Unasur Defence Council has to protect the region’s vast and strategic resources

Friday, May 27th 2011 - 22:03 UTC

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The Union of South American Nations, Unasur, has among the objectives of the recently created South American Defence Council protecting the natural resources of the region which include 25% of the world’s drinking water and proven oil reserves estimated in 123 billion barrels of oil. Read full article

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Redhoyt
Sounds like another 'old boys club' providing sweets and jollies to the same old boys who are in every other SA 'club'. Plenty of buisiness class trips paid for by the people :-)
May 28th, 2011 - 12:52 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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so_far
LatAm time is comming....slow but certainly comming.

I just hope all south americans can enjoy this......soon. Will be a real pleasure see the invasor out of region.
May 28th, 2011 - 01:59 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Forgetit87
The Unasur forum put an end to the white secessionist movement in east Bolivia and had a large role in de-scalating tensions between Colombia and Venezuela the last year. Unasur has beem more useful to its member-countries then the EU has been to its own during the last decade, Red hoe.
May 28th, 2011 - 02:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Redhoyt
I'll agree with that ... I was against joining ... bloody glad we managed to keep out of the Euro!

And I have a low opinion of politicians. They'll have lots of meetings, lots of lunches, filling lots of very well appointed hotel rooms with expense accounts and yet they'll achieve very little, very slowly !

So-Far (good?) - you are unlikely to live long enough !
May 28th, 2011 - 03:19 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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so_far
Step by step Red, maybe you and me not gonna see it....but is comming for sure :)
May 28th, 2011 - 04:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Forgetit87
I knew you would agree with me. Less because you know of Unasur's accomplishments, and more because of your contempt for the EU. :)
May 28th, 2011 - 04:39 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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ElaineB
For a long time people have said that 'Latin America is the future; and always will be' because it has always had the resources and potential but has been too unstable. I honestly think/hope that it will attain the potential it has but suspect it will be certain countries that achieve success and others will continue to sabotage their own progress.
May 28th, 2011 - 04:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Forgetit87
@ElaineB

LatAm has not always been “too unstable”, and neither is political instability the main culprit for the “forever region of the future” epithet. From 1930 to 80, Latin America grew a lot - perhaps more than any other region in the world. (It was in the 70s that Latin America began to be known as the “region of the future”, though the “and forever will be” had not yet been added.) The problem is that, to finance their development projects, the governments of the region took loads of foreign debt. This isn't quite unusual. Except for the developed East Asian nations - Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan - all other industrialized nations have walked the path to their current position by borrowing from foreign banks. The problem is that, in the 80s, US and European banks began to increase their interest rates as a strategy by central banks of the region to curb high inflation. Latin American government who had become indebted to those banks thus lost their ability to borrow more or to pay off existing debt: thus the Third World sovereign debt crises and the reason the 80s were a lost decade for the region.

The 90s were again a lost decade, but this time for a different region: LatAm governments began to buy the US-promoted dogma that the government shouldn't have much of a role in boosting industrialization and that development could be achieved by opening capital markets. This was not what happened, and deregulated markets in fact led to a series of financial crises in LatAm (and also in Asia and Russia): mainly currency crises.

I bet that by countries who are sabotaging their own development, you mean Argentina. But Argentina is in fact one of the countries who has best learned its lesson. More than any other country in SA, Argentina has intervened in markets to keep the currency at a competitive level without fearing being tagged as anti-market by speculators and the outlets that defend their interests (virtually all of the US and European press).
May 28th, 2011 - 08:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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ElaineB
I was not referring to any country in particular.
May 28th, 2011 - 09:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Forgetit87
*for a different reason
May 28th, 2011 - 09:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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I
it's about time someone woke up and protected South America's resources, they'll never get anywhere if they keep shiping all the jobs to first world nations while keeping the residuals in their own backyard.
Here is a few links that might help them make their job easyer, if they really mean to protect Latin America. https://www.facebook.com/#!/ctargentina
https://www.facebook.com/#!/ctargentina
May 29th, 2011 - 02:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Fido Dido
(virtually all of the US and European press).

Both, today should also learn from iceland, but unfortunately, it's not happening. Iceland is doing the same thing as Argentina did..just default
May 29th, 2011 - 03:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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