Canada eyes "Buy America" relief in Trans-Pacific pact

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada is pushing hard in trade talks with the United States and nine other countries for changes to U.S. "Buy America" provisions that have complicated cross-border trade, a top Canadian official said on Friday.

"Those provisions don't only have a negative impact on Canada, they have a negative impact on American businesses who are dependent on our integrated supply chains," Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast said in an interview.

While they are aimed at boosting jobs in the United States, they actually increase costs for many U.S. companies, he said.

Congress, since at least the 1930s, has passed various pieces of legislation aimed at giving preference in government contracts to products made in the United States.

The most famous recent example was the 2009 economic stimulus act that required projects to use iron, steel and manufactured goods made in the United States unless it increased costs more than 25 percent or no U.S. product was available.

Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, is concerned about proposals in Congress to include similar provisions in new infrastructure project legislation, Fast said.

"That's why we've made efforts to try to secure an outcome within TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) that ... allows our businesses to take advantage of trade liberalization even in the area of government procurement," Fast said.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a proposed regional free trade agreement among the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei that negotiators hope to conclude this year.

Another Canadian priority in those talks are "temporary entry" provisions that would make it easier for Canadian professionals to work in the United States, Fast said.

Both Canada and Mexico jumped into the TPP negotiations last year, after other countries had finished 14 rounds.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is widely expected to announce on Friday Japan's interest in joining the talks, something that country has been deliberating almost since the negotiations began in March 2010.

It would be up to the current TPP members to decide whether to allow Japan into the talks and potentially endanger the already challenging goal of finishing in 2013

BALI MEETING

"If, in fact, Japan is invited to join the negotiations, that would add another level of complexity. But it would still remain our goal ... to complete these negotiations before the end of this year," Fast said.

He also did not rule out the possibility the deal could be completed by October, when all the TPP leaders will be in Bali for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting.

"The objectives, if we're able to achieve them, are important enough that we make every effort to get this agreement completed sooner rather than later," Fast said.

Some have portrayed the negotiations as an attempt by the United States and the other TPP members to economically "contain" China, whose rapid growth over the past few decades has had profound impact on world trade.

Fast, in separate remarks at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, denied that charge, but said it "would be problematic" to incorporate China into the agreement until it shows much more willingness to remove both its tariff and non-tariff barriers that encumber trade.

Meanwhile, Canada hopes to wrap up trade talks with the European Union this year. That comes just as the United States is getting ready to launch its own free trade negotiations with the 27-nation economic bloc.

That has led to speculation the efforts could eventually be merged into a gigantic transatlantic pact between the EU and the three North American Free Trade Agreement partners - Canada, Mexico and the United States.

"I've been very clear that it's premature to consider whether that will even be an option. Right now, Canada is focused on its own negotiations with the EU and we expect an ambitious outcome," Fast said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Correction: Pope-Latin America story

MEXICO CITY (AP) — In a story March 14 about the significance the election of Pope Francis to Latin America, The Associated Press misidentified the president of El Salvador. His name is Mauricio Funes.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Latin America sees change under region's 1st pope

Latin American homeland sets out tall agenda for change under the New World's 1st pope

By KATHERINE CORCORAN

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The famous words uttered to announce that a leader of the Catholic Church has been chosen now have special resonance for Latin America, which had felt neglected by the Vatican and has finally produced the New World's first pope.

"''Habemus Papam.' 'WE have a pope,'" said Tom Quigley, former policy adviser on Latin American and Caribbean affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "This will instill a sense of pride and happiness and will have a very positive effect."

The selection of former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as pope is already energizing the world's most Catholic continent, which has been rapidly losing its faithful.

Many hope Pope Francis will bring a familiar cultural warmth, while pushing the church to address a divisive gap between rich and poor in the region. He is also seen as someone who could bridge Latin America's left-right political split as a conservative devoted to fighting poverty and not afraid to speak out against the hierarchy.

But first, the papacy of Francis is being seen as an overdue acknowledgement of the home of 40 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics that felt distant from former Pope Benedict XVI.

"It's a recognition of the millions of Spanish-speaking faithful who belong to the church," said Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes.

