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Argos Media

Deal by Deal, China Expands Its Influence in Latin America - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...16chinaloan.html

Argentina Brazil China Economy Ecuador Inter-American Bank Latin America US Venezuela

shared by Argos Media on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit.
  • In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.
  • China’s trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington’s influence in the hemisphere.
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  • Mr. Obama will meet with leaders from the region this weekend. They will discuss the economic crisis, including a plan to replenish the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington-based pillar of clout that has suffered losses from the financial crisis.
  • Meanwhile, China is rapidly increasing its lending in Latin America as it pursues not only long-term access to commodities like soybeans and iron ore, but also an alternative to investing in United States Treasury notes.
  • One of China’s new deals in Latin America, the $10 billion arrangement with Argentina, would allow Argentina reliable access to Chinese currency to help pay for imports from China. It may also help lead the way to China’s currency to eventually be used as an alternate reserve currency. The deal follows similar ones China has struck with countries like South Korea, Indonesia and Belarus.
  • As the financial crisis began to whipsaw international markets last year, the Federal Reserve made its own currency arrangements with central banks around the world, allocating $30 billion each to Brazil and Mexico. (Brazil has opted not to tap it for now.) But smaller economies in the region, including Argentina, which has been trying to dispel doubts about its ability to meet its international debt payments, were left out of those agreements.
  • Details of the Chinese deal with Argentina are still being ironed out, but an official at Argentina’s central bank said it would allow Argentina to avoid using scarce dollars for all its international transactions. The takeover of billions of dollars in private pension funds, among other moves, led Argentines to pull the equivalent of nearly $23 billion, much of it in dollars, out of the country last year.
  • China is also seizing opportunities in Latin America when traditional lenders over which the United States holds some sway, like the Inter-American Development Bank, are pushing up against their limits.
  • Just one of China’s planned loans, the $10 billion for Brazil’s national oil company, is almost as much as the $11.2 billion in all approved financing by the Inter-American Bank in 2008. Brazil is expected to use the loan for offshore exploration, while agreeing to export as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day to China, according to the oil company.
  • The Inter-American bank, in which the United States has de facto veto power in some matters, is trying to triple its capital and increase lending to $18 billion this year. But the replenishment involves delicate negotiations among member nations, made all the more difficult after the bank lost almost $1 billion last year. China will also have a role in these talks, having become a member of the bank this year.
  • In February, China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, traveled to Caracas to meet with President Hugo Chávez. The two men announced that a Chinese-backed development fund based here would grow to $12 billion from $6 billion, giving Venezuela access to hard currency while agreeing to increase oil shipments to China to one million barrels a day from a level of about 380,000 barrels
  • Mr. Chávez’s government contends the Chinese aid differs from other multilateral loans because it comes without strings attached, like scrutiny of internal finances. But the Chinese fund has generated criticism among his opponents, who view it as an affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty. “The fund is a swindle to the nation,” said Luis Díaz, a lawmaker who claims that China locked in low prices for the oil Venezuela is using as repayment.
  • “This is China playing the long game,” said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. “If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played.”
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama offers Cuba 'new beginning' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8004798.stm

US Obama Cuba Hugo Chavez Raul Castro Organization of American States

shared by Argos Media on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • President Barack Obama has said the US seeks a "new beginning" with Cuba and an "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas.
  • Mr Obama was addressing Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The summit follows a thaw in US-Cuban relations. Cuba is not at the summit.
  • Earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an offer for talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, saying the old US policy had failed. Mr Castro said on Thursday that he was ready to talk about "everything" with the US, including human rights, political prisoners and freedom of the press. His comments came after the US eased its long-standing embargo of the communist nation, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.
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  • Speaking to leaders gathered in Port of Spain, Mr Obama declared: "The US seeks a new beginning with Cuba."
  • "I know there is a longer journey that must be travelled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," he said.
  • Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted.
  • speaking on Friday in the Dominican Republic, Mrs Clinton acknowledged that US policy towards Cuba had "failed" and said Washington was "taking a very serious look at how to respond."
  • Addressing the summit, Mr Obama said he wanted to move forward with a sense of "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas despite decades of mistrust.
  • Mr Obama earlier greeted and shook hands with Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, during an impromptu meeting. Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Mr Chavez - one of the Bush's administrations most strident critics - smiling and clasping hands with Mr Obama at the start of the summit.
  • Before the summit began Mr Chavez appeared to chastise the US for its approach to Cuba, which is not a member of the OAS. In a pre-summit statement, he also said that "there is more democracy in Cuba than in the United States". But he greeted the US president warmly when the opportunity arrived, gripping the Mr Obama's hand in welcome. "I greeted Bush with this hand eight years ago; I want to be your friend," Mr Chavez told Mr Obama, according to a Venezuelan presidential press office statement.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama ends stem cell funding ban - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7929690.stm

Obama US Stem Cells

shared by Argos Media on 10 Mar 09 - Cached
  • US President Barack Obama has lifted restrictions on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines. Mr Obama signed an executive order in a major reversal of US policy, pledging to "vigorously support" new research.

  • Obama reverses stem cell ban

    US President Barack Obama has lifted restrictions on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines.

    Mr Obama signed an executive order in a major reversal of US policy, pledging to "vigorously support" new research.

  • Analysts say Mr Obama's decision could also lead Congress to overturn a ban on spending tax dollars to create embryos.
Argos Media

No Nukes, More Troops: Obama Seeks to Renew Partnership with Europe - SPIEGEL ONLINE - ... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,617341,00.html

US Europe Obama Angela Merkel Nicolas Sarkozy NATO Afghanistan ISAF

shared by Argos Media on 04 Apr 09 - Cached
  • In France and Germany on Friday, US President Barack Obama said he wanted to renew the trans-Atlantic partnership. Part of that alliance, though, involves more European troops for Afghanistan, he said. Unexpectedly, Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons.
  • "In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world." He went on to say that "there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."
  • The US president was coming from the G-20 summit, held on Wednesday and Thursday in London. At that meeting, the world's richest nations agreed to make $1 trillion available to the developing world through the World Bank and the International Monetary fund in addition to tripling the money available to the IMF.
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  • More significantly from a European perspective, the US agreed to significantly strengthen international oversight of financial markets, with particular attention paid to tax havens, hedge funds and ratings agencies.
  • It was a move that both Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted upon -- and one which will go a long way toward removing whispers of friction between Obama and Merkel.
  • Not only did the president pledge a renewal of trans-Atlantic relations -- he also said that he seeks to create a world free of nuclear weapons. "This weekend in Prague," he said, "I will lay out an agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
  • "In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans chose to blame America for much of what's bad…. On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise."
  • At the Afghanistan Conference in The Hague earlier this week, Obama was careful not to make any concrete demands for more troops from his European NATO allies. But on Thursday, he seemed willing to tighten the screws slightly. In addition to warning that al-Qaida still posed a threat, he also said, referring to Afghanistan, that "Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder the burden alone. This is a joint problem that requires a joint solution."
  • The response from Sarkozy, who was standing right next to Obama, was swift. "There will be no French military enforcements," the French president said. "We are ready to do more in the field of policing, of gendarmes, in the field of economic aid, to train Afghans."
  • Other NATO countries on Friday, though, said that they would be willing to send more troops. SPIEGEL ONLINE learned from diplomats attending the NATO summit that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown intends to send several hundred more troops to Afghanistan. Both Belgium and Spain are likewise promising more soldiers, though Spain is reportedly planning to send just 12 additional troops.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Chavez courts Russian influence - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7736072.stm

