On 1 January, the EU body increases to 27 countries with the accession of new members Bulgaria and Romania.

'Real progress'

BBC world affairs correspondent Nick Childs says there is a clear message from the summit that constitutional reform in the EU is back on the agenda.

Mr Vanhanen said member states had moved from a period of silent reflection after the French and Dutch rejections of the new constitution to what he called more active thinking.


We understand the need to combine the strategic vision of enlargement with the capacity of integration of the European Union
Jose Manuel Barroso,
Commission president

Leaders tackle EU future
Q&A: EU enlargement

He pointed out that 18 countries had ratified the constitution and that member states agreed treaty reform was necessary.

The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said he believed there would be real progress during the German presidency.

However, our correspondent says the issue of reform of institutions, and of decision-making procedures, is likely to remain controversial.

On the equally difficult issue of enlargement, EU leaders are expected to endorse a compromise to ease voter concerns in many countries.

The compromise would require strict adherence to accession criteria for aspiring states but would not, in Mr Vanhanen's words, close any doors.

Mr Barroso added: "We understand the need to combine the strategic vision of enlargement with the capacity of integration of the European Union."

EU foreign ministers this week decided to partially suspend accession talks with Turkey because of Ankara's failure to open its sea and air ports to EU-member Cyprus.

The tougher EU line will affect such hopefuls for membership as Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia.

On migration, the summit has endorsed plans to boost patrols off Spain and Italy as tens of thousands of people continue to try to reach Europe from Africa each year.

There will also be laws drafted to allow in skilled African workers and more aid measures to tackle African poverty.

The EU leaders are to endorse their conclusions from the summit at about 0900 GMT and a press conference will follow at 1200 GMT.

The EU will also address "difficult issues", such as judicial reforms and the fight against corruption, early in talks. Many EU countries believe Romania and Bulgaria are being admitted before these issues have been properly addressed.

Finally the EU makes clear that the "pace of enlargement must take account of the capacity of the union to absorb new members". This is a strengthening of the "absorption capacity" test.

The changes, which come days after the EU agreed to punish Turkey for failing to open up its ports to Greek Cypriot shipping, were welcomed last night by those politicians who are wary of enlargement. Nicolas Sarkozy, the frontrunner to become the centre-right's candidate in next year's French presidential election, is passionately opposed to Turkish EU membership. He said: "I am very pleased with the decision proposed by the [European] commission, which will be adopted by the heads of government, to finally be firm with Turkey."

A German official said that at the meeting Mr Sarkozy hinted he could veto Turkey's membership if he were elected president in May. A referendum is to be held in France on every new enlargement of the EU after Croatia joins the EU, probably in 2010.

The pact on enlargement last night was a compromise between countries such as France, where voters rejected the EU constitution in 2005 in part because of fears at the pace of the union's growth, and Britain, which champions the process.

But the UK is facing pressure because France and Germany have made clear that the EU cannot enlarge until it sorts out its constitution. Britain stresses that the constitution will be a matter for the German presidency.

Tony Blair is due to travel to the Middle East soon in support of what he has described as an "arc of moderation", which includes moderate Muslim countries such as Turkey. That was "also an important reason why we support Turkish membership of the EU", the prime minister's official spokesman said.

Robert Mugabe has effectively appointed himself as President-for-life in Zimbabwe after extending his present term by two years until 2010. The ruling ZANU-PF party will this week endorse a controversial amendment that would maintain the 82-year-old's grip on power and prolong his country's status as an international pariah.

Mr Mugabe has already given his assent for the presidential poll - currently scheduled for March 2008 - to be "harmonised" with the parliamentary elections in 2010. His cabinet, the Politburo, has already agreed, making a necessary resolution at the party's annual conference this weekend a mere formality. The proposal has also been adopted by eight of the ruling party's 10 provincial executives.

The extension will take Mr Mugabe's rule up to 30 years, and put him among the select few of Africa's longest-serving despots - while scotching earlier hopes that he would step down in 2008 in order to concentrate on writing his memoirs. Under the leadership of the former school teacher, Zimbabwe has suffered a precipitous slide in living standards, life expectancy and economic output that has rooted the country at the bottom of global quality-of-life indices.

Local press has reported that some ZANU-PF officials were unhappy with the extension because they wanted a new leader in 2008 in a bid to rebuild bridges with Western donors who have suspended aid.

But analysts believe Mr Mugabe could well go on beyond 2010, particularly if the country's economic woes continue, which they are bound to for the foreseeable future amidst sky-rocketing inflation - currently at 1,098 per cent - and widespread food shortages.

Last week, Didymus Mutasa, the minister for land and land reform, suggested that Mr Mugabe should be given an official lifetime presidency - though this would only serve to confirm what many Zimbabweans believe to be true already.

But it is a sentiment Mr Mugabe himself echoed in a recent interview. "I will retire, of course, someday, but it all depends on the circumstances. I can't retire if my party is going to be in a shambles," Mr Mugabe was quoted as saying in the state-run Herald newspaper.

Officially, the proposed extension is touted as a cost-saving measure, so both presidential and parliamentary polls can run together in 2010. But critics say it gives Mugabe a chance to avoid the voters' wrath in 2008 amidst a collapsing economy.

"He doesn't want to fight an election in 2008 - he doesn't want to put people's anger to the test," the Harare-based political analyst John Robertson said. Government policies, such as the seizure of white-owned commercial farms for distribution to landless blacks, have been blamed for a 40 per cent contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) since 1998.

Mr Mugabe has denied the charges, blaming the country's woes on Western economic sanctions orchestrated by the former colonial power, Britain. Others say the extension gives Mr Mugabe the chance to wrest control of a succession struggle that threatens to tear ZANU-PF apart.

"This [extension] will also give Mr Mugabe the chance to purge the party of all undesirables. It has nothing to do with saving costs," said Reggie Moyo, spokesman for the government watchdog the National Constitutional Assembly.

ZANU-PF remains bitterly divided following Mr Mugabe's decision in late 2004 to appoint Joyce Mujuru, a relative political lightweight, as vice-president. Political factions aligned to Mrs Mujuru and the rural housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa have been jostling ever since for Mr Mugabe's blessing.

To begin, in Bush's eye, the Cold War remains. The head of his personal list of enemies is Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, and, of course, Fidel Castro. While this may be a faithful characterization of the Bush hemispheric strategy, it does not differ that much from the opportunism and occasional meretricious initiatives of the Clinton administration and its all-encompassing pursuit of free trade. Clinton's controversial trade agenda predictably developed a sharp cleavage over policy both within the Democratic and Republican parties as well as between them.

NAFTA was the Vanguard

Recalling the extremely close vote over one of Clinton's premier foreign policy initiatives - the passage of NAFTA in 1994 - his operatives had to depend upon a higher percentage of Republican than Democrat legislators to achieve a narrow victory. A heavy majority of Democratic legislators mobilized against NAFTA while the Republicans overwhelmingly supported it. The same political division is likely to once again occur if the hemisphere-inclusive FTAA trade bill ever manages to reach the floor of Congress and is voted upon.

Clinton's Latin American Docket

Upon taking office, President Clinton and his administration envisaged a strictly defined, trade-dominated agenda towards Latin America. Looking back on his largely failed regional policy, one can see that the delimited nature of its focus on trade and more trade was the key ingredient of its relative lack of success. If there was any exception to the Clinton administration's mainly languorous interest in the region, it was its Jacobin orientation toward Cuba-related issues. In the first Clinton campaign, the Democratic candidate cynically moved to the right to outflank the first President Bush by taking a more bellicose stand on Havana; he therein relentlessly socked away at Castro in order to push Bush aside so as to obtain a share of the campaign donations and tap into the political clout of Miami's Cuban-American community.

Clinton apparently felt no great loss in sacrificing a balanced Cuba policy in favor of shrill invective, as well as as artful tactic to win over Florida's vital Electoral College votes. The Clinton administration soon revealed that there were a great number of dark spots in its snapshot of the region. If one accepts that such benchmarks as social justice, pressing environment issues, the aspiration for a just society, as well as the conviction that the implementation of hemispheric inclusiveness is where U.S. regional policy should be, then both the Clinton and the successor Bush administrations got it wrong both in theory as well as in practice.

