Run Lula Run

"While Chávez is signing energy security accords and offering Argentina and Uruguay attractive deals on oil and gas, a refinery for Ecuador and a gas plant in Bolivia, Lula has reached agreements to boost production of ethanol or biodiesel based on sugar cane or African palm in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Jamaica.

Lula, whose administration has been marked by a pragmatic, moderate international policy, did not hesitate in Nicaragua, for example, in invoking the militant leftist past he shares with his host Daniel Ortega, who decided to welcome large-scale production of ethanol, although not based on corn but other crops.

Chávez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro have lashed out against Washington and Brazil’s ethanol offensive, arguing that crops should be produced for food, not fuel, even though Venezuela and Cuba have signed projects for producing ethanol from sugar cane, as an additive for gasoline."