Russia Venezuela Navy Dmitry Medvedev Hugo Chavez

shared by Argos Media on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Russian warships, led by the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great, are in the Caribbean Sea for the first time since the end of the Cold War to begin manoeuvres with the Venezuelan navy.
  • The exercises coincide with a visit to Caracas by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is due in Venezuela on Wednesday, and are illustration of how close military ties between the two countries have grown in recent years.
  • While the Russian government has been playing down any political dimension to the training, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has been doing just the opposite. In recent speeches, he has referred to Venezuela's "strategic partnership" with Russia and said the military ties were part of building a more "multi-polar world".
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  • But the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Riabkov, said suggestions in the media that the naval exercises signal a return to Cold War politics in Latin America were misguided. "There is no geo-political connotation whatsoever," he told the BBC.
  • Between 2005 and 2007, Venezuela spent around $4bn (£2.6bn) on military equipment - most of it from Russia.
  • Ties between the two superpowers have become strained because of Washington's plan for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic - something Moscow is firmly opposed to. Indeed President Medvedev, has said he will deploy missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, if the US initiative goes ahead in its present form.
  • Mr Chavez recently took a delegation of Russian top brass to inaugurate a gas platform in the Gulf of Venezuela, co-owned by their respective state-run energy companies - PDVSA and Gazprom.
  • During the trip, the Russian government also signed joint agreements on issues as diverse as gold and bauxite mining, ceramics and fishing. It is a combination Russian technology and know-how coupled with Venezuela's resources and manpower.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Russia-Venezuela nuclear accord - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7751562.stm

Russia Venezuela Dmitry Medvedev Hugo Chavez

shared by Argos Media on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Russia and Venezuela have signed an agreement to promote the development of nuclear energy for civilian use. The agreement was signed during a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Venezuela's capital, Caracas, on the latest leg of his Latin American tour. Under the accord, Russia would help Venezuela build a nuclear energy plant. Joint gas projects were also approved.
  • Russian and Venezuelan warships are scheduled to hold joint military exercises later this week. The Russian vessels, including the flagship missile cruiser Peter the Great and two support vessels, appeared off La Guaira, near Caracas, early on Tuesday. The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko docked while Venezuelan forces fired a 21-gun salute. This is first Russian deployment of its kind in the Caribbean since the end of the Cold War.
  • Russia is already a major arms supplier to Venezuela, with contracts worth some $4.4bn (£2.39bn).
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  • Boosting bilateral trade between Russia and Latin America, which could reach $15bn (£9.9bn) this year, is another priority for the Russian president during his talks.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | Americas group suspends Honduras - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8134699.stm

Honduras Manuel Zelaya OAS

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jul 09 - Cached
  • The Organization of American States has suspended Honduras in protest at the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya.
  • The OAS approved suspending Honduras by 33 votes to zero, with Honduras itself not voting.
  • The OAS approved suspending Honduras by 33 votes to zero, with Honduras itself not voting. It was the first time the organisation had taken such a measure since Cuba was suspended in 1962, when it allied itself with the USSR.
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  • Earlier, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Honduras called on the ousted president not to return from exile, in order to avoid provoking what he called a "bloodbath".
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | WHO warns swine flu 'unstoppable' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8130196.stm

Health Swine Flu

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Jul 09 - Cached
  • the UK alone was projecting more than 100,000 new cases of H1N1 a day by the end of the summer. As the peak of the flu season approaches in South America, some areas have declared a public health emergency.
  • As we see today, with well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges, its further international spread is unstoppable," Dr Chan said in her opening remarks.
  • She stressed that the overwhelming majority of patients experienced mild symptoms and made a full recovery within a week, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment. The exceptions, she said, were pregnant women and people with underlying health problems, who were at higher risk from complications from the virus and should be monitored if they fell ill.
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  • It has been more than two months since the initial alert over swine flu. Since then, the H1N1 virus has entered more than 100 countries, infected more than 70,000 people and killed more than 300 worldwide.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | New Honduran leader sets curfew - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8123513.stm

Honduras Manuel Zelaya Roberto Micheletti

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 29 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The Congress speaker took office after troops ousted elected leader Manuel Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica. The removal of Mr Zelaya came amid a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change. Mr Zelaya, who had been in office since 2006, wanted to hold a referendum that could have led to an extension of his non-renewable four-year term. Polls for the referendum had been due to open early on Sunday - but troops instead took him from the presidential palace and flew him out of the country.
  • US President Barack Obama urged Honduras to "respect the rule of law" and a State Department official said America recognised Mr Zelaya as the duly elected president. The European Union called for "a swift return to constitutional normality". Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, meanwhile, blamed "the Yankee empire", and threatened military action should the Venezuelan ambassador to Honduras be attacked.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | China demands US return Uighurs - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8094658.stm