Almost everything about Pope Francis suggests a shift from Benedict, his reserved academic predecessor, who put his focus on saving Europe and was criticized for waiting seven years before visiting Spanish-speaking Latin America on a trip last year to Mexico and Cuba.

The new pope picked a name that has never been used, an apparent reference to a humble friar who dedicated his life to helping the poor. He comes from an order, the Jesuits, that had never produced a pope. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

"For me it's a sign from God, who is inviting us to commit ourselves to a continental mission," said Bishop Eugenio Lira, secretary-general of the Mexican Conference of Bishops. "He will imprint his Latin American personality ... He knows the joys, the pains, the problems and the opportunities of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean and that will create a very close relationship."

Latin America, with roughly 600 million people, is home to some of the world's poorest and most violent countries, with organized crime and drug trafficking causing a spike in killings through the region in recent years. It remains one of the most unequal regions in the world, according to the World Bank, though the gap has been closing in recent years and more people have move into the middle class.

Francis was unafraid to challenge the Argentine government for being too liberal or to label fellow church members as hypocrites for forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

"His discourse is very close to the social doctrine of the church," said Elio Masferrer, a religion expert at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. "That includes the criticism that in this time there are sectors of the clergy who behave like aristocrats, like princes of the church."

But one of his main challenges will be to woo back the followers the church has lost to Protestant evangelicals or just to secularism, with some of the biggest drain occurring in the poorest communities.

Perhaps nowhere in Latin America has the church been losing ground faster than in Brazil.

The nation still has more Catholics than any other — 124 million people self-identified as following the faith in the 2010 Census, 65 percent of the population. However, just a decade earlier 74 percent of Brazilians were Catholic, and in 1970 that figure was 92 percent.

The Pentecostal churches expanded rapidly in poor areas in Brazil, offering the downtrodden real-life guidance on employment and education, while the Catholic church was perceived to have largely abandoned poor urban areas in cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

In the slums of those two cities, one would be hard pressed to locate a Catholic house of worship, whereas raucous Pentecostal churches holding daily services are numerous.

Yet in recent years, even the Pentecostals are losing steam in Brazil.

"The biggest challenge facing the church in Latin America isn't the growth of the Pentecostals, but the abandonment of a considerable amount of Catholics and others to agnosticism," said Fernando Altemeyer, a theologian at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo.

The church under Francis also must recover from the financial and sexual abuse scandals that marked Benedict's eight-year papacy before he resigned last month.

"The question is whether the new Pope will achieve transparency when managing the church, whether he manages to re-legitimize the moral and financial questions, I think this is key, not only for Latin America but more generally," said Franklin Ramirez of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador.

As a cardinal, Pope Francis never held a top post inside the Vatican administration, or curia. This outsider status could pose obstacles in attempts to reform the Vatican, which has been hit with embarrassing disclosures from leaked documents alleging financial cover-ups and internal feuds.

His biographer, Sergio Rubin, told the AP that the new pope reacted strongly to the pedophilia scandal, which hit Argentina among other Latin American countries, saying the church has to make sure that its next priests aren't so susceptible. Only 40 percent of those who enter seminary make it as priests.

"He imposed a system of very strict controls," Rubin said.

The region that celebrated its native son on Wednesday believes he is up to the task.

Jesuits have the gift of spreading the word of God in the most inhospitable of places, said Maurizzio Pavia, an Argentine tourism official who promotes religious and cultural events in Puerto Rico.

"I think his emphasis will be on helping people recover the confidence they had in the church as an institution and as the evangelical messenger," Pavia said.

_________

Associated Press writers Michael Warren in Argentina, Gonzalo Solano in Ecuador, Bradley Brooks and Marco Sibaja in Brazil, Marcos Aleman in El Salvador, Danica Coto in Puerto Rico, and Olga R. Rodriguez and Adriana Gomez Licon in Mexico contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Canada eyes "Buy America" relief in Trans-Pacific pact

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada is pushing hard in trade talks with the United States and nine other countries for changes to U.S. "Buy America" provisions that have complicated cross-border trade, a top Canadian official said on Friday.

"Those provisions don't only have a negative impact on Canada, they have a negative impact on American businesses who are dependent on our integrated supply chains," Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast said in an interview.

While they are aimed at boosting jobs in the United States, they actually increase costs for many U.S. companies, he said.

