PM signs alone, no unanimity on declaration
Heads divided on Declaration of PoS
Summit plagued by disorganisation
US PRESIDENT Barack Obama opted out of posing for an official photograph for the Fifth Summit of the Americas when it was taken yesterday as several heads of State skipped the symbolic act amidst chaos at the Prime Minister’s Diplomatic Centre in La Fantasie, St Ann’s.
Continue reading 5th Summit of the Americas News: April 20, 2009
BY the time this column appears in print the Summit will be almost over. The 34 heads of governments will have had their say, hopefully in a civil manner. Hugo Chavez has indicated he would insist on the US trade blockade of Cuba be addressed in the document. Canada, too, is not happy with it, albeit for other reasons. What I found distasteful about the media pre-Summit hype was the focus on Chavez and US President Barack Obama at the expense of other leaders.
For the host of the Fifth Summit of the Americas to decide to travel to 6 out of 33 Latin American countries with leftist leaning Presidents within a short period of four days using a most expensive private jet merely to ascertain the perspectives of these heads of state on the summit agenda of energy security and the Cuban question is nothing short of egoism gone mad.