China US Guantanamo Uighurs Palau

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jun 09 - Cached
  • China has demanded the return of 17 Chinese Muslim Uighur detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay.America should "stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. Palau, a former US Pacific territory which does not recognise China, has agreed to accept the ethnic Uighurs.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | World 'well prepared' for virus - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8019566.stm

Health Swine Flu

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The international community is better prepared than ever to deal with the threatened spread of a new swine flu virus, a top UN health chief has said
  • As the UN warned the outbreak might become a pandemic, Dr Keiji Fukuda said years of preparing for bird flu had boosted world stocks of anti-virals. Canada is the latest country to confirm cases after as many as 81 deaths in Mexico and 20 cases in the US. Washington has warned the flu may yet claim American lives.
  • Eight cases have been confirmed among New York students, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Several countries in Asia and Latin America have begun screening airport passengers for symptoms. There is currently no vaccine for the new strain of flu but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.
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  • Speaking in Geneva, an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN's health agency, expert said the swine flu virus could be capable of mutating into a more dangerous strain but that more information was needed before raising the WHO's pandemic alert phase.
  • Only a handful of the Mexican cases have so far been laboratory-confirmed as swine flu, while in the US confirmed cases had only mild symptoms. Health experts want to know why some people become so seriously ill, while others just get a bit of a cold, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Switzerland.
  • Officials said most of those killed so far in Mexico were young adults - rather than more vulnerable children and the elderly. It is unclear how effective currently available flu vaccines would be at offering protection against the new strain, as it is genetically distinct from other flu strains.
  • H1N1 is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.
  • It is spread mainly through coughs and sneezes.
  • Ten New Zealand students from a group which visited Mexico have tested positive for Influenza A, making it "likely" they are infected with swine flu In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico might be carrying the virus Spain's health ministry says three people who returned from a trip from Mexico with flu symptoms are in isolation and being tested In Israel, medics are testing a 26-year-old man who has been taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from a trip to Mexico Two people in Queensland, Australia, are being tested in hospital after developing flu-like symptoms on returning from Mexico
  • Officials in Mexico confirmed that 20 people had died from the virus while another 61 deaths were suspected cases of swine flu. More than 1,300 people have been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April. With Mexico City apparently the centre of infection, many people are choosing to leave the city, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs reports.
  • Dr Fukuda said on Sunday there was no proof that eating pork would lead to infection. "Right now we have no evidence to suggest that people are getting exposed, or getting infected, from exposure to pork or to pigs, and so right now we have zero evidence to suspect that exposure to meat leads to infections," he said.
Argos Media

As Jobs Die, Europe's Migrants Head Home - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25migrants.html

Europe Economy Immigration

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Mr. Mituletu, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
  • But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Mituletu are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
  • While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
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  • In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
  • Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
  • But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
  • The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave. The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home. And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
  • Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
  • Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
Argos Media

Hemisphere's Leaders Signal Fresh Start With U.S. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...20prexy.html

US Obama Venezuela Cuba Hugo Chavez Lindsey Graham John Ensign Lula da Silva Evo Morales Daniel Ortega Brazil Organization of American States

