[grania]

He (Chavez) also demanded that the role of the IMF be revised, because its "recipes" for development have been "venom" for poor countries

Scenerio...Argentina certainly is in no position to pay its debts, Castro doesn't like us (I still think the best diplomacy would've been to put a major league baseball team in Havana, let tours go there for games/beach/partying...the country would have been Westernized, fast), Brazil needs oil to go along with its resources and land, the US is so involved with NATO/Middle East, China comes up in these discussions about South American unity. China already has a presence in the Panama Canal.

The reason it seems that the mideast is under control is that it sounds like Saudi and Kuwait aren't going to miss an opportunity to gouge the West for oil revenue. But it's this wild card...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It doesn't look good. Check out this link in Post #1 [Globaphobic Vote in Brazil could alter political map of region]**** If you think that the Bush administration has problems in Latin America with the latest crises in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela, think about what it may face if Brazil's leftist candidate Luiz Inacio ''Lula'' da Silva wins this year's presidential elections in the region's biggest country. For starters, a Brazilian move to the left could pave the way for a South American nationalist-populist bloc -- that could also include Venezuela and Argentina -- that would strongly oppose the U.S.-backed plan to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005. Conceivably, the new ''globaphobic'' bloc could strengthen ties with Cuba, and with Colombia's Marxist guerrillas.****