Latin American, European leaders gather for summit
Peru's President Alan Garcia, left, shakes hands with Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission President, after a news conference at the presidential palace in Lima, Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Leaders from nearly 60 Latin America and European countries will attend a summit on Friday in Peru to discuss climate change, trade, poverty and the global food crisis. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)
By MONTE HAYES – 12 hours ago
LIMA, Peru (AP) — European and Latin American leaders gathering for their fifth summit in a decade this week plan to tackle climate change, high food prices and poverty.
But they may get sidetracked by an issue not on the agenda: Colombia’s March 1 raid on a rebel camp inside Ecuador.
The meeting is set to begin Friday, the day after Interpol announces the results of an investigation into allegations that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa collaborated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Chavez, Correa and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are all expected to attend the Lima-based summit of nearly 60 leaders and top officials from Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean.
Colombia says it found documents pointing to a connection between the two leftist presidents and the FARC on laptops belonging to FARC leader Raul Reyes, who was killed in the March 1 cross-border raid.
Both Chavez and Correa deny the claims. Correa even cast doubt on the authenticity of the computers, suggesting they may have been planted by the Colombians.
The raid prompted Correa to sever diplomatic relations with Uribe’s government. In a European tour this week, Correa said he would consider restoring ties only if Uribe halts “Colombia’s verbal aggression.”
“They already assaulted us with bombs,” he said. “Now they’re assaulting us with words.”
Ricardo Vega Llona, who organized this week’s event for the Peruvian government, said public displays of anger — such as when King Juan Carlos of Spain told Chavez to “shut up” at a Chilean summit six months ago — are unlikely this time around since the meeting’s working sessions will be private.
Tags: american
I can’t believe this is being upvoted. Are you serious? Do you really believe that any modern nation is going to ask for land grants as a form of debt repayment and be taken seriously by the U.S.?I know I’m coming across harsh, but what you are suggesting is completely unbelievable. I’ve never heard of anything like this post-WWII. It’s a settled world; advanced nations don’t do land exchanges anymore. Do you have anything to support this?
please keep it coming, this is entirely enjoyable.ps - it’s “bother you”and it’s “yourself”and “OFF”you should join my club “Albanians for proper english”
Probably because his security is pretty good.
And because, in 2002 anyway when his life seemed most at risk from a foreign threat, he had the people on his side (see the documentary ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ for a gripping account of the events of the 2002 coup and the failure of a US-registered - and thus probably CIA - plane to kidnap him).
Well it’s his money he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. It seems to me like he is just trying to cut his losses. If the US had billions invested in Venezuela and the economy there was tanking we wouldn’t hesitate to take our money out…Also, Chavez didn’t put us in our current economic crisis (so why should we expect him to help us? Why would he invest in a market that is going down? It’s just not good investing strategy)… If I remember correctly that was the pricks and assholes in Washington.
Leave the dollars. You can get a lot of bread for a wheelbarrow.
Don’t eat your capital!Start a business transporting other people’s dollars with the wheelbarrow, and demand payment in bread.
Wait - Chavez said something bad about the US? Why doesn’t this have BREAKING in the title?Not enough caps. Work on it.
I don’t know, either, but we’re also the country that allowed our highest election to be stolen twice in a row by the same people. This is not an isolated event, or a coincidence, it is a pronounced trend.