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Leaders from the Western Hemisphere, inspired by a new American president, closed a two-day summit meeting proclaiming a new dawn for relations in the region, which had been marked by bitter disagreements in recent years with the United States.
  • Despite the warm feelings, some old tensions remained. President Evo Morales of Bolivia confronted Mr. Obama during a private session on Saturday with a charge that the United States had plotted to assassinate him. Mr. Obama responded on Sunday, saying, “I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments.”
  • Some of that good will went too far for President Obama’s critics in Washington, where seemingly friendly images of him with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Mr. Obama’s overtures to Cuba drew criticism from Republican lawmakers.
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  • Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said on CNN that it was “irresponsible for the president” to be seen laughing and joking with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,” referring to Mr. Chávez.And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pointed to Cuba’s estimated 200 political prisoners. “Release the prisoners and we’ll talk to you,” he said of the Cuban government on Fox News Sunday, adding, “Put up or shut up.”
  • Mr. Obama defended his overtures at a news conference on Sunday, saying the handshakes and the polite conversation he shared with Mr. Chávez here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”Wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America, he said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, whose relations with the United States have been badly strained.But he also sought to calibrate his message, saying Sunday that he had “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisting that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.
  • The antagonism seemed to melt away, replaced by a palpable enthusiasm for a new openness from the United States and hopes of improved relations for Washington with Venezuela and Cuba, which emerged as a core issue here.
  • And President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, an old Washington nemesis, sought to embarrass Mr. Obama in a nearly one-hour speech filled with anti-American vitriol in which he likened the American embargo of Cuba to the Berlin Wall.
  • Hoping to push the process forward, leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have volunteered to aid in a reconciliation between the United States and Cuba. “Brazil would be able to help,” Mr. da Silva said Sunday. In an interview published Sunday in the Spanish newspaper ABC, he said the United States should not wait for Cuba to take the next step in efforts to end their half-century of feuding.
  • Mr. Chávez took the initiative Saturday, saying he was naming Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s representative to the Organization of American States, to be his new ambassador to Washington.
  • Mr. Chávez had ejected the American ambassador to Venezuela in September, saying he had discovered an American-backed plot to remove him from power. Washington responded in kind.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Clinton admits Cuba policy failed - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8005153.stm

US Cuba Cuban Embargo Hillary Clinton Organization of American States Raul Castro

shared by Argos Media on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US policy towards Cuba has failed, welcoming an offer to talk from the Cuban president.
  • She said the US was "taking a serious look" at how to respond to President Raul Castro's comments, which she called an "overture". Mr Castro had said he was ready for discussions covering human rights, political prisoners and press freedom. The US passed a law this week easing restrictions on Cuban Americans.
  • The move will allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.
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  • Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday. "We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.
  • Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted. OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.
  • Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.
Argos Media

Barack Obama's New World Order - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1889512,00.html

Obama US Brand America

shared by Argos Media on 04 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Most of the hallmarks of the foreign policy of George W. Bush are gone. The old conservative idea of "American exceptionalism," which placed the U.S. on a plane above the rest of the world as a unique beacon of democracy and financial might, has been rejected. At almost every stop, Obama has made clear that the U.S. is but one actor in a global community. Talk of American economic supremacy has been replaced by a call from Obama for more growth in developing countries. Claims of American military supremacy have been replaced with heavy emphasis on cooperation and diplomatic hard labor.
  • The tone was set from Obama's first public remarks in London on Wednesday, at a press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, where the American President said he had come "to listen, not to lecture." At a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Baden-Baden on Friday, a German reporter asked Obama about his "grand designs" for NATO. "I don't come bearing grand designs," Obama said, scrapping the leadership role the U.S. maintained through the Cold War. "I'm here to listen, to share ideas and to jointly, as one of many NATO allies, help shape our vision for the future."
  • At a town hall in Strasbourg, France, Obama stood before an audience of mostly French and German youth and admitted that the U.S. should have a greater respect for Europe. "In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," he said before offering other European critical views of his country. "There have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."
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  • The contrast is striking. Only four years ago, George W. Bush, in his second Inaugural Address, described what he called America's "considerable" influence, saying, "We will use it confidently in freedom's cause." Bush's vision of American power was combative and aggressive. He said the U.S. would "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture." He continued, "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom."
  • Obama, by contrast, is looking for collaboration. He is looking to build a collective vision, not to impose an American one.
Muslim Academy

Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/d-muslims-and-aung-san-suu-kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar aung san suu kyi of myanmar

shared by Muslim Academy on 03 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 03 Dec 12
     
    ROHINGYA MUSLIMS Rohingya Muslims are not intruders. They have been living in Myanmar, their residence, since birth. They are not terrorists. They are peaceful people. But they are experiencing the cruelest brutality. The innocent children of Rohingya Muslims are kidnapped and killed. There are thousands of Muslims who are poor and helpless. What is their crime? Their crime is that they are Muslims. They accept the truth of the world. They are submissive to almighty Allah who is our creator. Their crime is that they believe men must lead honest lives. For these crimes, they are supposed to be butchered. They are destined to be helpless. They have no right to live as others do. AUNG SAN SUU KYI Noble Peace prize is given to peaceful sages. Aung San Suu Kyi is the "daughter of peace". So, she decided to keep her side safe. She already said that Rohingyas are intruders. She had visited India recently. The world had been eagerly waiting to know her stand for a long time. She visited Europe and America after emancipation. Journalists wanted to hear something about her stand on the Rohingya issue. But, she didn't clarify the fact. She didn't want to tarnish her innocent image in the world. So, she decided to keep silent. But during her visit to India she clarified her stand. She blatantly stood against the right of Muslims of Myanmar who has been experiencing the cruel test of exodus.
Pedro Gonçalves

