The 8th ALBA Summit will conclude Monday in this capital after intensive debates about achievements and challenges of this mechanism, and world current issue, like the crisis in Honduras, military bases, and climate change.

Cuban President Raul Castro termed the meeting a transcendental event for the life of our peoples, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

Heads of States and Governments, foreign ministers and top-level representatives of nine member countries reviewed programs carried out in sectors like health, education, energy, trade, food, mining, industry and finances.

ALBA countries will implement as of January 1 the Unique System for Regional Equalization (SUCRE). This will avoid the use of US dollar in trade operations among partners.

The summit also debated important regional and international current issues, like the situation unleashed in Honduras, the economic and financial crisis, and problems generated as of environmental pollution.

The bloc's countries condemned the coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, and expressed their ignorance to the November 29 illegitimate elections by the de facto regime.

Another point of the summit was the hegemonic offensive carried out by the US government in Latin America, and the threat the installation of military bases in Colombia represents for the region.

The bloc's countries will also adopt a common stance with a view to the Copenhagen meeting on climate change.

On occasion of the first five years of the Alliance, the ALBA House was opened at the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado, a space for the artistic and cultural promotion of nations belonging to this mechanism.

The organization is comprised of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Honduras, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda.