The twenty-eighth General Assembly of the Organisation of American States, the OAS, has begun in Venezuela with a Mexican proposal that a group be set up to look into ways of resuming Cuba's membership, which was suspended in 1962.

Mexico's Foreign Minister, Rosario Green, said she acknowledged that not all OAS members shared his position, but the issue needed to be debated.

The ministers, who are meeting in Caracas on the organisation's fiftieth anniversary, are due to finalise projects on protecting the human rights ofindigenous popoulations, the handicapped and other minorities.