Cuban leader Fidel Castro appeared on television Monday with an arm sling to give weight to an announcement on the ban of transactions in US dollars in his country.

Shown from the chest up, the 78-year-old leader said the issue was so important that he had to be on the program despite a surgery last week following an accident in which he fell and fractured a knee and an arm.

"Beginning on Nov. 8, the convertible peso will begin to circulate in substitution of the dollar throughout national territory," a state television personality read the resolution with the uniform-clad Castro looking on.

According to the decree of the Central Bank, the dollar will no longer be accepted in shops as of Nov. 8. Cubans and foreigners will have to exchange them for "convertible pesos" with a 10 percent commission.

The move was partly induced by the US Federal Reserve's decision in May to fine UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, 100 million dollars after the bank allegedly sent US dollars to Cuba, Libya, Iran and Serbia and Montenegro in violation of US sanctions against those countries.

The punishment, together with some other measures by the US earlier this year to curb the flow of remittances and tourist dollars to Cuba, finally get the country to make the decision and radically change the way business has been done on the island since Castro was obliged to legalize the US dollars in 1993 to ease economic crisis.

Source: Xinhua