Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday it will consider establishing a "currency area" common to receive in the Miraflores Palace to the leaders of the countries of ALBA and President of Ecuador , Rafael Correa.
Chávez convened a summit
also involved the vice president of Cuban Council of Ministers, Ricardo Cabrisas, and Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, on behalf of their respective countries.
On the steps of the presidential palace, where he received the leaders and representatives of the other five countries in the group, Chavez said Correa had "come soon" and had treated him "one of the issues we (...) today to discuss going to create in the ALBA is a good proposal, a currency area. "
This Wednesday will meet in Venezuela, leaders Member countries of the Bolivarian Alternative
President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, welcomed the leaders attending the Summit
"There is the challenge imposed on us by historical time. Here we are fulfilling the responsibility we have placed our people," said Chavez accompanied ALBA members and the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa.
The Venezuelan leader said "the South also exists and will be taken in
On Wednesday arrived on Bolivia's President Evo Morales. While stepped on Venezuelan soil and the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Ecuador's Rafael Correa. The latter assists as a guest and that Ecuador is not part of the member countries of ALBA.
According to a statement released by the Foreign
The forum will become an "opportunity" for the Head of State to submit the report to be made
In the afternoon of Tuesday, Venezuela became Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, Vice President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, Ricardo Cabrisas, and the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, to participate in forum.
is expected at this meeting, representatives of the countries dealt with the Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez Frías, the global financial crisis.
Miraflores Palace will be the stage to greet the leaders, who will play a busy schedule of work, which seek solutions to the problems generated by the economic crisis in the region.
The ALBA is based on the creation of mechanisms to promote cooperative advantages among nations to compensate the asymmetries between the countries of the hemisphere.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said on Wednesday that "The South Also Exists" when referring to proposals from different countries are presented to address the global financial crisis.
statements of Venezuelan leader came during the reception for those attending the Summit
Chávez stressed that the South will not sit idly by and that from this forum will make decisions.
"We will not wait idly by until the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) come to solve problems and especially the great threat that the world has been unleashed that is the great crisis "he said.
"We should not expect anything but ourselves. Sure, we hear the views of the G-20, G-21 G or whatever, but we have things to say. The South also exists. We also exist and we will make decisions, "added Chavez who also reported that during the summit will explore the creation of a" currency area "common.
From the Miraflores Palace, seat of government, President Chavez announced that he and his Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa, who is attending as an observer "and special guest, met briefly before welcoming outside the presidential residence.
The Ecuadorian head of state, an economist, "gave us a class, a proposal to create a monetary zone. We will not wait idly by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank come to solve the problems, "said Chávez.
He noted that given the situation triggered by the "great crisis of the century economic, food and ecological, South Also Exists ", and hoped that the summit alternatives emerge in this situation.
said the invitation to President Correa, responds to a need to work together," because (Correa ) has given us light, due to mechanisms of trade and later to a common currency. This is the challenge imposed on us by historical time and its cargo. Here we are fulfilling the responsibility that we imposed our peoples. "
Chavez congratulated the leaders for the advancement of democracy in their nations, which is now a" popular democracy, a new democracy, "while highlighting the triumph of President Correa in Ecuador with the approval of the new Constitution and the victory of President Ortega in Nicaragua in the recent municipal elections.
Similarly, highlighted as Bolivia "left the imperial moat in the trap and he wanted to sink pitiyanqui", addressing the officer of that country, Evo Morales.
Miraflores Palace is the setting to receive the leaders, who meet a tight schedule work, which will seek solutions to the problems generated by the economic crisis in the region.
The ALBA is based on the creation of mechanisms to promote cooperative advantages among nations to compensate the asymmetries between the countries of the hemisphere.
Naomi Klein
Since oil surpassed $ 140 a barrel, even more rabid right-wing broadcasters are forced to prove their populist credo devoting a portion of their programs to crush oil companies. Some have gone so far as to invite me to maintain a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." The thing is going well ... until it starts to go wrong.
