Bolivia will announce to its peers at the Mercosur summit in Brasilia, later this week that it is willing to adhere to the trade block as a full member, reported Amanda Dávila, Communications minister.
The Mercosur summit which meets this week, December 6/7 in Brasilia is scheduled to debate the incorporation of Ecuador and Bolivia to the regional block which earlier this year, after waiting since 2006 finally integrated Venezuela as full member.
Foreign minister David Choquehuanca argued that Bolivia can become a full member of Mercosur and continue with the Community of Andean Nations, CAN, and can’t be forced to abandon a block to join another.
Bolivia was formally invited to join Mercosur as a full member for which negotiations can begin in the coming summit December 7 in Brasilia. The invitation was made official by Mercosur High Commissioner Ivan Ramalho during a visit to La Paz where the met with Foreign minister David Choquehuanca and Economy and Planning ministers Luis Arce and Viviana Caro.
Bolivia asked visiting Oscar-winner Sean Penn Tuesday to help lobby for La Paz to regain a bit of Pacific coast, and escape the ranks of landlocked states. Evo Morales, the populist president of the arid nation high in the Andes, asked the US actor to help its campaign to press Chile to overhaul treaties that ended a 19th-century war that cost Bolivia its coast and gave the land to Chile.
Bolivia returned on Monday to global credit markets for the first time in almost a century with the launch of 500 million worth of 10-year bonds, reflecting investors' confidence.
By Jimmy Burns(*) - The colonial church of San Francisco in La Paz, founded in 1548, is a beautifully textured mixture of Christian imagery and Indian mythology. The facade and ceiling mixes in saints, Christs and Virgins with tropical birds, reptiles, and sweet corn.
Bolivia will begin the coming year formal talks for full membership of Mercosur, for which it has the support from Uruguay, said diplomatic sources from both countries, Bolivian Deputy Foreign minister Juan Carlos Alurralde met with his Uruguayan counterpart Roberto Conde in the framework of the “Bolivia-Uruguay coordination and consultation mechanism” sixth meeting in La Paz.
Brazilian Armed Forces began this week a major deployment along the borders of Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia involving 9.000 troops from the three services with the purpose of testing border security against smugglers mainly of arms and drugs and organized crime, said the Ministry of Defence.
Confirming the growing trend in several South American countries, Bolivia expropriated a silver and indium mine operated by a local unit of Canadian firm South American Silver, a move criticized by Ottawa and likely to scare off foreign investors.