Cuba, vietnam: Joint oil exploration agreement

Monday Morning, Lebanon ^ | 15 June 07 | staff

[saganite]

Vietnamese leader Nong Duc Manh was on his way home last Monday after a three-day visit to Cuba that featured a meeting with ailing President Fidel Castro and a joint oil-exploration agreement.

Cuba was the final stop of his nine-day visit to Latin America, which also included Chile, Brazil and Venezuela.

Beside visiting with Cuba’s interim president, Raul Castro, who took over after his brother had gastrointestinal surgery in late July of last year, Manh also met with Vice-President Ricardo Lage. But it was an unannounced two-hour meeting early Sunday with Fidel Castro, 80, at the hospital where he is recovering, that was the highlight of Manh’s visit, providing a video and photos of a seemingly healthier-looking Castro.

Castro had not been seen on television since January 30, when he was shown meeting with his ally and friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Manh was Fidel Castro’s first visit by an international official after meeting on April 20 Wu Guanzheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. During Manh’s visit, the state-run oil companies Petrovietnam and Cuba’s Cupet agreed to set up joint ventures for oil production and exploration in Cuban territorial waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The two communist governments also signed agreements on cultural exchange, and cooperation in sports, media, agricultural and tax matters.

As general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Manh is the highest-ranking official in the country.

[saganite]

How freaking perfect is this! A communist dictator from Vietnam consulting with the communist dictator of Cuba about drilling for oil off the coast of Florida in a report from Lebanon while our legislators quibble about energy independence. It's enough to make my blood boil.

[operation clinton cleanup]

I thought the whole reason we started the Vietnam War was to secure their huge coastal oil reserves... I swear I read that somewhere, even before the Internet!

[saganite]

I hope they discover 20 billion barrels of oil off the Florida coast. I hope they refuse to sell it to us and rub our noses in it. Something has to wake up the American people.

[Thunder90]

And, all of these countries have arrangements with China and the “Former” Soviet Union. They are commies and still allied with very dangerous commies on the other side of the world.