For example, the speaker "independent conservative" Jerry Doyle and I had a perfectly friendly conversation on the troubled insurance companies and inept politicians when the following occurred: "I think there is a system to quickly bring down prices," said Doyle . "We have invested U.S. $ 650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Is not it time to reclaim some oil in return? Should be a lot of trucks, one after another, forming a traffic jam towards the Lincoln Tunnel, the stinkin Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour, each with a note of thanks from the Iraqi government ... Why not just go and catch the oil? We earned it liberating a country. I can fix the problem of oil prices in ten days instead of ten years. "
There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first is that he was describing the biggest robbery in world history. The second, which came too late, "us" we're stealing oil Iraq, or at least we are at the peak of it.
been ten months of the publication of my book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which argued that the preferred method to reform the world according to the interests of multinational corporations to exploit is currently the systematically the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of the population in shock and crisis. Now that the world is being rocked by multiple shocks, it seems a good time to see how it is implementing the strategy.
disaster capitalists have been busy: from private firefighters who served in Northern California fires, the desposeedores land after the Burma cyclone, the new housing law working its way into Congress. The law does not talk too much about affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and assures that provide bad loans banks make some payments in return for them. Not surprisingly, it is termed in the halls of Congress as "Credit Suisse plan" in honor of one of the banks that generously proposed it.
The disaster in Iraq: "If you break it pays
But these cases of disaster capitalism are quite amateur compared with what is taking place in the Iraqi oil ministry. It began with the procurement auction off ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (not yet signed, but still valid). Paying multinationals for their technical background is not unusual. Yes it is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil companies engaged in distribution, and not those engaged in exploration, production and keep the wealth from the exploitation of these resources fuels and releasing carbon dioxide. As noted by the London-based oil expert Greg Muttitt, the contracts make sense only from the information that the major oil companies have insisted on the right to refuse to produce contracts awarded to Iraqi oil fields, directing. In other words, while other companies from bidding on contracts in the future will be those who always win.
The oil price shock: or give us the Arctic or you will never lead
The shock of food prices, or modification genetic or famine
closely linked to oil prices are the global food crisis. Not only do high oil prices drive up food prices, but the biofuel boom has blurred the line between food and fuel, farmers evicted from their land and encouraging rampant speculation. Many Latin American countries have insisted on re-examine the strength of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels and to recognize food as a human right and not as a commodity. Undersecretary of State John Negroponte United States instead has other ideas. In the same speech he tried to sell the U.S. commitment in emergency food aid requested countries lower their "export restrictions and high tariffs" and eliminate "barriers to the use of technological innovations in crop and animal production, including biotechnology." Admittedly this threat was more subtle than before, but the message was clear: the poor countries would do better to open their agricultural markets to American products and genetically modified seeds. Otherwise they risk losing their support.
Genetically modified crops have suddenly emerged as the panacea to the food crisis, at least according to the World Bank, European Commission president - "value and the bull" came to mean, "and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And, of course, as agribusiness companies. "You can not today feed the world without genetically modified organisms," said Peter Brabec recently, chairman of Nestle, the Financial Times. The problem with this argument, at least for now, is that there is no evidence that GMOs increase crop production, but rather the decline.
But even if there were a magic wand to solve the global food crisis, would we want that was in the hands of Nestle and Monsanto? What would be the price to pay for that use? In recent months Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF have been frenetically buying patents on seeds called "SUV", a type of plants that can grow even in the land parched by drought or salt by the floods.
In other words, plants engineered to survive a future of climate chaos. We know how far you are willing to go when Monsanto to protect its intellectual property, spying on and suing farmers who dare to save seeds from one year to another. We have seen how the patented anti-HIV medications prevent save millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Why crop-rounder patents would be different?
Meanwhile, amid much chatter about exciting new drills and genetic technologies, the Bush administration announced a moratorium of up to two years in federal projects for research in solar energy, because, apparently, environmental concerns. We are approaching the final frontier of disaster capitalism. Our leaders do not invest in technologies that will effectively prevent a chaotic climate future, and instead they decide to work side by side with those who just plot increasingly diabolical plans to take advantage of the misfortunes of others.
The privatization of Iraqi oil, the assurance of genetically modified crops, the reduction of trade barriers and the recent opening of the last natural refuges to private exploitation ... Not long ago these goals were achieved one after another through polite trade agreements submitted under the pseudonym "globalization." Now completely discredited agenda is forced to ride on the backs of cyclical crises, selling itself as the medicine that will cure once and for all the pain of the world. Naomi Klein is the author of numerous books, including his latest The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