Congress, since at least the 1930s, has passed various pieces of legislation aimed at giving preference in government contracts to products made in the United States.

The most famous recent example was the 2009 economic stimulus act that required projects to use iron, steel and manufactured goods made in the United States unless it increased costs more than 25 percent or no U.S. product was available.

Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, is concerned about proposals in Congress to include similar provisions in new infrastructure project legislation, Fast said.

"That's why we've made efforts to try to secure an outcome within TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) that ... allows our businesses to take advantage of trade liberalization even in the area of government procurement," Fast said.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a proposed regional free trade agreement among the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei that negotiators hope to conclude this year.

Another Canadian priority in those talks are "temporary entry" provisions that would make it easier for Canadian professionals to work in the United States, Fast said.

Both Canada and Mexico jumped into the TPP negotiations last year, after other countries had finished 14 rounds.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is widely expected to announce on Friday Japan's interest in joining the talks, something that country has been deliberating almost since the negotiations began in March 2010.

It would be up to the current TPP members to decide whether to allow Japan into the talks and potentially endanger the already challenging goal of finishing in 2013

BALI MEETING

"If, in fact, Japan is invited to join the negotiations, that would add another level of complexity. But it would still remain our goal ... to complete these negotiations before the end of this year," Fast said.

He also did not rule out the possibility the deal could be completed by October, when all the TPP leaders will be in Bali for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting.

"The objectives, if we're able to achieve them, are important enough that we make every effort to get this agreement completed sooner rather than later," Fast said.

Some have portrayed the negotiations as an attempt by the United States and the other TPP members to economically "contain" China, whose rapid growth over the past few decades has had profound impact on world trade.

Fast, in separate remarks at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, denied that charge, but said it "would be problematic" to incorporate China into the agreement until it shows much more willingness to remove both its tariff and non-tariff barriers that encumber trade.

Meanwhile, Canada hopes to wrap up trade talks with the European Union this year. That comes just as the United States is getting ready to launch its own free trade negotiations with the 27-nation economic bloc.

That has led to speculation the efforts could eventually be merged into a gigantic transatlantic pact between the EU and the three North American Free Trade Agreement partners - Canada, Mexico and the United States.

"I've been very clear that it's premature to consider whether that will even be an option. Right now, Canada is focused on its own negotiations with the EU and we expect an ambitious outcome," Fast said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Vicki Allen)

View the original article here

POPE LIVE: New pope chosen, glee in Latin America

"Pope Live" follows the choice of the new pope as seen by journalists from The Associated Press around the world. It will be updated throughout the day with breaking news and other items of interest.

___

WINNING OVER ROMANS

Before they even saw his face, Pope Francis had already won over the Roman masses.

The announcement that he would be known by the same name as St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of Italy, sent the crowd into ecstasy.

He did even better with his first words, when Francis said the cardinals had reached to the "end of the earth" to find the bishop of Rome — recalling the beloved Pope John Paul II, a Polish cardinal who told his first crowd in 1978 that cardinals had called him "from a far country."

The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is the son of an Italian immigrant and his Italian is only lightly accented.

— Victor L. Simpson

___

ONE CATHOLIC'S THOUGHTS

After Francis was chosen as pope, AP's Stacey Plaisance caught up with Robert Stanley, a Catholic native of Chicago and a freshman at the University of Notre Dame. Stanley is enjoying his first trip to New Orleans and was eating lunch at a cafe near St. Patrick's Church downtown when the news broke.

Here's some of his reaction:

— "It's good for the Church. I was worried we'd have another Italian pope. Italy controls so much of the Church. They don't need to control the papacy too."

— "In South America, they are extremely dedicated in a way you don't see in the U.S., Italy or in France. They have pilgrimages where they literally crawl for miles. They are very dedicated, devout and pious. "

—"It's a new face, and I feel like he will have a greater appreciation for the problems of the developing world, in places like Africa, India and South America. It's bigger-picture issues, and that's the purpose of the Church, to help the naked, the hungry, those most in need."

— Stacey Plaisance — https://twitter.com/splaisance

___

QUICKQUOTE: 'COMMON GOALS'

"We share many common goals — from the promotion of peace, social justice and human rights, to the eradication of poverty and hunger — all core elements of sustainable development." — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

___

A NAME WITH CACHET

"Francis" is a name that carries a lot of cachet in Italy.