An Impoverishment of Vision

For the Bush administration, there was a lingering line of now irrelevant Cold War ideology that would have been best to foil and then sweep away, because the basis for such concerns were eliminated with the demise of the Soviet bloc in 1991. Nevertheless, without the distraction of the anti-Soviet crusade still at work, the battlefield was left clear for a right-wing Republican absorption of Clinton's thirst for trade deals, which, after all, was basically entirely congruent with traditional Republican values. In addition to this mix however, was a potent brew of neo-con negativity from a dramatically radicalizing Bush State Department, particularly emanating from its Bureau of Western Hemispheric Affairs. This office had been rendered even more extremist by the strident orientation of its first Assistant Secretary of State, Otto Reich and his equally rabid successor, Roger Noriega. For these envenomed regional players, trade matters could be left to the Treasury and the White House's Trade Office, while they continued with their main lethal obsession that sprang from their determination to bring down the Castro regime and any other rogue states that looked or sounded like Havana. This was the assessment that they would apply before implementing any other major regional policy-making initiatives, and was also the yardstick used to evaluate the worth of other Latin American leaderships. Where nations stood within the region in relation to Castro and what they were doing to isolate Hugo Chávez, in addition to whether they were prepared to join the coalition of the willing on Iraq, became the visa-to-friendship between these countries and the current administration.

In fact, any amateur historian could have told Clinton - as well as the Bush administrations - that Cold War ideology did not die in the early 1990s, as Clinton once claimed - it merely had gone underground where it would hibernate until a more propitious season for it to thrive came along. At the beginning of the Bush administration's term, an intense ideological posturing began in addition to the reassertion of the pro-free trade docket, while anti-Castro diatribes that were tempered to new extremes of hardness, were once again launched at the aging Cuban strongman.

At this point, a fast-breaking scenario began to unfold. The Soviet era's Cold War compass was still sympathetically spinning for the Bush administration and its impact was not only theoretical. Meanwhile, memories of that period were profoundly and irrationally honored in U.S.-backed Latin American national security doctrines, even though the themes of privatization programs, bilateral free trade pacts, and market integration had substituted a new vocabulary and a new emphasis for Washington's new regional jihad - the war against terrorism. Meanwhile, the ideologues - Reich and Noriega - free of any admonishment by their seniors due to the distractions posed by the Iraq War, could now, undisturbed, commit themselves to their life's work of mopping up Castro, and later Chávez.

While such a gameplan would be good enough for Know-Nothing Americans and affluent Latin Americans led by their local captains of industry, along with the new professional class who were admirably suited to feast off of expanding commerce, it turned out to be pretty thin gruel for the chronically poor, the indigenous, and the millions of a given population who found themselves part of the rural and urban unemployed and underemployed. For those seeking even slightly improved standards of living and a portal into a better life, the contrast was embittering.

Clearing the Decks for Trade

During the time that it has ruled, the Bush administration's paramount mistake with regional issues has been that, in its concentrated quest for orthodox trade models that adhere to traditional conservative ideals and the raw ideology that was targeted at a number of Latin American leftist bull's eyes, it acted as if it had found the globe's most potent concoction. This was reflected in militant proselytizing for the full implementation of the Washington Consensus trade model, first devised under Clinton. But the fact was that, at this end of the political spectrum, those of that persuasion were only nursing an illusion. Like Hitler's Third Reich, Washington's game plan for expunging a radical strain from anywhere in the hemisphere where it surfaced, would not last for a thousand years, but scarcely a decade.

Because of their preoccupation with the time-consuming Iraq debacle, senior U.S. policy makers had hardly any quality moments to soothe a maladroit strategy or to soberly assess the proper mixture of good ideas and high quality personnel. In this respect, they were unable to field what could pass as a successful regional policy, value-driven both in concept and practice. Such a plan would want to reflect both rectitude and a readiness to address their national interests as well as Washington's. Poverty abatement, social justice issues, and attending to the correct practices, whose lack would otherwise hobble society's reasonable expectations, and prevent a commitment to an authentic rather than a faux democracy, which would be part of the recipe.
But the neo-cons charged with working hemispheric issues under Bush - who were particularly fertile in the Defense and State Departments - neither represented an undeniable strong moral force nor were comparable to the Pope's army in the service of an indisputable cause. Rather, they were little better than a gaggle of bullies and ill-motivated Pharisees, who used perverse versions of such concepts as democracy, human rights, and market liberalization to express their selective indignation against those on the left, including such leftist luminaries as Ecuador's Rafael Correa or Bolivia's Evo Morales, let alone Chávez, and of course, Castro, all of whom were accused by U.S. officials at one time or another of being the dupe of some progressive cause.

