Mylena Fiori
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela resolved to step up efforts to integrate their supply chains in three priority areas: armaments, aerospace, and shipbuilding. According to the Brazilian minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, expert groups will be formed to work on these areas. The topic was discussed at yesterday's (19) trilateral meeting in Brasília between presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Néstor Kirchner (Argentina), and Hugo Chávez (Venezuela).

According to Amorim, the possibility of creating a defense board, a kind of South American Defense Council, was also broached. This would represent the first step towards eventual military integration in the future.

Another item discussed by the three presidents was the creation of a University of the South, which would interconnect universities in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela under the concept of a great common university campus.

Lula, Chávez, and Kirchner also decided to ask their ministers of Education and Science and Technology to prepare a cooperation program in the education, scientific, and technological spheres.

The presidents determined, moreover, that there will be close cooperation between the Telesul and the TV Brasil to transmit information about South American political, economic, and social reality to the peoples of the region.

In the social area, they decided to evaluate cooperation initiatives at a future meeting they plan to hold before the end of March. The priority will be the erradication of illiteracy in the region. "The atmosphere was one of great cordiality and great enthusiasm over the process of integration," Amorim summed up.

Translation: David Silberstein