News stories by Mario Osava*

News that the government of South Africa was inspired by Brazil's health system in setting up its own universal coverage scheme might meet with scepticism in this South American country.

Default, insolvency, fiscal irresponsibility, debt crisis and similar terms form part of the vocabulary used to describe countries in the developing South in the 1980s and 1990s. A decade later, the world seems to have turned upside down.

Emerging countries like Brazil and China are building numerous hydroelectric dams at home and abroad to help drive their economic growth. But while in Latin America the phenomenon is touted as an integration process, in Asia it has generated tension over the shared use of rivers.

The international community's response was fast and effective during the emergency cause by the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti that claimed at least 230,000 lives. But the 'impressive' outpouring of solidarity stalled when reconstruction began, as international and local institutions failed to measure up to the challenge.

Although revelations by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks concerning Latin America have caused irritation in the region, they have not had any significant effects so far.

The countries of Latin America, with few exceptions, have weathered the global recession of the past two years relatively well, while they simultaneously continued the process of shedding neoliberal policies in their most fundamentalist form. But in financial terms, non-governmental organisations have not fared so well.

Iceland's volcanoes contributed to conditions that may have hastened the French Revolution, and could now speed changes in air transport, which not only is vulnerable to natural disasters but is suffering from heavy congestion of its routes in Europe.

Two planes from Brazil carrying 21 tons of food and water were to head to Haiti Thursday, as part of an air bridge to provide humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean island nation in the wake of the deadly earthquake that has claimed an untold number of lives.

This week’s summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Brazil aims to pull regional integration processes out of their current stagnation, reaffirm the region’s interest in integration that does not exclude any nation, and contribute to overcoming bilateral tensions, analysts say.