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Brazil Hosts Landmark Summit
Leaders of 12 South American countries have begun an unprecedented summit in Brazil to discuss topics including closer economic integration and strengthening democracy in the region.
The summit comes in the wake of the $1.3bn plan by the United States and Colombia to tackle the spread of drugs in the region.
The hopes at this summit belong mainly to Brazil, which is putting aside some of its traditional reluctance to intervene in the affairs of others and appears willing to assume a new leadership role.
The Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has also made it clearer than ever before that he wants to bring the whole of South America into a free trade zone.
President Cardoso said he hoped to bring South America's two trade blocs - Mercosur and the Andean Group - closer together.
It is a move which could challenge a plan by the US to expand the Nafta trade area into an Americas-wide free trade area, the FTAA.
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