{"id":356553,"date":"2010-02-24T02:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T07:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-5718744719788921849"},"modified":"2010-02-24T02:11:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T07:11:07","slug":"latin-american-and-caribbean-states-plan-to-establish-regionalorganization-without-the-u-s-and-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/356553","title":{"rendered":"Latin American and Caribbean States Plan to Establish Regional\nOrganization Without the U.S. and Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Cancun Summit on Latin America and the Caribbean has agreed to establish a new regional organization without the United States and Canada. The OAS has been dominated by U.S. imperialism since its formation.<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

New US-free Americas bloc planned<\/p>\n

Latin American and Caribbean nations have agreed to set up a new regional body without the US and Canada.<\/p>\n

The new bloc would be an alternative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), the main forum for regional affairs in the past 50 years.<\/p>\n

Mexico has been hosting a regional summit in the beach resort of Cancun.<\/p>\n

The OAS has been dogged by rifts between some members and the US over economic policy and trade, and criticised for promoting US interests.<\/p>\n

‘Regional integration’<\/p>\n

The proposed new grouping was one of the main issues on the agenda of the two-day summit, which ended on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It “must as a priority push for regional integration… and promote the regional agenda in global meetings”, Mexican President Felipe Calderon told the summit, which includes leaders and representatives from 32 countries.<\/p>\n

Cuban President Raul Castro was quick to applaud Mr Calderon’s announcement as a historic move toward “the constitution of a purely Latin American and Caribbean regional organisation”.<\/p>\n

Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962 because of its socialist political system. In 2009, the OAS voted to lift Cuba’s suspension but the country has declined to rejoin.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez earlier expressed his support for the proposal, citing it as a move away from US “colonising” of the region.<\/p>\n

A US State Department official, Arturo Valenzuela, said he did not see the new body as a problem.<\/p>\n

“This should not be an effort that would replace the OAS, ” he said.<\/p>\n

The terms of the new bloc and whether it would replace the Rio Group of Latin American countries has not been clarified.<\/p>\n

“It’s very important that we don’t try to replace the OAS,” said Chile’s President-elect Sebastian Pinera. “The OAS is a permanent organisation that has its own functions.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed that it begin operating in July 2011 with a summit hosted by Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Falklands row<\/p>\n

The Cancun summit has also unanimously backed Argentina’s claim over the British-owned Falklands.<\/p>\n

Argentina is angered that a UK firm has begun drilling for oil off the Falkland Islands, which lie about 450km (280 miles) off the Argentine coast.<\/p>\n

Argentina and Britain went to war over the South Atlantic islands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas, in 1982, after Buenos Aires invaded them.<\/p>\n

The leaders at Cancun also discussed whether to recognise Porfirio Lobo as the legitimate president of Honduras after he was elected president under interim authorities following a 28 June coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya.<\/p>\n

A long-term plan to help Haiti recover from the devastating January earthquake was also on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Story from BBC NEWS:
http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/go\/pr\/fr\/-\/2\/hi\/americas\/8531266.stm
Published: 2010\/02\/24 01:04:45 GMT
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cancun Summit on Latin America and the Caribbean has agreed to establish a new regional organization without the United States and Canada. The OAS has been dominated by U.S. imperialism since its formation.Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos New US-free Americas bloc planned Latin American and Caribbean nations have agreed to set up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}