European and Latin American leaders have pledged to fight poverty, global warming and high food prices, presenting a show of unity amid a festering conflict between two South American nations.
The regions’ fifth summit in a decade concluded on Friday just a day after Interpol vouched for the authenticity of documents implicating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in efforts to support Colombian rebels. Interpol’s report prompted impassioned denials from Chavez.
Peruvian President Alan Garcia opened the summit with an appeal for nearly 60 leaders or top officials to put aside petty issues and focus on setting clear strategies to combat poverty and global warming.
PHOTO: AP
“It is imperative that what unites us take precedence in our meetings,” Garcia said. “We leave aside, for the moment, what we disagree on.”
In the summit’s final declaration, leaders vowed to fight poverty, drugs and crime and said they were “deeply concerned by the impact of increased food prices,” which have spiraled as global demand for commodities soars.
“We agree that immediate measures are needed to assist the most vulnerable countries and populations affected by high food prices,” the declaration said, stressing the need to support rural farming “to meet a growing demand.”
Garcia suggested that every country aim to increase food production by 2 percent.
The declaration also encouraged free trade and cooperation on biofuels, although those goals were not as universally endorsed.
Bolivia and Ecuador in particular resisted plans for a trade association between the Andean Community and the EU, while Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was forced to defend biofuels such as ethanol — of which his country is the world’s largest exporter.
“Obviously, the oil industry is behind” criticism of alternative fuels, Silva told reporters in Lima, dismissing claims that corn and sugarcane-based ethanol are partly responsible for soaring food prices.
But despite persisting policy differences, participants seemed to overcome sharper political feuds, such as that brewing between Venezuela and Colombia.
Interpol on Thursday confirmed the integrity of computer files, seized from a rebel camp, that suggest Venezuela has armed and financed Colombian guerrillas — discrediting Chavez’s assertions that Colombia had faked them.
The findings boost pressure on Venezuela’s anti-US president to explain his ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America’s most powerful rebel army.
Chavez on Thursday dismissed Interpol’s report as “ridiculous.” He denied arming or funding the guerrillas — though he openly sympathizes with them — and threatened Thursday to scale back economic ties with Colombia.
“One of the big problems we have [on the continent] is the government of Colombia,” Chavez said in brief remarks during a break at the summit.
He called Colombian President Alvaro Uribe “a promoter of disunion” — saying Uribe did “not fit in” in a region where the leaders of Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay “are a brotherhood.”
Colombia’s March 1 attack on a FARC camp where the computer files were discovered prompted Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, an ally of Chavez, to sever diplomatic relations with Colombia and to denounce the computer documents, which indicated that his government also had dealings with the FARC.
Ecuadorian Justice Minister Gusto Jalkh insisted on Friday that the computer files “cannot have credibility” because they had been mishandled.
During a European tour this week, Correa said he would consider restoring ties only if Uribe halts “Colombia’s verbal aggression.”
The three feuding leaders met for the first time on Friday since an uncomfortable summit in the Dominican Republic in March, when Uribe and Chavez embraced one another at the urging of Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, and Correa reluctantly shook Uribe’s hand.
One personal feud that seemed to have cooled on Friday was between Chavez and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Chavez gave his German counterpart a kiss, apparently ending a verbal spat that had erupted last week.
Merkel had drawn Chavez’s wrath by saying he did not speak for Latin America, and that his leftist polices would not solve the region’s problems. He responded by accusing her party of sharing the ideals of Adolf Hitler.
“I have not come here to fight. It was a great pleasure to shake her hand,” Chavez said on Friday. “I told her: ‘If I said something very harsh, forgive me.’”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese