Summit Opens in Panama
Panamanian President Martin Torrijos inaugurated Tuesday in Panama City the Summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA) with a speech focused on energy, border and customs issues.

Torrijos, who will hand over the pro tempore presidency of SICA to his Costa Rican counterpart Oscar Arias, said that Panama is also hosting in October an European Union-Latin American and the Caribbean International Forum on Renewable Energy.

He underscored the importance that the body agrees on the construction of a regional refinery while speaking of the expectation for the area if Panama joins the gas pipeline that Colombia and Venezuela are building.

During the first day, delegates centered on pending issues and the bloc´s future plans. In the afternoon the summit of the Central American Tuxtla Agreement, included inside the Puebla-Panama Plan, will take place.

The SICA summit will look into the fight against organized crime, control of migration to the US and the creation of a common customs code.

It will especially address the fight on poverty and a project to wipe out children´s malnutrition, backed by the World Food Program and the Inter American Development Bank.

According to the agenda, the presidents will participate in the groundbreaking of the energy project that includes the construction of 1,830 kilometers of 230,000-volt electric transmission lines to connect Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

That venture will enable those states to increase energy exchange and reduce shortage of supplies in Central America.

Among presidents attending the event appear Oscar Arias (Costa Rica); Elías Antonio Saca (El Salvador); Oscar Berger (Guatemala) and Jose Manuel Zelaya (Honduras) as well as Belize´s Prime Minister Said Musa.

Likewise, heads of state of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, and Mexico, Vicente Fox, plus Dominican Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso in representation of President Leonel Fernandez are taking part in the summit.