Selective Indignation

Of course, a policy based upon the pursuit of social justice and a respect for a nation's authentic sovereignty would be the antithesis of what the Bush policy was plying in Latin America. The role played by its questionable certification process, for example, which almost entirely relied upon spurious evidence and cooked data to make its case regarding Venezuela's supposedly unacceptable performance in such areas as drugs, terrorism, and human trafficking, ended up by being little more than self-discrediting. An example of this was intelligence czar John Negroponte's recent establishment of a special Cuban-Venezuelan unit with great fanfare and whose implications were perfectly clear, since the only other special units were those set up for North Korea and Iran. Moreover, one of Negroponte's previous avatars - as ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s - could be handily cited as how to be deeply involved in covering up something like Contra death squad activities against Hondurans opposed to U.S. policy in Nicaragua, and get away with it by repeatedly claiming, as Negroponte did, amnesia during his confirmation hearing to be ambassador to the UN, where he denied any such role before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite impressive in-depth evidence to the contrary.

Parallel to when Negroponte's especially set-up Cuban-Venezuelan unit became operational, the State Department, ever since Chávez's landslide win in the presidential race, has switched directions and is now ostensibly trying to engage Venezuela in joint projects. After repeated bashings of Venezuela and castigating that Caracas was unworthy of being certified for its cooperation in Washington's anti-drug war, it abruptly changed its line. State Department spokesman Scott McCormack redacted the Bush administration's usual tart language that it lavishes on Chavez, calling on Caracas to "work together." He noted that "we have been able to work pretty effectively together." Ironically, McCormack is extending his hand to Chavez over the very transgressions on Chávez's part, whose alleged failure the Bush administration recently used to discredit Caracas, as exemplified by the U.S. denying Caracas its anti-drug certification.

A Prescription for Success

If Washington now means to turn its attention to salvaging its currently deformed relations with it southern neighbors, it must come to the realization that to be a true friend of the hemisphere, it must approach the table with a policy in which each constituent nation must be allowed to go in its own direction and generate its own autonomous choice of global options, in order to service each one's unique perspectives, as has not been the case of Washington's style of dealing with Cuba and Venezuela. This means that it should not be automatic, or necessarily entirely kindred to the White House's hypertrophied passion for control and definition.
Washington's regional policy today is one frozen in time, concretized by a non-stop effort to defame and marginalize, as has been the case with its attempts to war in this matter against Cuba and Venezuela, as well as to try to tarnish individuals and movements throughout the continent whose mortal offense could begin with their rejecting the thesis that what is private is intrinsically superior to what is public, and that the private corporation should be equal to the state in its legal personality. This is not so much a policy as it is a self-indulgent wayward gambol that has little appeal to either Latin American leaders or their multiple publics.

To initiate a policy of relevance which at the same time is hallmarked by gravitas, while it reaches out for opportunities for constructive engagement with Latin American nations that previously have been demonized as rogue powers, Washington must first honestly address its differences with Cuba and Venezuela. This must be carried out not through imposing some Miami-pandering Republican-authored diktat, but by means of a convergence of a mature application of traditional diplomatic skills. The result of such efforts should, in turn, be fused to a balanced policy based on addressing some of the main economic, political and social issues plaguing the entire hemisphere. Some of the latter could involve the heavy hand of debt burdens, the shortage of investment capital, or the snares of profound differences over immigration policy.

This trajectory could at least provide U.S. negotiators and those speaking for an increasingly united Latin America, with some basis for hope for a successful resolution of some of the most long-lived differences existing today between Washington and its two Caribbean basin foes. Even if one is quick to dismiss such musings as a pipe dream, it still remains critically important that an awareness of the debilitating impact of a series of misguided State Department policies on the hemisphere must be nursed in order to reverse the detrimental effects. Perhaps Latin America could appeal to the U.S. Democrat leadership to take a bold move inspired by the Baker-Hamilton mission to tackle the regional problem as a cluster project, but this time applying the formula in the Western Hemisphere rather than the Middle East. Here the Democrats can say that we will solve the Cuba and Venezuela issues, but we will do it as a cohort involving all of the regional players, similar to the proposal, that Iran, Syria and Palestine are included in solving the question of Iraq.

The Democratic Alternative

U.S.-Latin American relations under President Clinton now seem barely discernable from the harshly politicized bad patches of the Bush era. It is this seamless fusion that is so disturbing, as well as the conviction that little is likely to change in the near future under those who will continue to control the White House until early 2009. This is reason enough to treasure the few instances where Democrats showed more than random spunk and some slightly less formulaic insights into the complexities of the triangular relations between the U.S., Cuba and Venezuela.

