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Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela - Did Jimmy "I love dictators" Carter set the itinerary?

April 11, 2015: Castro gives Obama 'very emotional' apology - Obama not interested in battles before he was born"..President Obama declared diplomatic progress between the two nations a “turning point” for the region during his own remarks Saturday. He added that meeting Castro was a “historic occasion” for both countries.

“I’m not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born,” Obama said. “The Cold War’s been over for a long time.”

Obama and Castro will meet Saturday evening in a monumental encounter. American and Cuban leaders have not had so direct a dialogue in more than 50 years.

The pair displayed their newfound respect for one another by shaking hands at the summit late Friday evening. They also spoke on the phone Wednesday before traveling to Panama."...

Obama meets Venezuela's Maduro at time of high tensions"...... The U.S. government last month ordered sanctions against the seven officials, including the head of state intelligence service and the director of the national police force, saying they had committed acts of violence or abused human rights.

The sanctions included blocking or freezing their property and interests in the United States and denying them entry into the country.

The U.S. government also said Venezuela was a national security threat, a claim that drew criticism from several Latin American governments.

U.S. officials later tried to downplay the security threat designation, but the issue nonetheless hung over the weekend summit that was dominated by Obama's historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, Maduro's closest ally."

Jan 21, 2015: Russian Spy Ship's Arrival in Cuba Raises Eyebrows " The historic U.S.-Cuba talks are under way and they may have attracted a new addition to the Havana port.

The Russian spy ship Viktor Leonov CCB-175 parked there Tuesday, laden with high-tech software, radar and 30-millimeter cannon and anti-aircraft guns, replacing a cruise ship that had been there the day before.

Normally, the surveillance ship travels up and down the American Eastern Seaboard in international waters, with its radars pointed in the direction of the United States."...

March 24, 2015: Russian FM Lavrov visits Cuba, calls for end to US trade embargo "HAVANA – Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov has launched a tour of Latin America with a stop in Cuba, where he has called for an end to the U.S. embargo against the island nation...."

March 5, 2015: Colombians catch illegal arms on Chinese ship bound for Cuba "A Chinese cargo ship has been detained by Colombian authorities for illegally shipping a large amount of arms to Cuba.

The container ship, called the Da Dan Xia, is owned by the Chinese government-run shipping giant China Ocean Shipping Co. and was passing through Colombia on Saturday, en route to Cuba. Colombian authorities received a tip from an unidentified source and boarded the ship."....

April 11, 2015:China Ruins US Plans to Bring Venezuela to Its Knees "China is counterbalancing the US' efforts to bring Venezuela to its knees: Beijing will lend Caracas around $10 billion while the country teeters on the brink of bankruptcy."....

Jan 9, 2015: Despite US-Cuba Detente, China Forges Ahead in Latin America "On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over the opening ceremony of a new dialogue platform linking China and Latin America. The forum brings together China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a 33-member bloc made up of the South American, Central American, and Caribbean states. China and CELAC agreed to create a joint forum at last year’s CELAC meeting in Cuba, and the inaugural ministerial meeting opened in Beijing on January 8.

As this is the first-ever China-CELAC forum, the main item on the agenda is to put in place regulations — defining rules, setting up regular dialogues, and providing “a system guarantee” for implementing plans and political consensus. This first meeting is also expected to set the agenda for China-Latin America cooperation from 2015 to 2019."...

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Latin American leaders in Brazil (July 2014). - Image Credit: Flickr/ Gobierno de Chile