[Cincinatus' Wife]

EU hoping for developing world summit to agree on free trade talks - Castro and Mugabe take a pass*** NADI, Fiji - The European Union wants a group of poor nations to agree to a common position on negotiating free trade deals with Brussels, an EU official said Monday. But observers said the unwieldy nature of the 78-nation grouping of African, Caribbean and Pacific island nations makes any unified position from the summit unlikely. The third African Caribbean Pacific summit was to start Tuesday at a palm-fringed resort in Fiji's palm-fringed city of Nadi, as the member states prepare to negotiate free trade agreements with the EU in September.

According to the African Caribbean Pacific or ACP secretariat, about 63 national leaders are attending, including South African President Thabo Mbeki. Two of its most controversial leaders - Cuba's Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe - will not be there.

The European Union is telling the ACP - which accounts for more than 650 million people and includes 40 of the world's poorest countries - that if they want to keep getting European aid, they will have to start removing their trade barriers to Europe's exports. Under an agreement signed between the group's members and the EU in 2000 at Cotonou in the African state of Benin, the European Union is also linking trade and aid to ACP states which impose safeguards to prevent corruption.***

[toddst]

Thanks for this informative post.

The White House last week threatened to veto any change in U.S. policy toward Cuba, accusing Congress of providing "a helping hand to a desperate and repressive regime."

I hope George W. sticks by his guns on this AND that a veto holds. It appears Castro is not far from losing control IF his hard currency income remains low.