan two. We are looking right now at a live picture of the outdoors the outside of the cuban and busy on 16th street on washington dc. The official reopening is coming up in about a half hour. You can see the dignitaries arriving and folks making their way inside on a warm morning here in washington. Until that gets underway, here is a portion of the program we produced back in 2007 that looked at the cuban embargo. We will show you as much as we can until the other you are seeing now gets underway in about a half hour. Gary marx, longtime latin american correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, do you agree with anthony bodo about the legal situation in cuba . I do. I think that most humans want change, some sort of Major Economic change. Their lives are incredibly difficult and very precarious. The issue with democracy is more complex. Cubans are clearly looking for a signal from fidel castro to improve the Economic Situation on the island. Why or how are their life so difficult . It amounts to money and government services. In cuba, the government provides a basket of subsidized food free education, Free Health Care service, the average salary on the island is 15 a month. That does not go far enough. It is not by much on the island. The primary concern for cubans is transportation, housing, and food. As i said, they live very precarious lives. They want those problems taking care of. You mentioned raul castro, not fidel castro. Fidel khosrow fidel castro is obviously gravely ill. We do not know when he will die. He has clearly stepped back in the last year or so. I dont believe he will return to power. Power has passed to row will now, and it is his responsibility. People in cuba are looking past fidel for raul to make serious improvement in their daily life. Fidel is looked upon as being an elderly statesmen at this point. Power, to me, is passed on to raul and the generals. They are now in charge of the country. Fidel castro, last tv appearance, since 21st. Where is the . He is obviously an havana somewhere. From the beginning when they announced his illness, he has been out of sight. He has not appeared in public. He has only appeared in brief video clips. He has made his presence felt by these. These are essays that he writes once or twice every week from subjects ranging from the evils of free trade to the evils of ethanol to the benefits and social advances of the revolution. He is sort of, as i said, an elder statesman at this point. He is out of the picture. Power has passed to raul. Host in september, we went to havana and got a lot of video. They talked to a lot of people on the street. Here is a little bit of what they heard from people on the street about fidel and the local situation. We love fidel. We love fidel castro. Our commanderinchief. You love him too . Yes. For the rest of the world he is a god not a god. A very good person. For the poor people. The thing is that we do not have what we need to have a better life. They are selling refrigerators pressure cookers, washing machines, tv sets, everything. You can pay in installments little by little. They are very good to i love them. The cuban people love him. I come from the place where we fought. I helped a lot. I have nothing, you see . I helped the government to come to power. I love the government. Before castro, there was a bad man. What about the government . The ones before castro had people killed. In the morning, you would find the bodies all over the place. In the parks cemeteries trucks. They would take people out of their houses and put them in the back of the truck, kill them and take them to the cemetery. What do you think is going to happen after fidel castro dies . Oh my goodness. Listen. The brother, his brother, his brother will take over. That is what we think. We love him. Are you in favor of his brother . Of course. We dont know what is going to happen. Do you think that cap castro has done well by cuba . Decidedly. Most of me. Most certainly. A person like fidel started the revolution as a young man. He did not sell out. He has not still in any money. He will die here with his people. He is not ambitious. He is not dreaming of money. Had he been ambitious, he would have bought an island and left. Old as he is, he is still here. Host those were people in havana talking to foreign journalist. As that allowed . Guest absolutely. People can talk to foreign journalist. They will not necessarily tell you the truth. People can talk to foreign journalists. Host what you heard there, where those people being honest . Guest i would say this. For a foreign reporter to go there and stick a camera in a strangers face in havana, that is not the way i would do journalism. That is not the best gauge of someones opinion. The only way to work and havana the only way to find out what people are thinking is to spend time on the ground, to make friendships, to build trust. Then, after a long period of time, they will tell you closer to the truth. Host did you have inside sources in the cuban government when you are living art deco guest i did not, because i do not believe there are inside sources in the cuban government. Or is too much at risk for cubans working in the government at any high level to talk to a foreign journalist without authorization. For example. At one point, i was doing a story last year about the sugar industry. I went to interview someone who used to work at the Sugar Ministry and i spoke to him on one or two different occasions. Then he called me up and said i need to meet with you. After a certain period of time we met again. He said dont call me again, i cant talk to you. State security visited my house. I have never been in the situation before. Imf rate afraid for my family. I am afraid for my kids. They want me to turn you in as an informant. Dont call me again. Those sources dont exist in cuba. It is not a journalism here and United States. Host gary marks is a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune june 2002 and 2007. You lived in havana. Was there a strong dissident community in a country echo guest there is a dissident community and cuba, but it is not strong. It grew in the 1990s with a economic opening. A huge crackdown 2003. 