Cuba still allergic to private property as reforms creep forward

HAVANA (Reuters) - Every Monday in the bowels of Cuba's Palace of the Revolution, a group of men and women charged with revamping the island's moribund economy meets to review progress in building what they have dubbed "a prosperous and sustainable socialism."

They have their work cut out for them, as demonstrated by the recent discovery by Panama of decrepit Cuban weaponry on its way to North Korea for repair, a walk down any potholed Havana street or the Cuban government's admission that 58 percent of water pumped from reservoirs is lost to leaky pipes.