Weekly Report - 25 July 2006

Whatever else went on at the Mercosur summit in Córdoba, Argentina, it was hard to miss the presence of Cuban President Fidel Castro whose country is not even an associate member. It has been described as a political gesture, but commentators found it hard to discern what it was signifying, beyond implicit support for Cuba against the US embargo. It did provide Castro, together with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez , to engage in a spot of proselytising on the sidelines, though their message was not echoed in any of the summit's formal pronouncements.