America's bestest friend, Vicente Fox, wants to revive (eluniversal . com.mx/miami/12528.html) the FTAA discussions. Just because Hugo Chavez (D-Venezuela) is opposed to the FTAA doesn't make it a good thing. In fact, it's a horrid idea and a step down the road to a "North American Community". For his part, our Lider Jorge Arbusto will avoid (nytimes . com/aponline/international/AP-Americas-Summit-Immigration.html) discussing immigration matters when he goes to Argentina for the Summit of the Americas. He plans to stay away (uk.news.yahoo . com/02112005/80/bad-lasagna-sours-argentina-summit-security.html) from the lasagna too!

At least 70 federal police officers guarding the beach resort hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush and others will meet were overcome by diarrhea and vomiting after dining on lasagna at a nearby hotel late on Tuesday, police commissioner Daniel Rodriguez told local radio.

Maybe he should eat big in order to do his own bushuru 41 (Kiichi_Miyazawa).

And, Chavez is pulling a train (smh . com . au/news/world/diego-joins-antibush-brigade/2005/11/04/1130823384581.html) containing such celebrities as hated and disgraced former Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona and Evo Morales, leader of the Bolivian presidential race and an Indian to boot. Chavez will be arriving via air.

Cuba's Fidel Castro, the only leader not invited to the summit, sent a delegation of Cuban athletes to the Peoples' Summit to support his friend Chavez.

Another expected attendee is Cindy Sheehan.

Moving on (phillyburbs . com/pb-dyn/news/88-11042005-565232.html):

Thomas Shannon, the new assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said aboard Air Force One on the flight to Argentina that the U.S. is still promoting the FTAA even though it has been "slowed down," but also is pursuing regional and bilateral agreements to move the president's free trade agenda.

...Bush and an outspoken critic, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also were likely to meet Friday, shortly after Chavez's speech to a demonstration of mostly anti-Bush protesters. Chavez has joked about whether Bush is afraid of him and said he might sneak up and scare Bush at the summit.

Chavez has said he would use the meeting as a stage to denounce the U.S. as a "capitalist, imperialist model" of democracy that exploits the economies of developing nations.

And (efenews . com/detallenoticia.asp?opcion=0&id=321815):

Retired athlete Diego Maradona, who had vowed to lead the demonstration to "repudiate" the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush, was in town but did not join the vanguard of the marchers.

The explanation provided was that the former captain of the national soccer team was too besieged by admirers to be able to walk unmolested with the throng.

The main personalities at the procession's head were Evo Morales, the Socialist, and Indian, front-runner in the Bolivian presidential election set for next month, and Argentina's Adolfo Perez Esquivel, a human rights activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. Also in the forefront of the demonstration were Argentine and other Latin American labor leaders, as well as representatives of leftist grassroots organizations from throughout the hemisphere.

Many wore t-shirts with a stop sign reading "Stop Bush," or one displaying portraits of Che Guevara or Fidel Castro. A few sporting the portrait of Osama bin Laden were also in evidence.

Most of the marchers were also taking part in the "Summit of the People," which describes itself as a grassroots, parallel event to the celebration here of the Summit of the Americas...

AN ABSOLUTELY UNEXPECTED UPDATE: From this (foxnews . com/story/0,2933,174625,00.html):

More than 1,000 demonstrators angry about President Bush's policies clashed with police, shattered storefronts and torched businesses Friday...