Actor and humanitarian Sean Penn called for the Dakar Rally to cancel its debut run in Bolivia unless an ailing American businessman being held under house arrest there is released. Penn, a friend of President Evo Morales has angered Bolivian authorities with his request.
Bolivia’s Lower House passed a bill this week which would allow President Evo Morales to run for a third mandate in next years’ elections. The bill passed in an 84 to 33 vote, following a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court — whose judges were appointed by Morales — saying the re-re-election bill does not violate Bolivia’s Constitution.
Bolivia has completed the presentation of its Mercosur incorporation protocol, which opens the way for the parliaments of the different member-countries to begin considering and ratifying her full membership. Once completed Bolivia becomes the sixth full member next to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
President Evo Morales expelled a US development agency from Bolivia, marking the latest confrontation between Washington and a bloc of populist governments in Latin America.
Populist Bolivian President Evo Morales will be allowed to seek re-election again next year, according to a Constitutional Court ruling that sparked opposition protests. Morales was elected in late 2005 and re-elected in 2009 after leading a push for a new constitution that allows only one re-election for a sitting president.
Landlocked Bolivia sued neighboring Chile on Wednesday in the Hague before the International Court of Justice as it pressed a longstanding claim to recover land lost in a 19th century war and thus regain access to the sea.<br />
Chile quickly responded that the issue was not negotiable.
Russia’s Gazprom will buy a 20% stake in Total SA’s gas fields in Bolivia. Total will retain 60% ownership in the fields, while a unit of Argentina’s Techint Group holds 20”, announced Bolivia’s Energy minister Juan Jose Sosa.
Falklands’ lawmaker Gavin Short regretted on Tuesday in Bolivia that the governments of South America take for granted the Argentine version of the conflict between Argentina and the UK over the Islands sovereignty without ever having listened to the other side.
President Evo Morales said on Thursday that Repsol and the other multinational companies operating in Bolivia should not fear nationalization since his government only appeals to that extreme when corporations think in ‘looting’ instead of investing.
Bolivia will again belong to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs after its bid to rejoin with a reservation that it does not accept the treaty’s requirement that “coca leaf chewing must be banned” was successful Friday. Opponents needed one-third of the 184 signatory countries to object, but fell far, far short despite objections by the US and the International Narcotics Control Board.