Cuba to update Soviet-era constitution, adapting to reforms

HAVANA – Cuba's leaders are setting out to rewrite the country's constitution, trying to adapt it to a post-Soviet world in which small businesses and cooperatives coexist with socialism and exiles have become economic allies.

The country's parliament is due to meet Saturday to approve the committee in charge of revamping the charter.

Officials have made clear that the constitution will maintain a Communist Party-led system in which freedom of speech, the press and other rights are limited by "the purposes of socialist society."

But party chief Raul Castro and other leaders apparently hope to end the contradictions between the new, more open economy and a legal system that calls for tight state control over all aspects of the economy and society.