Ibero-American News Digest
Free-Trade Pact Threatens D.R. Rice Production
Rice production in the Dominican Republic and Central American will be devastated by the signing of CAFTA-D.R. (Central American Free Trade Agreement-D.R.) with the United States, El Nacional reported Nov. 28. A study produced by Oxfam International warns that millions of local producers in these countries could be wiped out, seriously threatening food security and exacerbating poverty in the region.
A similar phenomenon occurred with Haiti some years ago, when free trade wiped out local producers of rice in that desperately poor country. There are currently about 80,000 rice producers in Central America and the Dominican Republic, on whom 1.5 million jobs depend. Along with corn and beans, rice is a crucial staple in the regional diet. In the Dominican Republic, 75% of rice producers are small farmers based in poor areas, with little access to credit or technology. They would have no way of competing with rice imports that would flood the country under
LaRouche's Ideas Challenge Formalists in Cali, Colombia
On Nov. 24, more than 100 people, among them mathematics students and professors at the University of Valle, in Cali, Colombia, participated in a presentation on Gaussian mathematics and the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM), delivered by videoteleconference by Bruce Director, a leader of the Schiller Institute and a scientific researcher associated with U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche.
The presentation by Director was part of a special program offered by the Second Latin American School of the History and Epistemology of Mathematics (ELHEM2) from Nov. 23-26. At the same event, Maximiliano Londono, president of the Lyndon LaRouche Association of Colombia, also delivered a speech on "Construction of Polyhedra, The Principle of Least Action and Riemannian Geometry." The Pedagogical Science Museum of the LaRouche Association was on display at the University of Valle, where a LYM squad engaged with hundreds of college professors and students.
The polemical interventions of the LaRouche epistemological current generated an intense debate, which provoked great happiness and optimism among the majority, and the outraged reaction of several "world celebrities" attending the event. Most hysterical was Marco Panza, the conference's keynote speaker. A formalist from the REHSEIS team from the University of Paris, Panza spoke on the theme: "Is a philosophy of mathematics without history possible?," while his daily workshop was on "The geometry of Euclid."
Director's presentation charged that formalists, financed by the Venetian oligarchy, have elaborated various instruments of mental enslavement which act directly against the human species. "They are fascists, just as Napoleon was, and the International Monetary Fund is now," Director insisted, while demonstrating that the real theme for discussion was the distinction between human beings and animals, a distinction that the oligarchy will not admit. Director established the "analysis situs" of the current strategic, economic, financial, political, and cultural crisis; he stressed the role of the LaRouche Youth Movement in leading the world through and beyond this crossroad, in which the financial cartel that rules the world seeks to perpetuate itself in power through the fascist policies of Bush and Cheney.
A professor from the University of Ibague, in Tolima, took the microphone to ask Director a question on the complex domain, and to express his profound appreciation for the richness of thought that Director had presented in his address. Professors from Tulua, Palmira, and Pasto, among others, invited organizers to bring the Pedagogical Museum and LaRouche's ideas to their students back home.
Panza did not dare to take the microphone to express his disagreements with Director directly, but afterwards, spread the line that Director's presentation was "a mix of imprecision, lies, and slanders," which could not be considered "an academic presentation," since it did not meet the conventional parameters of the "logical formal deductive development of an argument," because it "arbitrarily" mixed economic, philosophical, political, scientific, and even religious issues. Appealing to his supposed "world-renowned academic authority," Panza demanded (unsuccessfully) that conference organizers expel the LaRouche organizers, because "the good faith of the ELHEM2 organizers had been assaulted," by tolerating the participation of the non-formalist current of thought led worldwide by LaRouche.
China/Boliva Project To Industrialize Gas Production
Chinese and Bolivian businessmen have agreed on a project to build a urea plant to industrialize gas production, located in Puerto Suarez on Bolivia's border with Brazil. Urea is used in the production of fertilizers, animal feed, and some synthetics. The Chinese consortium involved in the project is Energy Press, whose members are the Litianhua Group, one of China's 500 largest companies, and Chengda. It will invest $126 million, or 70% of the $180 million total required, with the remaining $54 million to come from two Bolivian firms, TumPar and Iberoamericana. Brazil's Petrobras will also be involved in selling the gas, once the project gets off the ground.
Bolivian project manager Edmundo Roca reports that financing from China's Eximbank is guaranteed, and 100 Chinese technicians are prepared to come to the country for three years, to train Bolivian personnel in all phases of the production and marketing of urea. Initially, the plant would produce 1,000 tons of urea daily, or 330,000 tons annually, for the 330 days a year the plant is open. The big hitch in the plans is the fact that Bolivia does not yet have a Hydrocarbons Law, which must define and regulate foreign companies operating in the hydrocarbons sector. And it's unclear when it will have one, given the controversy over its contents and more than one version currently circulating in the Congress.
Ex-BNDES Chief: Anti-National Elites Behind My Ouster
Carlos Lessa, the ousted president of Brazil's Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), accused "the elites" of having ordered his removal, noting that these elites also created "the Brazilian oligarchy," which prides itself on speaking English, is ashamed of speaking Portuguese, and wants nothing to do with the Brazilian people. In an emotional address to a crowd of friends and supporters that had gathered in front of the bank on Nov. 19, nationalist Lessa, generously, didn't blame President Lula da Silva for having removed him, or for having adopted wrong economic policies, arguing instead that Lula himself was "being fooled" by these same, anti-national elites. They, he said, are responsible for the disastrous economic policy which has produced 12 million unemployed.
Lessa, who had repeatedly attacked the monetarist Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles in public, even as head of the bank, told his supporters: "I had to become an economic historian to better learn the role of the national elites who attained independence, but kept slavery. They abolished slavery in the most miserable way possible, without agrarian reform, without public education, without worker rights." Moreover, he said, they were so successful at smashing any attempt at creating a counter-elite, that they "were capable of driving a [nationalist] President Getulio Vargas to suicide.... under the rubric of authoritarian or democrat, they use the State in the most despicable form to defend their own interests."
Some have floated the idea that Lessa could run for public office in the future.
Argentina, Vietnam Strike Nuclear Energy Agreement
Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation on a number of areas, including generation of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, during the Vietnamese head of state's visit to the South American country following the meeting of the Forum for Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) held Nov. 21-22 in Santiago, Chile. Vietnam has special interest in nuclear energy, said Tran Duc Luong, given concerns that his country's hydroelectric resources will be insufficient to meet the country's development needs in the medium term.
Brazil To Decide on Completion of Third Nuke Plant
Five days after winning its fight with the IAEA over operating its uranium enrichment plant and producing its own nuclear fuel, Brazil's Minister of Mines and Energy announced that Brazil's National Energy Council will decide later this month on completing the stalled Angra III nuclear plant. Angra III, which is 30% complete, has been mothballed for more than 15 years, as Brazil's IMF-created debt and financial crises prevented the completion of the plant.
Originally part of the 1975 Brazil-West Germany nuclear agreement, which included the construction of up to eight nuclear plants, almost $2 billion has already been spent on Angra III, and 70% of the hardware from Germany has been shipped, costing Brazil $20 million per year to store. It is estimated that $1.7 billion is needed to finish it.
On Nov. 29, the Brazilian government announced that it will decide this month whether to complete the Angra III reactor. The French state-run nuclear engineering company Framatome, which merged with Germany's KWU, is likely to complete the construction. Wagner Victer, energy secretary of the state of Rio de Janeiro, stated in mid-November, that financing could come in part from Brazil's National Development Bank BNDES.
|