St. Francis of Assisi is one of Italy's patron saints. The Umbrian hill town of Assisi, where the saint lived a humble life of poverty, is one of Italy's major draws for pilgrims and other tourists. It is also associated with world peace movements.

St. Francis Xavier is another noted evangelist and a prominent Jesuit missionary. The new Pope Francis is one of the Jesuit order's most prominent members.

— Frances D'Emilio — Twitter — http://twitter.com/fdemilio

___

ONE OF THE FAMILY

In Cuba, parish priest Gregorio Alvarez says he believes Pope Francis' background could lead the Roman Catholic Church to focus more on the ills afflicting humanity, and less on internal issues.

"One hopes that the church will be closer to the problems of humankind and not only the problems of the church," Alvarez says.

"Being Latin American gives him an advantage — he understands the problems of poverty, of violence, of manipulation of the masses," he says. "All that gives him experience for the job. ... He's one of the family."

— Anne-Marie Garcia — Twitter http://twitter.com/AnneMarie279

___

RIGHT FOR THE JOB?

Tess Ernest, a volunteer at the Saint Francis Xavier church in El Paso, Texas, says Pope Francis's background will help him undertake the task before him.

"Jesuits are missionaries and educators but also very good administrators and that is what the Church needs now," she says.

A Jesuit might be the right man for the job "after all that has happened in the Church."

___

MESSI AND POPE

In Miami's Little Buenos Aires, Argentines broke out into cheers and applause as the new pope was announced.

"Long live Argentina!" some shouted. "God is Argentina!" cried others.

"We have Messi and we have the pope now," says Gabriela Pisquariello, an owner of the Buenos Aires Bakery & Cafe, referring to star Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi.

— Christine Armario — Twitter http://twitter.com/cearmario

___

PAPAL DRAMA

Pope Francis' transition will be much smoother than others in the pontificate's bumpy two-millennium history.

— In 897, Pope Stephen VI hated his deceased predecessor, Pope Formosus, so much he had his minions dig up his corpse. The new pope then held a mock trial for the old one, stripped the corpse of its vestments, cut off the two fingers that bestowed papal blessings and threw the body into the Tiber — before he himself was strangled to death.

— Pope Sergius III in the 10th century seized the papacy through armed force, and he had his imprisoned predecessor, Pope Leo V, strangled.

— Alexander VI won the papacy just before the 16th-century Protestant Reformation by bribing cardinals and promising lucrative jobs. The cardinals who elected his successor included his illegitimate son.

___

JUST FRANCIS

The Vatican says the new pope's official name is Pope Francis, without a Roman numeral.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, sought to clear up any possible confusion, noting that Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who announced the name to the world, said simply "Francis." It is also listed that way in the first Vatican bulletin on the new pope.

"It will become Francis I after we have a Francis II," Lombardi quipped.

___

SEASONED PASTOR

In choosing a 76-year-old pope, the cardinals clearly decided that they didn't need a vigorous, young pope who would reign for decades but rather a seasoned, popular and humble pastor who would draw followers to the faith.

— Nicole Winfield — Twitter http://twitter.com/nwinfield

___

SPEECHLESS IN PUERTO RICO

At the St. Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto Rico, church secretary Antonia Veloz exchanged jubilant high-fives with Brother Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan friar.

"This is something exciting," the 50-year-old Veloz says of the new Argentine pope. "I'm speechless."

— Danica Coto — Twitter https://twitter.com/apdcoto

___

SURPRISE IN THE CROWD

The flag-waving crowd at St. Peter's Square was cheering madly but many people admitted they didn't know anything about the new pope.

"I really don't know him, but it doesn't matter. We have a new pope," cried Marben Moralias from the Philippines. "God surprised us."

Federica Giusti, a 46-year-old housewife from Rome, drove to St. Peter's Square, getting there just in time to see the new pope emerge.

"I expected someone else but I'm happy anyway," she said, wiping away tears.

"I like him, I like him," Luisa Guerrera, a 45-year-old teacher from Rome, said after the pope started speaking. "I don't know him ... but he seems like a beautiful man."

— Karl Ritter — Twitter —http://twitter.com/karl_ritter

___

CHAVEZ INFLUENCE?

