In brief: Cuba rejects offer to rejoin group

MIAMI – Cuba made its first official public announcement Monday regarding the Organization of American States’ decision to withdraw its 1962 suspension from the hemispheric group: no thanks.

The announcement published Monday in the Cuban state newspaper Granma came as no surprise. Cuba’s retired leader Fidel Castro has waxed on for weeks, calling the Washington-based international organization an “unburied cadaver.” But Monday marked the first time Havana specifically rejected offers to rejoin the region’s diplomatic circle.

“It is an organization with a role and trajectory that Cuba repudiates,” the statement said.

Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962 because of its relationship with the Soviet Union and China. Although it officially remained one of the 35 members, it has not been allowed to participate since.

Pentagon: Errors in Afghan strikes

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said Monday that U.S. troops did not follow proper tactics and procedures during an air assault last month on Taliban fighters in Afghanistan that also killed a number of civilians.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the number of Taliban militants killed in the May 4 airstrikes “greatly outnumbered” the number of civilians slain. But Morrell noted some problems in the way the strikes were carried out, citing a U.S. warplane that investigators said did not follow proper procedures.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was briefed Monday on the results of a classified U.S. Central Command inquiry into the airstrike, but Pentagon officials were not elaborating on the findings. An unclassified version of the report was expected to be released later this week.

More bodies, key part found

RECIFE, Brazil – Search crews recovered the vertical stabilizer from the tail section of an Air France airliner that went down in the Atlantic, Brazil’s air force said Monday – a key find that could help locate the black boxes and determine why the jet crashed.

Eight more bodies also were found, bringing the total recovered to 24 since Air France Flight 447 disappeared May 31 with 228 people on board, according to Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz.