Greater access to world markets and more foreign investment is crucial to sustaining democracy in Latin America, foreign ministers from around the region said Tuesday.
In a statement prepared for the closing of the 33rd General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), the ministers vowed to fight poverty and corruption and promote respect for human rights.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell opened the assembly Monday calling on ministers to "hasten the inevitable democratic transition in Cuba."
However, ministers did not even mention Cuba in the assembly's final statement issued after Powell flew to neighboring Argentina early Tuesday.
Democratic rule has spread throughout the continent, the ministers noted, but several countries "have faced serious problems, worsened by poverty" in their efforts to preserve democracy.
They urged a world economic order that promotes growth, open markets for the region's exports and increased investment in the region.
"Support by international financial institutions to democratic governments is also essential and requires the creation of creative financial mechanisms to strengthen democratic governance," the document stated.
The two-day assembly opened the way for a regional treaty against terrorism to become effective next month. Under the Interamerican Convention against Terrorism, countries commit to jointly fighting terrorism by denying asylum to suspects, increasing border controls and fighting money laundering.
Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti are the Latin American countries that have the most worrisome records on human rights, said Marta Altolaguirre, president of the Interamerican Human Rights Commission.
In Colombia, Altolaguirre said, a four-decade civil war involving Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and the Colombian army has resulted in massive abuses against the civilian population.
She blamed most of the abuses on the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS