Etelä-Amerikka kunnostautuu USA-riippuvaisuuden hoidossa. Venezuelan presidenttihän vastustaa vimmaisesti Bushin hallintoa ja politiikkaa. Onneksi ei sentään USA:n kansalaisia :-)
Latin America
||| South American alternative to the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American bank
Bank of the South founded in Argentina
||| Six Latin American leaders signed the documents to found the bank, seen as a response to perceived failures of northern banks and the Washington Consensus. ||| Brazil is participating, and startup capital is expected to bebetween $7 and $9 billion. ||| Chávez chided current financial institutions while meeting with and expressing his love for American citizens.
Vincent Bevins | Special to The Journal
Six Latin American presidents met on Sunday in Buenos Aires to sign the opening of the Bank of the South, meant to be a regional financial alternative to the IMF and the World Bank and also to promote South American development and integration.
Presidents Néstor Kirchner, from Argentina, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from Brazil, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, from Paraguay, Rafael Correa, from Ecuador, Evo Morales, from Bolivia, and Hugo Chávez, from Venezuela, signed the document in the final act of Kirchner’s government. Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez was absent, though his government is participating in the initiative.
With startup capital expected at up to $7 billion, El Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, will offer Latin American countries loans with fewer strings attached than those offered by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the Inter-American Development Bank.
The bank, with headquarters in Caracas and Bolivian and Argentine branches, will finance projects ranging from road-building to anti-poverty programs and regional integration plans such as cross-border rail lines.
Officials say loans will be issued at interest rates similar to other international lenders.
The project, promoted heavily by President Chávez, is one of his many proposals meant to unite Latin American countries in a "confederation of republics," with an eventual common currency. But this bank is especially important as a countermeasure against what he sees as economic dependence on the countries of the first world.
"The Bank of the South is a strategy ... aimed at freeing us from the chains of dependence and underdevelopment," Chávez said upon arriving Sunday in the Argentine capital for the signing ceremony.
“The bank is not against anything or anyone. It is in favor of the people of South America,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said.
But the World Bank denies the new project is a blow to its interests. Augusto de la Torre, World Bank chief economist for Latin America, said the bank is welcome.
"It's a very interesting initiative which I think expresses the desire to find stronger cooperation between Latin American governments," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "As far as the World Bank is concerned, this new initiative is not perceived as a competitor."
But it seems clear Chávez doesn't see the old institutions as friendly business partners.
He called the IMF "a curse" and attacked its "policies of shock therapy which filled our peoples with hunger, misery, poverty and violence."
"What are we doing with so many resources in the banks of the North? We sell oil. They pay us in paper, that we deposit in the banks of the North and they lose value every day that passes. It's bad business!" said Chávez.
"The poor of the world, us, feeding the Northern countries and draining our resources. It's the same colonial model. Before they took the oil, precious stones. Now they take our resources, changed into pieces of paper." Northern oberservers don't entirely disagree.
IMF-watcher Paul Blustein at Washington's Brookings Institution said the project highlights Latin America's yearning for greater autonomy after decades of sporadic financial crises and imposed austerity measures – such as IMF missteps ahead of Argentina's 2002 economic meltdown.
“It's really emblematic of how Latin America has become disillusioned with the model that the IMF and the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury promotes – the so-called Washington consensus,” he said.
“What you had in the past decade was the collapse of a very powerful creditor's cartel headed by the IMF,'' said Mark Weisbrot of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.
"This is the first step in creating an alternative.''
But the new proposals and projects are more important than the rejected ones.
"The bank is not against anything or anyone. It is in favor of the people of South America,'' Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said when Brazil, the largest economy in South America, committed to joining the enterprise.
And Marcelo Baumbauch, Brazillian spokesman, said that the entity "will have an important role in the integration of the region and in the consolidation of the Union of South American Nations."
President Chávez also took advantage of the event to meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales, whom he thanked for his support of South American integration.
He also met with various social groups and U.S. citizens, who thanked him for his program providing low-cost fuel for heating in New York. In responding to this, his rhetoric vis-à-vis the "empire" was a bit softer.
