Bolivia, Brazil, and the United States have signed a landmark anti-drug treaty that will allow outsiders to monitor coca destruction in Bolivia. John Creamer of the US Embassy in La Paz said, “This is a very important step in the fight against drugs.” Brazil’s ambassador Marcel Biato echoed his statements. Bolivia’s Government Minister, Wilfredo Chávez, [...]

Bolivia’s Minister of Planning, Viviana Caro said today that Brazilian company OAS will continue building segments I and III of the infamous Amazon highway that the Bolivian government had agreed not to build after a march by indigenous protestors. Now, just three months after President Evo Morales agreed to demands that the would not be [...]

Civic leaders in Tarija have called for a strike and blockade of international routes linking that department to border crossings to Paraguay and Argentina. Preliminary reports confirm that the international bridge at Bermejo, linking to Aguas Blancas in Argentina, is closed, and the capital city of Tarija is undergoing a general strike in the city [...]

The Bolivian government will install an industrial pant to produce mate–or tea–based on the coca leaf to be used by physicians in the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Germain Loza, the deputy minister of Coca and Integral Development, said that the project will produce mate from the dried leaves of the coca plant, which will [...]

On January 10th, the White House announced that current Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz will now serve as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council.  Ms. Munoz will coordinate the policy-making process and supervise the execution of domestic policy in the White House. Ms. Muñoz is the daughter of immigrants from Bolivia and was [...]

Intense rains have left streets and homes in outlying neighborhoods of Santa Cruz and Trinidad under water according to regional authroities. The Santa Cruz representative of Neighborhood Committees, Abad Lino, said that people are walking “with water up to their necks” because of the recent days of rain. Many poor neighborhoods have no sewers or [...]

The main group representing lowland and Amazonian indigenous peoples in Bolivia, CIDOB, has declared an emergency as the government-controlled legislature prepares to consider modifying the “Ley Corta” or Short Law passed to protest Isiboro Securé national park from a planned highway through it. Coca growers from Chaparé have marched to the capital, demanding that the [...]

Yesterday afternoon, a mass meeting of the inter-institutional committee of Yapacaní (cabildo) seeking the resignation of Yapacaní mayor David Carvajal was broken up violently by police who appear to have killed at least three people and wounded many more. After the violence Carvajal has resigned. Hundreds of protestors with rocks, sticks and fireworks faced off [...]

The legislative processes pushed by the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party in the assembly will not be as easily achieved as they were in the last two years (2010-11) of President Evo Morales’s second term, due to divisions in the party that will prevent it from a two-thirds majority in the congress: an anti-Moralas [...]

  Today roughly 400 coca growers including men, women and children from the four towns of La Asunta, Litoral, Río Cajones y Puerto Rico in the Sud Yungasregion of the  La Paz Department have expelled 20 soldiers from a nearby base where they were patrolling for illegal coca. Locals complain of illegal detentions and physical [...]