Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he will urge President Barack Obama on Saturday to open talks with leftist governments in Venezuela and Cuba and make aid and development the focus of his Latin America policy. Lula wants the United States to move away from what he calls a clumsy approach to the region and instead focus on incentives to resolve economic and social problems. “What I want is for the United States to look at Latin America and South America with a friendly eye,” Lula said last week in Brasilia. “We are a democratic and peaceful continent, and the United States should look at production and development, not only drug trafficking and organized crime.”
