Cuba's government announces that it has proposed a bill to parliament that would allow Cubans living abroad for more than two years to hold onto their properties on the Communist island. Nearly five percent of the Cuban population has fled to the United States in the past two years, the biggest wave of emigration since Fidel Castro's revolution. The communist island is in the grips of its worst economic crisis in decades, with sky-high inflation and shortages of fuel, medicine and basic foodstuffs -- and US sanctions -- aggravating an already dire situation. Cuban legislation from 1976 established that citizens who left the country, without the express permission of the government, lost their rights and property on the island, but after Raul Castro came to power a policy was implemented that allowed them to return within two years to preserve those guarantees. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES