by Pedro Servin
AP

ASUNCION, Par­guay (AP) — Neil Bush, younger brother of U.S. Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, called on Paraguay’s pres­i­dent as the guest of a busi­ness fed­er­a­tion founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

A pres­i­den­tial press office source, who spoke on con­di­tion of not being named, con­firmed the younger Bush met Pres­i­dent Nicanor Duarte on Thurs­day along with a del­e­ga­tion from the Uni­ver­sal Peace Fed­er­a­tion, a group asso­ci­ated with Moon.

Duarte him­self had no state­ment on the meeting.

Anto­nio Betan­court, a spokesman for the fed­er­a­tion, said that Bush vis­ited Duarte and later met with an oppo­si­tion con­gres­sional leader, Sen. Miguel Abdon Saguier, and that both expressed inter­est in the Bush fam­ily and dis­cussed local matters.

Betan­court said Bush later attended a lead­er­ship sem­i­nar spon­sored by the federation.

The federation’s Web site says it is try­ing to pro­mote peace in the Mid­dle East, South Asia and other regions, as well as propos­ing an 50-mile, $200 bil­lion tun­nel link­ing Siberia and Alaska.

A lead­ing Paraguayan news­pa­per, ABC Color, reported Fri­day that Bush spoke at the lead­er­ship sem­i­nar about instill­ing a “cul­ture of ser­vice” and bet­ter unit­ing indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions behind objec­tives that serve peace and the com­mon good.

It said the sem­i­nar, held at an Asun­cion hotel, was enti­tled “Toward a New Par­a­digm of Lead­er­ship and Gov­ern­ment in Times of World Crisis.”

The news­pa­per said other par­tic­i­pants included Jose Maria San­guinetti, the for­mer Uruguayan president.

Groups allied with Moon pub­lish a news­pa­per, oper­ate busi­nesses and have large land hold­ings in Paraguay, South America’s second-poorest country.