2. 75 activists and journalists were arrested. Since then, the dissident community has been decimated. It is a nonfactor at this point. Host you mentioned the economics of cuba. I would like to talk about that. One of the things we all hear about his cigar manufacturing. What is the state about that industry echo guest it is a mixed end mixed enterprise. It has grown immensely in recent years. They export a lot the cigars to europe and south america. The biggest market in the world is the United States. Because of the embargo, they are not allowed to export the United States. It is an important export, an important source of income. Host what is the most import and source of cuba . Guest copper and nickel. Tourism is important for income for the cuban government. The most important source of income is venezuela. The venezuelan president has given billions of dollars a year in aid to the cuban economy. That is one reason why the cuban economy has grown in the last couple of years. Host go back to tourism. How many tourists come to cuba every year and where do they come from . Guest i dont know the exact number, but the number one sources canada followed by spain. Most of these individuals, on package doors. They are inexpensive, especially from canada. They go to resorts. They are separated from the cuban population. Cubans are not allowed to enter these resorts. Only the workers are allowed to stay in these resorts. People stay for four or five days. Maybe they make a trip into havana, but most of the time is spent on each on the beach. Host what about private is this . Guest you are not allowed to own a business in cuba without a government license. In the 1990s after the fall of the soviet union, thousands of these licenses were given. After the fall of the soviet union, the cuban economy class. Fidel castro had to Institute Limited freemarket Economic Reforms including Foreign Investment and restarting the tourist industry. It also included giving some private businesses licenses. Everything from a tire repairman to opening private restaurants to giving rooms for rent. The top figure 10 years ago was 200,000 licenses. In the recent years as the economy has recovered, the licenses have fallen dramatically. Host our cspan crew visited a local market in havana and talked about the cost of food. Grapefruit, how much echo one. 20 in town. 1. 20 a a pound. What is inside the rum bottles . Concentrated lemon juice. Four pesos. You dont like it . No. Three more grapefruit. Four pesos. No, that is too much. How much should it cost, do you think in your view . A peso each. Three grapefruit, or pesos no. One peso each. Small grapefruit. No way. Everything is very expensive here. And then you cant eat. Are you going somewhere else . Are you going somewhere else . Yes. To see and i can find something cheaper. This is too expensive. Those of small grapefruit. Four pesos each . No way. That is abusive. The cuban people most of the people have enough money to be able to buy what they want or need. I think so. Workers have a salary. They can come without money to the market and buy food. To buy food, you always have money. Nobody starts here. Nobody starves. Host that market that we saw is a privately owned or state run . Guest that is state run. It is very interesting. These are one of the markets that was opened in the 1990s after the collapse of the soviet Union Setting the human economy into a tells them. There was a lot of hunger at that time. They opened these markets in which Food Producers could sell the products to these markets. This is one of the major ways cubans get food. Host that gentleman said nobody starts here. Guest that is correct. That doesnt mean that food is not one of the top concerns of cubans. It absolutely is. The cubans provide a monthly food ration card which they provide with sugar, beans, rice, cooking oil. Very subsidized prices. It costs next to nothing. These subsidized foods only last 10 days, two weeks at the most. Cubans have to go out and look for other income in order to buy the other things they need. Host this market that we are watching right now. Is this an open market for all cubans, tours, etc. . Guest cubans can shop there. You can tell right here. Host are there shortages of food . Guest there are no shortages of food. The problem is money. In the 1990s, there was a shortage of food but they did not have money. Now, humans there is a lot of food but they dont have enough money. Host is there a black market for food . Guest there is a black market for everything and cuba. In cuba, it is illegal to sell lobster tails or shrimp because the state controls these trades and the expert goes overseas. If you want to buy lobster tails or shrimp, you have to go to the black market. There is a flourishing black moth like market of walter jones and trim. Host where is it . Guest it is everywhere. In our house in havana, five times a day we had people reading our doorbell. Do you want or just . Do you want potatoes . Do you want oranges . Do you want support . You can buy anything you want on the black market, you just need money. Host did you listen really from cubans or did you live in havana . Guest 41st few years we lived in the renovated part of old havana. We were in the main section of the van we were in a foreigners building. They charged as rent. We had to live in a building owned by the cuban government. We were surrounded by cubans. The last couple years, we moved out to the suburbs. Old havana is incredibly congested. There are issues about our wealth compared to the cubans we were living with. We have young kids at the time. They would go downstairs with baseball bats, balls, toys. The cuban kids who were very poor obviously want to these things. It created a weird dynamic. We felt uncomfortable about that so we moved out to the suburbs. Host where your kids friends with cuban kids . Guest sure. They were friends with cuban kids. It created a weird dynamic. They were finding out our kids were from the United States. My kids of the time were three and six years old. Often, kids would say they are the bad people. Because the cuban Education System is so politicized, these kids would repeat this to our kids. Our kids had just arrived in cuba. They were trying to figure out where we were living now. Are we bad . Is our government that . Things like that. That was a heavy burden to put on them. Host when they were down there, they went and visited people at their homes. Heres a bit of the video. Can we shoot your room . We are filming a documentary to see how cubans live. Would you mind . You are a musician . You are a musician . Where do you play . Do you play every day at the hotel. You have a group, a band. On october 21, we had a concert at the fine arts museum. Could you lower the volume a bit . How long have you been living here . Forever. 36 years. And or family . Your parents . Might mother died. My father lives upstairs with all of us. My sister. You have a sister . Yes, upstairs. Right there. She was born here too. Thank you so much. Do you pay rent here . No. This was given to us by the state. The people who came here came from condemned housing unsanitary living quarters. They were given places with a better quality of life. That was 1959, 1960, more or less. Thank you for letting us in. Lets see if we can have a look at something else. Host that is Brandon Tilman of cspan. You can see he is fluent in spanish and he did a lot of the interpreting. The producer is holding the camera. Gary marx, what do you see when you watch this video at this house . Guest it is such a familiar sign in central havana especially. This looks like one of these Old Buildings that was basically a mansion before the revolution and it has been chopped up. There are dozens and dozens of families living in this huge building. Host what kind of condition is this building and . Guest you can see the conditions are that nothing has happened in the last 50 years to renovate the place. Host cuba likes to say there is nobody on the street. That is absolutely true. Guest there are not very many homers people. They are not walking around. At the same time obviously housing remains a huge problem in cuba. The lack of housing two or three generations living under the same roof. 12 people sometimes living in a two room apartment. It is a major problem. Host our camera crew walking in and out of these apartment. The seams open. Guest right. Host i am curious. If someone walked into my house with a camera guest cubans are very open, very gregarious. Like i said earlier. They wont necessarily tell you the truth. They have tremendous manners. The idea of not allowing you to come and it does not even cross their minds. Host that gentleman says he pays no rent. That it was given to him by the state. Guest if anyone pays rent, it is very small. A lot of people pay no rent at all. They own their houses. Especially if they are in the countryside. Rent is, again, one of those things that is highly subsidized by the government. It is not a concern for most cubans. There is a black market for housing. Then you have to pay in the hard currency called cuc. For the most part, rent is not a concern for most people. Host you mentioned earlier that transportation is one of the biggest concerns. Guest there is not enough transportation. The transportation, roads, buses are completely antiquated and inadequate. That is one thing that raul castro put his fingers on. In recent months he has fought and is starting to bring online hundreds of chinese buses that in the past year are being brought into havana. It is a huge problem. Tebow could wait an hour just to get a bus to go to work. It is a major problem. Most people dont own cars. That is one thing that raul castro in the past year has put his finger on and wants to improve. Host we want to show you this video about cars in cuba. Excuse me, sir. Sir . What is wrong with the car . Looked down. Is a difficult to keep it running . What make is it . Russian. From russia. Is it hard to get parts . No. You have never seen a car like this one, . How old is the car. 18 years old. You tighten that, and then we will see if it starts. What is the problem . We are fixing it. Is it the starter . No. The solenoid. Where is this car from . What country . Where was it made . The car. I think it is korean. In korea. Did it start all right . How can you get a car . You cant. You cant get a car. Why . Because cars are not sold here. They are sold only i dont know. Cars are very collocated. You have to get an authorization. It has to be through an authorization. Not just having the money. That is not all. You have to have the money and the authorization. The government doesnt get just anybody an authorization. What you have to do i dont know. I cant explain that really. It belongs to a friend. The komi to take care of it and look after it are a it is a friend of yours . Yes. He is back