US heading for point when 'military pursuit of al-Qaida should end' | World news | The ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...us-war-against-al-qaida

Al-Qaeda

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Jeh Johnson suggested the group would become so degraded that a time would come when the legal authority given to the White House by Congress should no longer be used to justify waging the war that has been fought since 2001.Johnson said that when this happened, America had to "be able to say ... that our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict against al-Qaida and its affiliates".Instead, the responsibility for tackling al-Qaida should pass to the police and other law enforcement agencies.
  • Congress had authorised the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against the nations, organisations and individuals responsible for the 9/11 attacks; the US supreme court had endorsed this in 2006 by ruling "our efforts against al-Qaida may be properly viewed as armed conflict".
  • A fortnight ago the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, claimed America had "decimated core al-Qaida" and that the group was "widely distributed, loosely knit and geographically dispersed".
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  • Johnson insisted the US was applying conventional law to an unconventional enemy, and justified detaining prisoners indefinitely and using "targeted lethal force" – such as drones – to kill suspects. He conceded these techniques would be questionable "viewed in the context of law enforcement or criminal justice, where no person is sentenced to death or prison without an indictment, an arraignment, and a trial before an impartial judge and jury".
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama ponders Afghan 'exit plan' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7958447.stm

Obama US Afghanistan

shared by Argos Media on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • President Barack Obama has said that the US must have an "exit strategy" in Afghanistan, even as Washington sends more troops to fight Taleban militants.
  • Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the BBC: "In the past, the United States government stove-piped it, they had an Afghan policy and a Pakistan policy. We have to integrate the two and I hope the rest of the world will join us in that effort." Mr Holbrooke said Taleban sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border were the primary problem for Kabul.
  • "What we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy [for Afghanistan]," President Obama told the CBS programme 60 Minutes on Sunday.
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  • "Threre's got to be an exit strategy. There's got to be a sense that this is not a perpetual drift."
Argos Media

US floats plan to tempt Taliban into political peace dialogue | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...y-afghanistan-taliban-dialogue

Afghanistan Taliban Pakistan US William Wood Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

shared by Argos Media on 22 Mar 09 - Cached
  • America has signalled a radical new initiative to bring the Taliban into the Afghan political process as part of growing efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the war in Afghanistan.The US ambassador to Kabul told the Observer that America would be prepared to discuss the establishment of a political party, or even election candidates representing the Taliban, as part of a political strategy that would sit alongside reinforced military efforts to end the increasingly intractable conflict.
  • Other ideas being discussed include changing the Afghan constitution as part of potential negotiations, taking senior Taliban figures off UN blacklists to establish dialogue and possible prisoner releases.
  • William Wood, the outgoing US ambassador to Afghanistan, told the Observer that "insurgencies, like all wars... end when there is an agreement". He said while the US saw "no way there could be power-sharing or an enclave" for the Taliban, "there is room for discussion on the formation of political parties [or] running... for elections. That is very different from shooting your way into power." The key requirement would be respect for the constitution, Wood added.
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  • Taliban and other insurgents are currently flowing into Afghanistan from Pakistan as milder weather allows passage over the mountains.
  • Last week, the head of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, admitted to the Observer that his troops "were not winning" in the south and parts of the east of the country, though progress was being made elsewhere. This year will be "critical" and "tough", he said.
  • In Kabul, the Observer has discovered at least four attempts at exploratory negotiations between insurgents, their representatives and the Afghan government. One involves Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Islamist warlord and former prime minister, whose militants are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of international and Afghan soldiers and civilians in the east of Afghanistan. Two weeks ago Hekmatyar's representatives and government emissaries met in a hotel in Dubai, according to Senator Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister who is a key intermediary.
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