El Gaviero

From The Nation.

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Bolivia bans circus animals.

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According to the ABI, the U.N. will begin the process of decriminalizing the chewing of coca leaves. Coca leaves have been listed as a Schedule I drug on the U.N.’s 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs–alongside cocaine and heroin–with certain exceptions, particularly as defined by the Convention’s Article 27:
The Parties may permit the use of [...]

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Two blogs should be visited regularly for analysis and reporting on the ongoing situation in Honduras: Honduran Campesino and Narco News’ The Field are both in country. Nice to see independent journalism counterbalancing the corrupt old system of elite-owned newspapers and the official propaganda.

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The BBC has a report on Bolivia’s Illimani–the majestic four-peaked mountain that towers over La Paz and El Alto–and the slow disappearance of its ice pack, on which farmers in the altiplano depend for irrigation and drinking water. The altiplano can be an unforgiving place. It’s cold at night, and by day the sun shines [...]

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The U.S. State Department revoked the diplomatic visas of four high-ranking Honduran coup-government officials, upping the ante in the Central American stalemate, according to an AP report. This comes after elected Honduran president Zelaya has made his HQ just across the Honduran border in Nicaragua–and after another anti-coup protester was tortured and murdered, during a [...]

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The Honduran circus continues, with president Zelaya dipping his toes over the border and retreating back to Nicaragua. Meanwhile, civil rights are being restricted and bodies are popping up. Mex Files has the update.

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Via the the Lunatic Llama, the U.N.’s “State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009—Bolivia” report, which provides a good overview of not only the indigenous situation in Bolivia, but a sketch of the current Bolivian political situation. Of interest:

62 percent of Bolivians consider themselves indigenous, yet only 17 percent of members of Congress [...]

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Bolivian authorities discovered and destroyed four cocaine factories, and 170 kilos of cocaine, in Oruro department, according to La Razon. Nevertheless, ATPDEA trade preferences between Bolivia and the United States, which are dependent on Bolivia’s drug-fighting strategy, are still suspended–even though Bolivia’s drug interdiction forces have been shutting down drug factories left and right. Now [...]

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Wha!? Bolivian president Evo Morales’s aunt was murdered and dismembered! Bina’s got a translation of a report that Rufina Morales was killed in June by two Bolivians and a Brazilian. The family’s lawyer is connecting it to the Evo-assassination plot earlier this year.
Via PoliBlog, the BBC reports that ousted Honduran president Zelaya says that “Nobody [...]

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