Generally, the Democratic leadership has either ignored or all too often trivialized the importance of regional relations, numbly accepting an obsolescent and grossly sterile manner of relating to Cuba. It might be useful to prescribe a more simple approach to the Democrats on how to make amends - simply do everything opposite of what was done yesterday when it comes to U.S.-Latin American strategies. Meanwhile, the combative rhetoric borrowed from a Republican lexicon will soon be handed over to Democratic counterparts. The question is whether the Democrats will make use of it or unlikely enough decide to go their own way. For example, presidential contender John Kerry, during his last presidential race, found that Hugo Chávez's "close relationship with Fidel Castro has raised serious questions about his commitment to leading a truly democratic government." Could they not say the same about Kazakhstan or thirty or forty other countries, some of them close allies of the U.S.? This relatively unlettered remark may have been one of the few occasions that Kerry has referred to the region at all.

In general, mainstream Democratic speechmakers consistently used dismissive language when it came to references to Chávez, let alone Castro. Anti-Chávez rants peaked with his recent "devil" speech delivered at the UN on the occasion of the duel between the U.S. and Venezuela, over who would fill the two-year Latin American seat on the UN's Security Council. For Nancy Pelosi, "Hugo Chávez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar but all he is an everyday thug," while the venerable House Democrat and Black Caucus leader, New York's Charles Rangel, contributed the shameless piece of puffery that "You don't come into my country; you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president." U.S.-Venezuelan and Cuban relations deserve better than that, especially because there are a number of knowledgeable senators, which would include Kennedy, Leahy, Dodd and Harkin, who readily come to mind, as well as Congressman Delahunt of Massachusetts.

The Irreducible Agenda

The issues of immigration, terrorism, drugs, energy questions and incipient rivalries with China over resources and new investments in Cuba, should afford a lively time for U.S.-Latin America relations in the near future, even though it is likely to generate more heat than light. It is not too much to say that the incoming Democratic leadership remains sadly under-equipped to coherently debate a range of serious issues that deserve to be ventilated beyond sound bites and canned quips.

When it comes to regional ties, with only few exceptions, the entire U.S. Congress is all but functionally illiterate, so that an attempt to ferret out a "Democratic" as distinguished from a Republican Latin American policy will likely be a thankless task. When it comes to hemispheric relations, the Democratic leadership is hardly more conversant than its Republican colleagues. If there is any way to improve U.S. policy, it must be as a result of more than happenstance. It must come about due to specific people responding to specific needs that are being recognized at the highest places in governance. An array of important hemispheric issues must be made the subject of a free-wheeling, and constructive debate that would serve the common interests of the entire hemisphere. This process hopefully will end up conveying a spirit of flexibility, mutual respect, and a recognition that no one nation, including the U.S., has a monopoly on good thinking or upon gracious vision, or possesses the unique capacity to innovate and move the region along its own natural path in friendship and mutual respect. It is something that has to be worked towards.

*************

This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry Birns, and is a slightly modified version of an article appearing in the winter issue of the Democratic Left, a publication of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry Birns
December 13th, 2006
Word Count: 3000

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 223-4975, fax (202) 223-4979, or email coha@coha.org.

In recent trips to several Latin American countries, I have been asked the same question: Is the region bound to get rich because it has the world's biggest reservoir of water, which may become the most precious commodity in the 21st century?

Before we get into whether this theory-which has become very popular on Latin American Internet blogs-has any basis, let's look at the facts.

There is no question that there is a global water problem: The World Health Organization says that 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe water. On the other hand, Latin America has more water than any other region in the world: 42 percent of the planet's water.

Still, many Latin American countries, especially Mexico, suffer from water shortages. Rapid urbanization, unregulated industrialization, poor farming practices, corruption and massive leakages have crippled water distribution systems in many countries in the region.

Some Latin American presidents, such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, claim that Latin America is already a much-coveted region because of its water resources. Chavez said in a September 29 speech that "water is more important than oil."

According to a recent report by National Geographic News, the daily Web report of The National Geographic Magazine, "conspiracy theorists fear the United States is secretly taking control of South America's largest underground reservoir of fresh water."

Such fears center on the Guarani Aquifer, which stretches over 460,000 square miles beneath parts of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. "Local distrust of US-backed lending institutions, along with the presence of US troops in Paraguay, has spawned suspicions that Washington is exerting slow control over the Aquifer as insurance against water shortages in the United States," the article says.

