by the El Reportero’s news services
The expectations surrounding Lugo’s new leftwing government are immense: he is the first president in 61 years not to come from the rightwing Partido Colorado (ANR).
However, the difficulties facing Lugo are equally sizeable. The new president has had to cobble together a congressional alliance comprising former opponents, including a faction of the ANR loyal to his widely reviled predecessor, Nicanor Duarte.
The key to Lugo’s presidency will be whether his legislative supporters back the radical proposals Lugo has promised to reduce poverty and to end corruption.
Morales wins recall vote in Bolivia, but deadlock continues with prefects
Hopes that the 10 August recall vote would bring an end to the political crisis afflicting Bolivia soon evaporated after both President Evo Morales and his key opponents were overwhelmingly ratified in power according to pre liminary results.
Nevertheless, with more than two thirds of the vote, two key opponents ejected and an increase in support in eight of the country’s nine regions, Morales undoubtedly emerges the stronger and in a prime position to begin the inevitable negotiation process.
ALBA nations expand cooperation
MANAGUA, Aug 11- Venezuelan ambassador to Managua Sergio Rodriguez told Prensa Latina the construction of an oil refi nery in Nicaragua is on schedule.
According to the diplomat, a wide cooperation program is being developed within the framework of Petrocaribe. The refi nery project is on schedule, Rodriguez stated.
As part of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) cooperation program, the fi rst shipment of Nicaraguan heifers was sent to Venezuela. Another shipment is due within the next few day.
Nicaragua is also selling beef to Venezuela’s local state markets known as Mercal. Milk and chicken will soon add to Nicaragua’s exports, he said.
Some 1,600 patients have flown to Venezuela to undergo eye surgery and there are many other health and cooperation projects being developed.
Rodriguez said rightwing mass media is objecting the ALBA integration process in an attempt to discredit it. Most of such media is acting as a lackey of the US Empire, he stated.
Lula & Chávez lead new spike of top-level regional alliance building
In one of the busiest months ever for Latin American presidential diplomacy, Brazil’s Lula da Silva has managed to persuade Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe to join the proposed South American defence council, while Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez was able to boast of having attracted two new recruits to his camp: Costa Rica into Petrocaribe, Honduras (possibly) into Alba.
At the same time, Uribe and Chávez have again buried the hatchet, and Lula and Chávez took the opportunity to act jointly in shoring up Bolivia’s Evo Morales in the face of his serious domestic challenges.
New call to review NAFTA in Mexico
MEXICO, Aug 10- Mexican farmer organizations reiterated today their call to review the agricultural chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), considered harmful to food sovereignty.
The National Union of Regional Autonomous Farmer Organizations insisted in renegotiating NAFTA in order to protect Mexican agriculture and re-orientate priorities to domestic production instead of imports.
According to the rural movement, products like corn, sugar, beans, wheat, rice, sorghum, coffee, eggs, milk, beef, poultry and fi sh should be declared strategic to national diet and thus, protected.
The previous week, the Confederación Nacional Campesina of Mexico favored a deep change and review of policies applied in the agricultural sector, above all due to the effects of links with the United States.
Cruz López, leader of that group, denounced that transnational companies are to blame for rules benefi ting US farmers and harmful to Mexican producers. U.S. company Farm Hill, exemplified the guild leader, has hit hardest Mexican farmers, who receive salaries that barely allow them to survive in a situation marked by an unprecedented increase in prices of the family basket. (Latin News and Prensa Latina contributed to this report.)
