Bolivia, Latin America: Week in Review
Bolivia: Morales Accuses U.S. Of Inciting Indigenous Protests
August 22, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story— Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the United States Sunday of inciting a protest by indigenous protesters against a Brazilian-financed highway that would cut through an Amazon nature preserve. Morales, who in the past has had a strained relationship with the U.S., threatened to expel the U.S. Agency for International Development from the Andean nation for allegedly fomenting the unrest. However, critics of Morales said that the Bolivian leader is using the U.S. as a scapegoat to explain indigenous opposition to development projects and oil and gas exploration in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. In 2008, Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador and U.S. drug enforcement agents after Morales accused them of aiding his political opponents.
Read More From The Miami Herald.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A soccer match in northern Mexico was suspended after gunfire erupted outside the stadium, sending players and spectators running for cover.
- Authorities in the Mexican resort town of Acapulco found five decapitated bodies throughout the city over the weekend.
- Fifteen people were arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly smuggling prescription pills from the U.S. to Mexico.
- Facebook apologized to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for removing a post that was critical of President Obama’s immigration policies .
Caribbean
- Tropical Storm Irene grew over the weekend, prompting authorities to issue hurricane warnings for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
- A U.S. Navy hospital ship will suspend operations off the coast of Haiti because of Tropical Storm Irene.
- The Cuban government objected to Washington’s decision to keep it on the list of states that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
Central America
- Gunmen in Honduras killed a farm worker’s leader as he left a bank with about $10,000 in worker’s pay.
- Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is highlighting his belief in Christianity in an effort to be re-elected.
- Costa Rica appointed Daisy Corrales as the country’s new health minster over the weekend, who takes control of the nation’s healthcare system.
- A number of Mormon leaders from Utah visited El Salvador to meet with President Mauricio Funes.
- A global summit of African descendants held in Honduras this weekend demanded the U.N. and other world bodies hold permanent forums to improve their communities’ economic and social conditions.
Andes
- The Washington Post revealed Saturday that U.S. aid was used for illegal wiretapping and political smear campaigns against political opponents during the government of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe.
- Venezuelan Communication Minister Andres Izarra announced that a military helicopter that crashed last Wednesday has been pulled to the surface with four bodies inside. Five other bodies and a lone survivor were recovered earlier this week.
- Peruvian President Ollanta Humala appointed Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Vaca Minister of Culture, making her Peru’s first black cabinet member in the country’s history.
- Seventy-five tourists were ferried out of Cuzco, Peru on Sunday by a military plane after being stranded when their commercial airline was grounded.
Southern Cone
- A new report by Chile’s Valech Commission added the names of an additional 9,800 victims to the 2004 report listing the number of Chileans detained and tortured during the country’s 1973-1990 dictatorship.
- A helicopter operated on behalf of Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras crashed into the ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state on Saturday, killing at least three passengers.
- Google Street View is partnering with a nonprofit environmental organization to begin publishing aerial images of the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers in northwestern Brazil.
Image: kk+ @ Flickr.
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