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 Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the US doesn't believe that the creation of an organization that pools Latin American and Caribbean countries would be a threat to or incompatible with the Organization of American States (OAS).
"The OAS continues being a hemispheric organization where all the parties to the region take part, and I think we have worked hard to strengthen it and it will continue getting stronger," said Rice at a press conference in Washington next to Mexico's Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa.
OAS was created in 1948, has 35 country members, with the exception of Cuba which was forced out in 1962.
The head of the US diplomacy reacted in this manner to an initiative taken during the recent Unasur (Union of South American Nations) summit held in Brazil, where 33 countries pondered on the creation, beginning 2010, of a hemispheric organization excluding the United States and Canada.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón suggested that the potential organization could be called the Latin American and Caribbean Union.
At the recent summit in Brazil the 33 regional leaders from Latinamerica and the Caribbean also called for the lifting of the US trade embargo on Cuba
"There are a growing number of regional organizations in the world which overlap" said Rice and went on to mention the case of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, APEC. "Nobody is thinking these organizations are excluding," said the Secretary.
"Under no circumstances the (Unasur) initiative can be considered as excluding, rather the strengthening of dialogue opportunities with other regions of the world," said Mexico's Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa.
"We're certain that a tighter integration will contribute to strengthen the very OAS," added Ms. Espinosa.
The high level ministerial meeting in Washington was motivated by the launching of the so called Merida initiative to combat cross-border drug trafficking and organized crime. US Congress approved US$ 400 million in anti-drug aid to Mexico earlier this year.
Mercopress
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Miss.Rice is just nice as she is leaving office on Jan 20th and she does not have to deal with G-33 anymore.BUT.....BUT...... Mrs.Clinton may feel and act differently, especially towards the newest member of this formidable group.