"We do it because we love the citizens of the United States," he said.
http://www.thedailyjournalonline.com/paginasPdf/p7.pdf
Latin America
||| South American alternative to the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American bank
Bank of the South founded in Argentina
||| Six Latin American leaders signed the documents to found the bank, seen as a response to perceived failures of northern banks and the Washington Consensus. ||| Brazil is participating, and startup capital is expected to bebetween $7 and $9 billion. ||| Chávez chided current financial institutions while meeting with and expressing his love for American citizens.
Vincent Bevins | Special to The Journal
Six Latin American presidents met on Sunday in Buenos Aires to sign the opening of the Bank of the South, meant to be a regional financial alternative to the IMF and the World Bank and also to promote South American development and integration.
Presidents Néstor Kirchner, from Argentina, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from Brazil, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, from Paraguay, Rafael Correa, from Ecuador, Evo Morales, from Bolivia, and Hugo Chávez, from Venezuela, signed the document in the final act of Kirchner’s government. Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez was absent, though his government is participating in the initiative.
With startup capital expected at up to $7 billion, El Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, will offer Latin American countries loans with fewer strings attached than those offered by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the Inter-American Development Bank.
The bank, with headquarters in Caracas and Bolivian and Argentine branches, will finance projects ranging from road-building to anti-poverty programs and regional integration plans such as cross-border rail lines.
Officials say loans will be issued at interest rates similar to other international lenders.
The project, promoted heavily by President Chávez, is one of his many proposals meant to unite Latin American countries in a "confederation of republics," with an eventual common currency. But this bank is especially important as a countermeasure against what he sees as economic dependence on the countries of the first world.
"The Bank of the South is a strategy ... aimed at freeing us from the chains of dependence and underdevelopment," Chávez said upon arriving Sunday in the Argentine capital for the signing ceremony.
“The bank is not against anything or anyone. It is in favor of the people of South America,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said.
But the World Bank denies the new project is a blow to its interests. Augusto de la Torre, World Bank chief economist for Latin America, said the bank is welcome.
"It's a very interesting initiative which I think expresses the desire to find stronger cooperation between Latin American governments," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "As far as the World Bank is concerned, this new initiative is not perceived as a competitor."
But it seems clear Chávez doesn't see the old institutions as friendly business partners.
He called the IMF "a curse" and attacked its "policies of shock therapy which filled our peoples with hunger, misery, poverty and violence."
"What are we doing with so many resources in the banks of the North? We sell oil. They pay us in paper, that we deposit in the banks of the North and they lose value every day that passes. It's bad business!" said Chávez.
"The poor of the world, us, feeding the Northern countries and draining our resources. It's the same colonial model. Before they took the oil, precious stones. Now they take our resources, changed into pieces of paper." Northern oberservers don't entirely disagree.
IMF-watcher Paul Blustein at Washington's Brookings Institution said the project highlights Latin America's yearning for greater autonomy after decades of sporadic financial crises and imposed austerity measures – such as IMF missteps ahead of Argentina's 2002 economic meltdown.
“It's really emblematic of how Latin America has become disillusioned with the model that the IMF and the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury promotes – the so-called Washington consensus,” he said.
“What you had in the past decade was the collapse of a very powerful creditor's cartel headed by the IMF,'' said Mark Weisbrot of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.
"This is the first step in creating an alternative.''
But the new proposals and projects are more important than the rejected ones.
"The bank is not against anything or anyone. It is in favor of the people of South America,'' Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said when Brazil, the largest economy in South America, committed to joining the enterprise.
And Marcelo Baumbauch, Brazillian spokesman, said that the entity "will have an important role in the integration of the region and in the consolidation of the Union of South American Nations."
President Chávez also took advantage of the event to meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales, whom he thanked for his support of South American integration.
He also met with various social groups and U.S. citizens, who thanked him for his program providing low-cost fuel for heating in New York. In responding to this, his rhetoric vis-à-vis the "empire" was a bit softer.
"We do it because we love the citizens of the United States," he said.
http://www.thedailyjournalonline.com/paginasPdf/p7.pdf
Vastaukset 1
Vanhimmat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxy3WrgxINA
Onkohan nuo muutkin presidentit salkkareita?