Among the most vocal champion of this theory is Argentina's Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who is quoted in the article as claiming that US military training programs in Paraguay are part of a grand US plan to grab South America's water reservoirs. "The United States already has water problems in its southern states," Perez Esquivel said.

Most international water experts say this is rubbish.

First, the United States may have some water problems in the West, not in the South, they say.

Second, compared to Europe, Asia or Africa, the United States faces much less of a water problem.

Third, and by far most important, water is not likely to become a rapidly disappearing natural resource, they say.

On the contrary, water may become more easily available in the future, because one of the most important technological innovations of the 21st century will be drought-resistant crops. These crops will allow farmers to grow food using half of the water they use now, they say.

That will be a watershed technological advance, because about 70 percent of all water currently used in the world is not used for home consumption, but for agricultural irrigation.

"New technologies will dramatically reduce the use of water for agriculture," says Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, a water specialist with Florida International University. "In 10 or 20 years, you will have widespread commercial use of drought-resistant crops. In addition, you will have a much more generalized use of drip irrigation, which has long been used in countries such as Israel and South Africa."

My opinion: I agree. Industry experts tell me that drought-resistant crops may be widely available even earlier, within the next five years.

The whole water debate reminds me of the once popular theory of 18th century economist Thomas Malthus, who said that because the world population increases geometrically (1, 2, 4, 16, etc.) while food supply only increases arithmetically (1, 2, 3, etc.), the world was heading toward mass starvation.

Malthus did not take into account technological innovation. The "green revolution" of the mid-20th century led to massive increases in cereal production in the developing world, which let countries like India-which suffered from chronic famines-become a food exporter.

The same thing may happen with the water scare. While Latin America should take care of its water reservoirs, it would help itself by spending more of its energies on improving education and attracting investments, like China and India, rather than by waiting to be propelled to the First World by its natural resources.

Maduro, who said that Washington had called for the meeting, described the talk as "frank, very clear," as well as "cordial within the tension that can be created by a conversation where we speak with frankness."

US-Venezuelan relations have been strained since President Hugo Chavez took power eight years ago with populist, pro-Cuba policies and virulently anti-US rhetoric.

But the United States is also Venezuela's largest trading partner, and Venezuela the source of about 11 percent of all US oil imports.

The meeting comes just one day after the top US State Department official for hemispheric affairs, Tom Shannon, had positive words for the December 3 election that swept Chavez into a second six-year term as president.

"You all know that the Venezuelans have enough reason to mistrust statements that could come from the United States government," said Maduro.

But Venezuelans also have the "maturity ... to sit down to dialogue in a respectful manner" with the US government.

Brownfield said that the two discussed issues of common interest, and both governments "coincided in a system or a process to touch these themes in the future.

"I believe we began with ... a recognition by both governments of the electoral results in November in the United States and in December here in Venezuela," Brownfield said, referring to the opposition Democrats taking control of the US Congress and Chavez' re-election.

"Hopefully this dialogue, this first step today, will produce more productive and positive dialogue in the coming year," he said.

In April 2002 Chavez accused the US government of supporting a military coup against him, and in September he famously described the US president as "the devil" at the United Nations General Assembly.

Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said on Tuesday that his government would remain "very cautious" with regards to Shannon's comments that Washington wanted to improve its relations with Caracas.

Shannon in October replaced conservative Roger Noriega in his State Department post.

"If the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always keep the door open. But I doubt they are sincere in this," Chavez said on Tuesday, his first news conference since his re-election.

"It is possible to talk to the devil, but you need human strength," said Chavez.

Brownfield acknowledged that substantive talks will take time.

"We have to walk before we run, we are going to start with small steps," he said. "Hopefully the next time that I speak with you I have more concrete results to mention."

Abe, the first premier to be born after the war, has put a top priority on creating a defense ministry and eventually rewriting the US-imposed 1947 constitution that declared Japan a pacifist country.

The bill enjoyed wide support, with the largest opposition party joining the ruling coalition.

But Abe faced fierce criticism over his other reform, which would require schools to teach students about "respecting tradition and culture and loving the nation and homeland."

"This is of historic significance, shedding light on the basic principles of education in the new era," Abe said after the hard-fought victory in his first parliament session since becoming premier in late September.

"Based on the spirit of the education law, we will drive to revive our education to build a respectful, beautiful nation," he said in a statement Friday.

But liberals say that patriotic education has echoes of imperialist Japan during World War II when the emperor was considered a demi-god.

