Ibero-Amer Summit: Absent Fidel Still the Star, It Seems Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [It sounds like this year's Ibero-American Summit is occurring in a rather freaky atmosphere (poor Felipe Perez Roque, having to travel to such a weird meeting) -- in Lima, where the Rasputin of Latin America, Vladimiro Montesinos, is brazenly trying to bribe his way out of jail in an almost-public manner, and with the disgraced exiled Peruvian president Fujimori admitting to "hiring errors" from his hidey-hole in Tokyo, and with sharpshooters on all the roofs and the entire meeting being patrolled by German Shepherds. So what does the international press talk about? Fidel Castro...] Saturday November 24 5:52 AM ET (via Yahoo) Ibero-American Summit to Kick Off with Argentina By Jude Webber LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Leaders from Latin America and their former colonial powers, Spain and Portugal, were sequestered on Saturday for a summit in Lima to discuss ways to alleviate economic strife and combat terror. But with Buenos Aires battling to avert what would be the world's biggest debt default, the heads of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina -- Latin America's top economies -- plus the leader of Chile, were to meet first for breakfast talks focused on limiting the fallout from the financial crisis. Peruvian President and Ibero-American Summit host Alejandro Toledo has promised his colleagues four hours of serious talks behind closed doors, with no advisers, foreign ministers or media present. `Tomorrow we're going to have a lock-in,'' he told a ceremony on Friday night to open the annual gathering -- this year lacking its usual star, Cuban President Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader unexpectedly stayed home to direct recovery operations after a devastating hurricane hit his country this month. The summit could raise prickly issues for Cuba, one of seven nations blacklisted by the United States as alleged sponsors of terrorism -- and put Castro in a diplomatic bind as leaders rally for a push against terrorism. At last year's summit in Panama, he alone refused to sign an `anti-terrorism'' motion he called hypocritical. After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan to catch or kill Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, world security and the struggle against terrorism are high on the summit agenda. A draft of the declaration that will be put to leaders on Saturday condemned `terror in all its forms, wherever it manifests itself and by whomever it is committed.'' Some summit participants like Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar are fighting violence in their own countries. Peru has pulled out all the stops to guarantee safety at the summit, being held at an upscale Lima hotel, with a police force of 22,000, some with riot gear and sniffer dogs, as well as sharpshooters stationed on rooftops. Argentina's effort to slash crippling interest rates on its $132 billion debt and stave off bankruptcy has many worried that disaster in Latin America's No. 3 economy could spread. The draft declaration called for `a swift and effective response ... to the difficult situation of the world economy.'' After Saturday's talks, Toledo will treat the leaders to lunch at a seaside restaurant on Lima's Pacific coast. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-11.24.01-07:06:21-32104