Brazil Pres: Americas Free-Trade Zone 'Off The Agenda'
By: Dow Jones Newswires on: 21.04.2005 [23:55 ] (371 reads)

Clinching a deal for a 34-nation free trade zone that would stretch from Alaska to Argentina is "off the agenda" for Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday. Lula made the comments about the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas to a gathering of labor leaders just days before U.S. Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice is scheduled to visit Brazil, Latin America's largest country.
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SAO PAULO (AP)--Clinching a deal for a 34-nation free trade zone that would stretch from Alaska to Argentina is "off the agenda" for Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Lula made the comments about the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas to a gathering of labor leaders just days before U.S. Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice is scheduled to visit Brazil, Latin America's largest country.

"For two years, FTAA has not been discussed in Brazil, because we took it off the agenda," Lula said.

Instead, Brazil has focused on strengthening trade ties among its Latin American neighbors and with the Mercosur trade bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-20-05 1834ET

Link

(Sent by Brasil)




It would appearby Tet on 22.04.2005 [15:03 ]

The world is getting ready to change for the better. Peace.

The waning days of the US, all happening in its backyardby Econ on 22.04.2005 [15:41 ]

"...Instead, Brazil has focused on strengthening trade ties among its Latin American neighbors and with the Mercosur trade bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay..." You can also add Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Boliva to that mix as well. These countries are looking to China for trade as they can exchange natural resources for tangilble goods, a lesson the US should be learning. China is rising because it has something tangible to export. Brazil has realized what 'free trade' means. It means the US gets a free ride by essentially getting Brazil's natural resources and paying for it with all the worthless dollars Greenscam can print up out of thin air. All these countries get for trading with the US are worthless treasury bills piling up in their central banks and depreciating everyday as the worthless dollar plunges. Brazil, like Argentina, has broken free from the crippling IMF loans that impoverished them. They have seen how the US used IMF loans to prop up the dollars and the scam is no longer working. Given US failures in Iraq, the US cannot invade and occupy Brazil to prevent it from adopting policies adverse to the US. This is yet another reaon why the Iraq war has been economically and militarily self-defeating for the US. The US military can longer be used for US political purposes in countries like Brazil and Iran. The US is on its last legs as the world realizes the US has nothing to export and must rely solely on its worthless dollar to prop itself up.

Canada sleeps....zzZZZzzzZZZzzzby snord on 22.04.2005 [17:15 ]

I'm so heartened by what is occurring in South America. I wish Canadians would see the light, but I'm afraid the majority of the people don't really think about it enough to realize that there is another way to do things. I hope they wake up before it's too late!

Good position by Lulaby Kensai on 22.04.2005 [17:34 ]

Mercosur is still a very weak union, until we will have a profound knowledge and respect for our neighbourgs, and a balance between our particular needs as countries, and the block itself. In my opinion, I live here, is that we need to go further the word "merco", that´s good, but I don´t understand why people here is so shy to admit that we have a common history, a common "karma", if you want to name in that way, and this word "merco", doesn´t reflect what we really are. O.k, I will say it, it´s a word that we like to use to deny that we like each other. Still, we have too much Ego. To achieve this change, we must to work hard, and I´m sure that we will win at the end of the road. And about USA threats against Latin America...Yawn. Don´t have the resources, don´t have the guts. We can sleep very well at night, because the "almighty" mud warriors doesn´t fit the size for the challenge.


18-year-old followed her dream into Iraq
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Last updated: April 23rd, 2005 07:37 AM


Sam Huff went to her parents when she was 16 and told them she had a plan.
She’d join the Army, become a military policewoman, go to college, get a master’s degree in psychology and become an FBI special agent.
She had it all worked out. And that’s the way it was with her, said her dad, Robert Huff. Strong-willed. Determined. A leader. Never gave him and her mother, Margret Williams, any trouble. Tough, but a sweet kid.
“We treated her like an adult from a real early age,” Huff said. “Unless she was going to jump off a building or something, I was going to let her make her own decisions.”
So last July, just a week before her 18th birthday, Sam embarked on the first stage of her plan. By November she was at Fort Lewis, and by February, in Baghdad with the 170th Military Police Company.
Huff, a private first class from Tucson, Ariz., was killed Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded as she drove her armored Humvee through the city streets.
Hundreds turned out Friday for the memorial ceremony at the Main Post Chapel, including representatives from local police departments. Her father is a retired Tucson detective, and her mother is a police communications supervisor.
Huff’s friends, commanders and fiance, Pvt. Nicholas Neally, praised her as an inspiring young person wise and talented well beyond her years. She was happy and confident and loved her job as a soldier, they said.
She is the 100th service member from Fort Lewis or Washington to be killed since the onset of the war on terrorism in October 2001. She is the third soldier from her unit to be killed in Iraq, and the third Fort Lewis woman to die in the war.
Women are banned from the Army’s combat branches, but plenty serve in the support branches, including the military police. The prohibition is mostly irrelevant in Iraq, soldiers said.
“In Iraq, everywhere you go is a combat zone,” said Sgt. Courtney Leonard, one of about 10 women in the 170th, and a friend of Huff’s.
Lt. Col. Thomas Tatum, the rear detachment commander of the 42nd Military Police Brigade, the 170th’s parent command, said it’s a reality that Americans have to get used to.
“They’re there, and they’re going to fight,” Tatum said. “They fight and they’re performing well.”
Spc. Justin Saunders, the gunner on Huff’s three-person Humvee, said she was a caring friend but all business behind the wheel.
They recalled a time when some Iraqi policemen they worked with accidentally fired a weapon just a few feet from Huff’s vehicle.

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Please spread this news everywhere. jamie