STWR - Share The World's Resources

16th March 07 - Philip Agee, ZNet

Anyone following the news in recent times cannot be unaware of the wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. For many lonely years Cuba held high the torch through its exemplary programs to provide universal health care and education, both gratis, along with world class cultural, sports and scientific achievements.

Although you won´t find a Cuban today who says things are perfect, far from it, probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba there is a world of improvement. All this they did against every effort by the United States to isolate them as an unacceptable example of independence and self-determination, using every dirty method including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the cooperating media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960´s. Altogether nearly 3500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.

12th March 07 - Isabella Kenfield, Global Research

The general response in Brazil to Bush's announcement was overwhelmingly positive. Luis Fernando Furlan, Minister of Industry, Development, and Commerce, was quoted in the Gazeta Mercantil as saying he received Bush's announcement "with applause."

"It is a fantastic business opportunity," Luis Carlos Correa Carvalho, an industry consultant, told Reuters. "We have never had such a great opportunity for the substitution of petroleum."

The United States is currently the largest importer of Brazilian ethanol. Last year it imported 1.74 billion liters, or 58% of the total three billion liters that Brazil exported. For the United States to reach Bush's target reduction of gasoline use, the country will need an additional 135 billion liters of ethanol annually. Because it will not be able to produce the entire amount, no doubt a large portion will come from Brazil.

12th March 07 - Philip Agee, The Guardian (UK)

Cuba's 50-year defiance of US attempts to isolate it is an inspiration to Latin America's people

There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won't find a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement.

George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region's vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously.

8th March 07 - Richard Gott, Guardian (UK)

It's an ill wind ... and the Iraq war has certainly done wonders for Latin America. An area traditionally under the United States' lock and key has been allowed to escape from its customary captor. Bogged down in the Middle East, militarily, intellectually and in almost all spheres of government, the US has had little time to spare for the region so often perceived as its "backyard". Now, only for the second time since he was originally elected in 2000, President Bush is to dedicate a week to travelling through five countries in South America to see what can be done to catch hold of those that still remain in the US camp.

A significant number of governments are now in thrall to Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and popular movements elsewhere have been caught up in the chavista enthusiasm. Bush's allies are few and far between. The "Bolivarian Revolution" devised by Chávez enjoys the kind of support throughout the continent that was once accorded to Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba in the 1960s.

7th Feb 07 - Juventud Rebelde

Nearly a thousand delegates from Cuba and 40 countries of the five continents —including economists, sociologists, political experts and social scientists— will analyze more than 200 presentations on the world’s most pressing economic and social problems.

30th Jan 07 - Zoe Kenny, Green Left

At a meeting in Brazil on April 26, 2006, plans moved ahead between Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil for a major transcontinental oil pipeline. The pipeline would be 10,000 kilometres long and would link the four countries plus Paraguay and Uruguay.