In recent days, one of the most important "geo-economic-political" summits in the world was held in Panama: the seventh summit of the Americas, an event that was strongly desired by the "Libertador de las Americas" Simon Bolivar, as early as 1826 .
This year's 12.000 participants included Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ban Ki-moon and the presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and - for the first time - Cuba, invited following the requests of other leaders Americans.
The meeting between Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro took place after more than fifty years of cold war and broken relations. One of the central points of the Summit was to eliminate Cuba from the American list of sponsoring states of terrorism with the consequent reopening of diplomatic representations.
Another knot to be dissolved at the Summit hostilities with Venezuela and the restrictions imposed by the US government adopted because the country would be "a risk to national security" of the United States; on the other hand, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, accuses the United States of wanting to organize a coup in Venezuela with "national reactionary forces".
It is curious and to underline, however, that the United States remains the main trading partner of Venezuela, one of the most important foreign oil suppliers in America. Another theme tackled was that of Argentina and the Malvinas Islands: tensions with Great Britain are strong.
"Over the past twenty years, the countries of South America have made significant economic and political progress. Latin America is a region made up of thirty-six countries and territories almost all with democratic regimes with six hundred million inhabitants. Thanks to the geographical proximity, there have always been deep ties between the US economy and that with these neighboring countries. Trade in goods crosses the whole region as well as cultural, family and social exchanges. There is much to learn from the story of the transformation of Latin America, which represents an important step for the United States and for the whole world. " (Hard Choices Hillary Rodham Clinton, nda).
In step with the times, the top five most active world leaders on a well-known social network, all coming from Latin America, the "Americas" are, moreover, a region of important political currents: Haiti was the first independent black country in the world, he was freed from the French in the 1803; in recent times, the peace talks in Colombia with the Farc rebels have almost put an end to the longest civil war in the world; the movements of civil society in Mexico and in Brazil and the student movements in Chile are just a few eloquent examples.
The area is also a land where there is a particularly high level of women devoted to politics: the presidents of Brazil, Chile and Argentina currently belong to the fairer sex.
Naturally, the area is on the front page even for illicit trafficking, drug wars, a corruption scandal in progress in Brazil, divergences between the United States and the United Kingdom with Venezuela and Argentina.
At the doors of the closed summit - it was one of the shortest - after the work of the photographers, the story will understand to which new goals, the latter of the 2015, will bring the Latin American countries.
Source: H. Alexander and P. Sherwell
(frame: White House)
