The US reached out to its neighbors on Tuesday, smoothing tense relations with Latin American leaders as the 34-nation Summit of the Americas ended.
Canada and Mexico won the biggest prizes from the US, with US President George W. Bush telling Canada it would be eligible for a second round of US-financed reconstruction contracts in Iraq that the administration valued at about US$4.5 billion.
A day earlier, Mexican President Vicente Fox accepted an invitation to visit Bush's ranch in Texas and praised his proposal that would allow migrants to work temporarily in the US.
PHOTO: AP
Others also welcomed Bush's plan, with Honduran President Ricardo Maduro saying it would "allow us to have closer ties to Latin Americans in the United States."
But countries complained the region was not doing enough to battle poverty. During negotiations, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent asked: "What's the use of freedom if people are poor?"
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said governments need "a new development concept" that distributes income fairly.
"If we want a world that is safe and stable, we must strive toward a just and fair world," he said.
Outside the meeting site, in the mountains of northern Mexico, about 100 anti-globalization protesters clashed with police, hanging an effigy of Bush on a security barrier and burning it before a wall of riot police.
Bush arrived at this week's summit to find many nations publicly criticizing his free trade stance.
The leaders agreed to support a hemisphere-wide trade area without setting a firm deadline, a concession to Brazil and Venezuela.
The US had sought a 2005 deadline for the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The summit's final declaration calls for following the FTAA's "established timetable," with no specific date mentioned.
Although the original timetable called for an accord by 2005, recent FTAA talks have stalled on the prickly issues of removing agricultural subsidies and intellectual property rights. Many have questioned whether the original timetable is still realistic.
Despite expressing reservations about the declaration, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would sign the document. He pushed summit participants for a humanitarian fund that could be used to help countries during financial and natural disasters, and leaders said they will consider the proposal.
In addition, the summit declaration does not call for banning corrupt governments from future summits, as the US requested. Instead, the declaration only calls for consultations on countries that don't meet the requirements of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption.
Washington's concessions appeared aimed in part at reversing the region's increasing disenchantment with US policy.
In return, countries pledged to "intensify our efforts and strengthen cooperation" to fight terrorist threats.
Before the meeting, Brazil protested new US security measures requiring the fingerprinting and photographing of arrivals by doing the same to Americans traveling to Brazil.
Argentina also sparred with US officials, who criticized Argentine officials for meeting Cuban authorities, but not the communist island's dissidents.
Venezuela's Chavez has criticized US support for a referendum on his recall from office, saying Washington should stop "sticking its noses" in his country's affairs.
On Monday, Chavez refused to attend the summit's official dinner and called the gathering of American leaders a "waste of time." He said he missed the lunch on Tuesday because he was on the phone with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi planning a summit between Latin American and African nations.
After listening to Caribbean leaders lament the millions who die of AIDS in their region, Bush said leaders needed to "work on prevention and treatment" and ensure that countries can distribute drugs as they become available under new international rules.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS