BUSH PARAGUAY LAND DEAL RUMOR UPDATE

TOM PHILLIPS, GUARDIAN - Meeting the new couple next door can be an
anxious business for even the most relaxed home owner. Will they be
international drug traffickers? Have they got noisy kids with a penchant
for electronic music? As worries go, however, having the US president
move in next door must come fairly low on the list.

Unless of course you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe
reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre
ranch in your neck of the woods.

The rumors, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban
news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy
theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush's supposed
interest in the "chaco", a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay's north,
might be.

Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the
Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the
Paraguayans.

Rumors of Mr Bush's supposed forays into South American real estate
surfaced during a recent 10-day visit to the country by his daughter
Jenna Bush. Little is known about her trip to Paraguay. . . Reports in
sections of the Paraguayan media suggested she was sent on a family
"mission" to tie up the land purchase in the "chaco".

Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where
Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news
agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de
Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia. He was, however, unable
to prove this, he added.

Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush was in
Paraguay to "visit the land acquired by her father - relatively close to
the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves".

The US presence in Paraguay has been under scrutiny since May 2005 when
the country's Congress agreed to allow 400 American marines to operate
there for 18 months in exchange for financial aid.

At the time many viewed the arrival of troops as a sign that Washington
was trying to monitor US business interests in neighboring Bolivia,
after the election of Evo Morales, a leftwing leader who promised to
nationalize his country's natural gas industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928928,00.html

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