Today's Stories: American countries to meet in Nicaragua to fight against corruption Mexico hopes to negotiate FTA with Mercosur: Fox Colombia to Halt Offensive on Rebel Group Minister's brother found slain in Colombia

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"This meeting is neither a tribunal for accusations nor a platform to examine the situation of Nicaragua or any other membe rcountry" of the Organization of American States (OAS), the meeting's organizer, Foreign Minister Norman Caldera said at a press conference.

The meeting is aimed at speeding up cooperation mechanisms in the fight against corruption in the member states, he added.

Ministers, ambassadors, and attorney-generals from the 31 member countries of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, including US ambassador to the OAS, John Maisto, will attend the meeting.

The Convention was adopted by the OAS in 1996, which constitutes the first of its kind in the world. Only three Caribbean countries, namely Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and Santa Lucia, have not been members of the Convention.

Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños will open the meeting on Thursday.

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria was scheduled to arrive in Managua on Wednesday night, according to Caldera.

Mexico hopes to negotiate FTA with Mercosur: Fox
Visiting Mexican President Vicente Fox said on Wednesday that his country wanted to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with the Common Market of the South (Mercosur).

Fox expressed the willingness in a joint declaration issued with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He arrived Wednesday in Brazil, the first stop of his three-nation trip that will also take him to Argentina and Paraguay.

"Mexico reiterates its position for the negotiation of a free trade agreement with Mercosur countries, and Brazil expressed its support to Mexico's association process with Mercosur," the two presidents said in the joint declaration signed at the end of a meeting at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry.

According to the declaration, Lula introduced to Fox the latest development of the South American bloc, in which Peru recently joined as an associate member.

After leaving Brazil, Fox will participate in a Mercosur summit on Friday in the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu, where he will request the bloc to also accept Mexico as an associate member.

Mercosur is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Bolivia, Chile and Peru as associate members.

To Lula, Fox made a brief introduction on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) inked by Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The two presidents expressed their satisfaction with the prospect of a joint commission that had been established last year.

The commission will hold a meeting in Brazil later this year, seeking to strengthen bilateral relations and integrate existing working groups.

On the UN Security Council, Lula and Fox indicated in the declaration that the institution should be reformed.

They "coincided on the need to give prestige, reform and new life to the United Nations," the declaration said.

Lula and Fox stressed the importance of turning the Security Council into a more efficient, legitimate, representative and democratic institution, with the equitable participation of developed and developing countries.

The two presidents also said their representatives will cooperate in the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The dialogue and cooperation between their delegations in the FTAA negotiating process should be enhanced, so that Brazil and Mexico could reach a balanced agreement which would benefit trade exchanges in the region, said the declaration.
 

Colombia to Halt Offensive on Rebel Group
President Alvaro Uribe proposed suspending offensive operations against Colombia's smaller Marxist rebel group if it agrees to a cease-fire, officials said.

Uribe sent a letter late Wednesday to a Mexican diplomat mediating peace efforts asking him to present the proposal to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, government Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said in a statement.

Restrepo said that if the ELN ends "its actions against the state and civil society, the government will respond similarly ... so that a serious dialogue with a real commitment to peace can take place."

Restrepo, however, said the government is not demanding that the ELN surrender its weapons or demobilize its estimated 5,000 fighters as a condition for peace talks.

There was no immediate response from the ELN.

Uribe and the ELN have been trying to find common ground for peace talks since early June, when the Mexican government offered to act as a mediator and appointed Andres Valencia, a former ambassador to Israel, to lead the effort.

Francisco Galan, a jailed ELN leader, has said his group was ready to negotiate if the two sides first agree to a cease-fire and the release of political prisoners. The ELN and a larger rebel group, the FARC, have fought a succession of governments in Colombia for 40 years.

The Uribe administration announced June 10 that it was willing to consider suspending military operations, but stopped short of formally making a proposal.

Wednesday's offer came after Valencia held his first meeting with Galan at the rebel's prison cell two weeks ago.

The last round of negotiations between the government and the ELN collapsed when Uribe took office in August 2002.

Uribe is now keen to strike a peace accord with the ELN. He is locked in bitter fighting against the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has all but ruled out negotiations.

The Colombian government is already involved in disarmament talks with right-wing paramilitary militias, which have long been accused of acting in concert with the military. Colombia's conflict kills an estimated 3,500 people every year.
 

Minister's brother found slain in Colombia
A brother of Colombia's education minister has been killed by Marxist rebels who kidnapped him three years ago even though his family paid ransom money, the government said on Wednesday.

The body of Bernardo Ernesto Velez White, brother of education minister Cecilia Maria Velez White, was found on the weekend with a bullet wound in the head in mountains in the northeastern province of Antioquia, an official said, asking not to be named.

He had been dead for several months.

Velez White had been kidnapped in the same area by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a 17,000-strong group known by the Spanish initials FARC, in March 2001 and his family made two separate ransom payments for his freedom, the official said.

The rebels often refuse to free people they have kidnapped after taking ransoms, instead demanding yet more money.

They kidnap hundreds of people a year to fund their four-decade-old struggle for socialist revolution, giving Colombia the highest rate of kidnapping in the world.

But a military offensive by President Alvaro Uribe cut the number of kidnappings in the first three months of the year to 317, according to official figures, down by half from the same period of 2003.

Uribe's father was killed resisting kidnap by FARC rebels in the 1980s. Vice President Francisco Santos was once kidnapped by late cocaine lord Pablo Escobar.

But most kidnap victims are ordinary citizens and often poor.