Showing off new energy after cancer treatment, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez hosted Latin American leaders on Friday to create a new regional body that pointedly excludes the United States and Canada.
Argentine and Brazilian presidents Cristina Fernandez and Dilma Rousseff agreed in Caracas the creation of a Productive Integration Mechanism, MIP, to deepen bilateral relations.
Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa again questioned the existence of the Organization of American States, OAS, which should have been disarticulated in 1982 during the Falklands/Malvinas war and insisted that the region’s problems “should be discussed in the region and not in Washington”.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández signed on Thursday nineteen cooperation agreements in different fields with her Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
The Union of South American Nations, Unasur, may decide this week to strengthen an emergency fund to help countries in balance of payments problems, the Brazilian Finance Ministry’s international affairs secretary said.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández will hold a bilateral meeting next Friday with her Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff in the framework of the first Latin American and Caribbean States Community Summit (CELAC).
Argentina has great expectations about the coming summit for the official creation of the Community of Latinamerican and Caribbean states, Celac, scheduled to take place next December 2 and 3 in Venezuela, said Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman.
Venezuela has suspended a regional summit scheduled for 5 July, --which also coincides with the 200th anniversary of the country’s independence--, amid continuing speculation over the state of health of President Hugo Chavez.
The head of the Ibero-American Secretariat Enrique Iglesias denied that the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, to be created next July pretends to take distance from the United States or Spain.
Latin American and Caribbean Foreign Affairs ministers are meeting in Venezuela in anticipation of the presidential summit scheduled for July 5 in Caracas when a new regional integration organization is set to be born, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states, CELAC.