The man Hugo Chavez tapped to succeed him as president says the socialist leader's death may have influenced the choice of a pope from South America.

"We know that our commander reached those heights and he's face to face with Christ," says Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president on Friday.

"Something had an influence on the choosing of a South American pope. Some new hand came, and Christ said, 'South America's time has come,'" he says.

— Christopher Toothaker

___

INSIDE SCOOP

WikiLeaks long ago gave the inside scoop on the U.S. opinion of the new pope.

A report by the deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Argentina on then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was slapped onto the Internet along with roughly a quarter million other classified U.S. State Department cables.

"Observers have praised his humility: he has been reluctant to accept honors or hold high office and commutes to work on a bus," Brent Hardt says in a note before the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.

But Hardt notes that Bergoglio's membership in the Jesuit order could count against him.

"Some senior prelates, especially conservatives, are suspicious of a liberal streak in the order, perhaps most pronounced in the U.S., but also present elsewhere," Hardt writes.

— Raphael Satter — Twitter http://twitter.com/razhael

___

QUICKQUOTE: 'FACE OF GOD'

"On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I offer our warm wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis as he ascends to the Chair of Saint Peter and begins his papacy. As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than 2,000 years_that in each other we see the face of God."— President Barack Obama.

___

THE INSTALLATION MASS

The pope's installation mass — the first in his new role — will likely be a morning-long affair of pomp and prayer. VIPs will line the pews, with as many as some 200 foreign delegations expected.

The ceremony is traditionally held on a Sunday, when the city's streets can be closed to traffic near the Vatican.

—France D'Emilio — Twitter http://twitter.com/fdemilio

___

FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Francis, the name the new pope has chosen, is a much-beloved Italian saint who is identified with peace, poverty and a simple lifestyle.

Jorge Bergoglio is the first pontiff from Latin America and the first pontiff to adopt the name of Francis — the name of the rich young man from Assisi who renounced wealth and founded the Franciscan order of friars in 1290. The choice could foretell the pope's priorities in striving to bring a sense of serenity to the troubled church.

Choosing a name shared by one of Italy's patron saints also ties the new pope to Italy, the homeland of all popes of the last few centuries until 1978.

— Frances D'Emilio — Twitter —http://twitter.com/fdemilio

___

'RIDICULOUS'

"It's ridiculous, this pomp and circumstance and smoke from the chimney. It's so archaic." Jennifer Rogers, a New Orleans resident.

— Stacey Plaisance — http://twitter.com/splaisance

___

SECOND TRY?

Months after former Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, excerpts of an anonymous cardinal's diary were published. Among the unverifiable revelations: Argentine Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the German's closest rival in the voting.

Now he's Benedict's successor.

— Frances D'Emilio — Twitter https://twitter.com/fdemilio

___

JOY IN BUENOS AIRES

TV presenters in Argentina screamed on the air and cars in the street blared their horns at the news that an Argentine cardinal had been chosen as the new pope.

"It's incredible!" says Martha Ruiz, 60, who was weeping with emotion in Buenos Aires after learning that the cardinal she knew as Jorge Mario Bergoglio will now be Pope Francis.

She said she had been in many meetings with him. "He is a man who transmits great serenity," she says.

___

QUICKQUOTE: 'END OF THE EARTH'

"You know that the work of the conclave is to give a bishop to Rome. It seems as if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth. Thank you for the welcome." — Pope Francis, addressing the crowd in St. Peter's Square.

— Nicole Winfield — https://www.twitter.com/nwinfield

___

BETTORS WRONG

Bettors gambling on Pope Benedict's replacement were very much wrong.

Argentina's Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was a consensus 25-1 underdog to be selected at the conclave, gambling expert R.J. Bell of Pregame.com says.

At least 15 names were considered ahead of Bergoglio in 12 books accepting wagers on the papal election in Europe and online outside the United States. "Everyone was paying attention to the top dozen or so favorites," Bell says.

Now, at least one online bookmaker is letting bettors speculate on Pope Francis' future. Ireland-based Paddy Power is offering 16-1 odds that Catholics will see a third pope in 2013, and 5-2 odds that Pope Francis will eventually resign.

— Oskar Garcia — Twitter http://twitter.com/oskargarcia

___

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