Your semi-regular Bolivia update. The governors from six of the nine departments (states) have cut all communications with the federal government. The six represent the economically strongest regions of the country. MAS, Morales political party, amended the rules of the Constituent Assembly to require a simple majority, instead of 2/3 majority, to amend the Constitution. […]
The excellent MABB tells us that Things are Getting Ugly in Bolivia. My native country is in the midst of rewriting the Consitution and it is turning into a divisive process. The main message is that the Constitutional Assembly is in serious crisis. There are calls from the separatists in Santa Cruz (la nacion camba)
Blue Screen of Death is "Anqas Toqu millay" – Filthy Blue Window is the best I could do. Microsoft releases language support for Quechua, one of the native languages spoken in Bolivia. Probably to less fanfare than they expected. "We congratulate Microsoft for having facilitated the use of computers in our own languages, but we
Talk about putting the cart before the horse! Bolivia’s Hyrdocarbons Ministry aanounced that the nationalization of oil and gas industries will be temporarily suspended. Seems the state company does not have the fund or operating capacity to take over production. Morale’s nationalization program could end up as nothing more than a populist stunt if YPFB
Sometimes, the things I post about have a strange way of intersecting. This past weekend, Bolivian president suffered a broken nose during a football match. Take note that while the BBC describes the game as "an indoor footbal match", based on the picture, it looks more like Futsal. Futsal is a small-sided (5 a side
On Sunday July 2, Bolivians went to the polls to elect representatives to a Constituent Assembly which will meet to rewrite the Boilvian constitution. MABB has collected reactions of the world press. There is a suspicion that the assembly will used by Evo Morales to strengthen his grip on power following Hugo Chavez. According to
Bolivian referendum and constituent assembly results Read More »
Latino assimilate quite well into American society, more so than the anti-immigration conservative right would have you believe. Tyler Cowen and Daniel M. Rothschild have a data-packed column in the Washington Post looking at this issue. Throughout the article, I couldn’t help but pick parts where I felt like they were writing about me. Most
An agrarian reform program redistributes 18,600 square miles of land to indigenous communities. Even private land that is not in "productive use" is subject to government seizure as part of the plan to redistribute one-fifth of Bolivia’s total land area. The current situation has the potential to increase civil strife and pit indigenous farmers squarely
The MASR today ltalks to Coach Nowak, Eskandarian, and Bryan Namoff about United’s season so far. As a fan, you have to be happy with the best start ever, and being in 2nd place this early should pay off later in the season, barring a devastating losing streak. They also discuss Moreno’s form, which after
DC United season assesment and thoughts on Jaime Moreno Read More »
In case you missed it, earlier this week, President Evo Morales nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas reserves sending soldiers in to secure the gas fields. He also gave an ultimatum to foreign investors to renegotiate the terms of their contracts and wants to audit their financial records. The government’s justification for the takeover is that the