A united four-party opposition boycotted discussions on the education bill, arguing the priority should be in fighting bullying in schools, and on Friday sponsored a no-confidence vote against Abe.

He easily survived the motion, as his coalition holds a wide majority. But Abe's poll numbers have slipped sharply since the start of the month as voters question his commitment to reforms.

A Jiji Press poll of 2,000 voters released Thursday put approval for Abe's cabinet at 41.9 percent, a drop of 9.5 points since November.

Officials have admitted stage-managing questions at "public meetings" with ministers and Abe's Liberal Democratic Party readmitted lawmakers who were ousted in a purge by his reformist predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.

"The opposition parties cannot have confidence in the Abe cabinet as it is trying to carry out a false type of reform," said Naoto Kan, a senior leader of the largest opposition Democratic Party.

Under the ministry reform, Defense Agency Director-General Fumio Kyuma would take the title of defense minister from January, although Japanese troops would still be called the "Self-Defense Forces".

Previous attempts to create a defense ministry stalled over political sensitivities in light of Japan's past aggression and fears of upsetting neighboring countries.

Despite its official pacifism, Japan has one of the world's biggest military budgets at 4.81 trillion yen (41.6 billion dollars) a year.

Japan has steadily been assuming a more visible military presence to counter its post-war image as solely an economic power.

In a groundbreaking move, Japan sent troops on a reconstruction mission to Iraq, the first time since 1945 that it had deployed to a country where fighting was underway.

Besides the strong symbolism, the bill would also give the defense ministry more power in internal wrangling by letting it submit its own budget requests.

"She was very tired ... her condition was urgent but her blood pressure and body temperature were returning to normal. We have to closely monitor her condition," said a hospital spokesman.

The court session resumed around 14:30 pm (0630 GMT) and ended two hours later without the wheelchair-bound Wu, as the 54-year-old remained in hospital for observation. The next hearing was scheduled for Friday next week.

"We will obtain a statement (on Wu's condition) from the hospital as the judges required," said Wu's chief lawyer Ku Li-hsiung.

The landmark corruption case could end Chen's presidency as the leader has promised to resign if his wife is found guilty.

Prosecutors last month indicted Wu and three presidential aides and named Chen a suspect in the scandal.

All three aides also pleaded not guilty. The president, who has denied any wrongdoing, escaped immediate prosecution because of presidential immunity.

The corruption charge carries a minimum seven-year prison term and forgery at least one year.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Friday pointed a finger at the court for the way it treated the first lady.

"We are shocked by this and we felt sorry for her. I urge (the court) to show more concern and respect for her. The court lacks humanity in the way it handles the case," said DPP parliamentary whip Ker Chien-ming.

The indictment of Wu, the first Taiwanese leader's wife to be prosecuted, sent political shockwaves through the nation and forced the DPP to suspend her membership for 18 months.

Wu, paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair since she was run over by a van in 1984, was once her husband's leading asset on the campaign trail. She has been in poor health in recent months.

The president has admitted using false receipts to claim money from a fund set aside for affairs of national importance, but insists that it was used for "secret diplomatic missions" that he could not disclose.

Prosecutors, however, found that at least 1.5 million dollars were spent on diamond rings and other luxury items for his wife.

The opposition says it suspects a lot of the money went into the pockets of the president and his family.

Despite mounting calls for him to resign over a string of corruption scandals implicating himself and his family, Chen has insisted he will stay until his second and final term ends in May 2008.

His son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming, has gone on trial for insider trading, and a verdict is expected later this month.

Chen Che-nan, a former senior presidential aide, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for graft by a district court Wednesday.

Last month, Chen survived a third parliamentary vote aimed at ousting him after the opposition failed to garner enough support.

Two earlier recall motions failed to pass in June and October.

"It reduces greenhouse gas emissions by burning away methane and avoids buring more fossil fuel for electricity," Park Han-Eop, an official of the ministry's waste treatment division, told AFP.

The plant will save the country the import of 500,000 barrels of heavy oil and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.37 million tonnes per year, he said.

A private firm, Eco Energy, invested 77 billion won (83 million dollars) in building the power plant in return for operating it for 11 years before handing the commercial rights over to the government, he said.

South Korea has 12 other landfill gas power plants either being built or operating across the country. They are mostly small-sized plants producing one to six megawatts.

South Korea currently relies heavily on nuclear power plants which supply 40 percent of demand. It imports all its oil needs.