In birthing rooms, Bolivia sees way to cut maternal deaths (CSM)
By Sara Shahriari for The Christian Science Monitor. Link to original article, 18 July 2013 This article looks at new maternal health initiatives that aim to “improve maternal and child health by incentivizing childbirth with trained health professionals, be it in a hospital or at home”. One of these policies is to make Bolivian hospitals delivery rooms more like … Continue reading
The Roots of Indigenous Governance and Conflict
This is a guest post by Danny Hirschel-Burns. He studies at Swarthmore College and blogs at The Widening Lens. The MAS party (Movimiento al Socialismo, or Movement toward Socialism), which dominates Bolivia’s current government, originated in a mid-1990s confluence of indigenous organizations. In 2005 MAS won its first presidential election, with candidate Evo Morales elected to the … Continue reading
The Detention of Evo Morales: A Defining Moment For Latin America? (NACLA)
Emily Achtenberg, NACLA, Rebel Currents, Link to original article, 12 July 2013 As the international uproar continues over last week’s grounding of Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane in Europe, after US officials apparently suspected whistle-blower Edward Snowden of being on board, many questions remain unanswered about the United States’s role and motives. [Presidential jet grounded in Vienna. … Continue reading
Snowden, Evo and the Presidential Plane (BIF)
Bolivia Information Forum, Link to special July briefing Snowden, Evo and the Presidential Plane: a Massive Own-Goal The decision of four European countries – France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – to bar Bolivia’s presidential plane from entering their airspace on the evening of Tuesday, July 2 has caused deep offence, not just in Bolivia but throughout Latin America. … Continue reading
Gas, Mother Earth, and the Plurinational State of Bolivia (NACLA)
Gas, Mother Earth, and the Plurinational State: Vice-President García Linera Embodies Bolivia’s Contradictions Emily Achtenberg, NACLA, Rebel Currents, Link to original article, 21 June 2013 Lately, Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro García Linera has seemed to embody, in living form, the growing contradiction between his government’s international championship of environmental and indigenous rights, and its vigorous domestic pursuit of … Continue reading
Bolivia news bulletin (BIF)
Bolivia Information Forum, Link to June 2013 new bulletin 1. Strikes and blockades organised by trade unions in pension protest After several days of strikes, protests and negotiations, President Evo Morales has withstood heavy pressure from Bolivia’s union confederation, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), to raise pensions for miners and other sectors. The COB demanded an increase to … Continue reading
Coca toothpaste? Bolivia tries to drum up demand for ‘legal’ coca products (CSM)
By Sara Shahriari for The Christian Science Monitor. Link to original article, 3 June 2013 This article explores how the coca leaf is being used to make products like toothpaste, energy drinks and snacks. While coca is famous for being used to make cocaine it actually has many medicinal qualities and is a key part of indigenous culture. … Continue reading
Industrializing Bolivia’s Gas in Bolivia, Not Brazil (NACLA)
Emily Achtenberg, NACLA, Rebel Currents, Link to original article, 23 May 2013 On May 10, Bolivian President Evo Morales inaugurated the country’s first natural gas liquids separation plant in Rio Grande, Santa Cruz. The historic event, said Morales, marks a turning point in Bolivia’s hydrocarbons history and the start of a new era: Bolivia’s industrialization of gas. It’s also … Continue reading
Bolivia: USAID Out, Morales In For Re-Election Bid (NACLA)
Emily Achtenberg, NACLA, Rebel Currents, Link to original article, 11 May 2013 On May 1, President Evo Morales expelled USAID from Bolivia for allegedly fomenting divisions within the country’s social movements in order to destabilize his government. The announcement came just days after Bolivia’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that Morales can run for a third presidential term in … Continue reading
Bolivian child workers fight for their right to work
By Sara Shahriari for Deutsche Welle. Link to original article, 12 April 2013 Interviews with members of the Union of Child and Adolescent Workers of Bolivia (UNATsBO) reveal some of the reasons why children in Bolivia work and the kinds of conditions they have to work in. These children are fighting for their right to work because they need … Continue reading
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