Weekly Report -25 January 2005

At her confirmation hearings last week Condoleezza Rice, the incoming US Secretary of State, made more references to Latin America than she had in the past four years combined, underlining that the western hemisphere is 'extremely critical' to the US and that the second Bush Jr administration will work on relationships in the region 'in a very aggressive way'. When she went into detail, it was Venezuela about which she sounded most aggressive. All told, though, her offerings did not promise any major departure.