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Bolivian President Evo Morales swept to power on a populist platform of economic nationalism, heavy state intervention and a redistribution of wealth. This week Mr. Morales began acting on his shopworn socialist notions, seizing control of the country's oil and gas industry. It's the first step down a dangerous road that will further alienate Bolivia's business community and the provinces that hold the natural-gas reserves, scare off foreign investment in other sectors of the economy, damage relations with important trading partners (including an otherwise friendly government in Brazil, whose state oil company is the biggest player in Bolivian energy), and...

EVO Morales, the Bolivian president, last night ordered his soldiers to occupy the country's natural gas fields immediately and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they sign new contracts within six months giving the state majority control over petroleum production. Mr Morales said soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company would be sent to installations operated by foreign petroleum companies. Britain's BG Group and BP, as well as the US-based Exxon Mobil, are among those firms operating in Bolivia. "The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources,"...

PRESIDENT Morales’s giddy seizure of Bolivia’s gas fields will hurt ordinary Bolivians. The pity is that they may not hold it against him. By sending in the military on Monday to grab foreign-owned gas and oilfields, he is nakedly trying to shore up his own power. The presumption must be that he is pitching at the July 2 elections, which will pick an assembly to write a new constitution. That could hugely boost his own powers. His excited move, on the May 1 Labour Day holiday, is no doubt also inspired by the wave of left-wing populism which is sweeping...

Anyone who seriously believed that Latin America's various left-leaning leaders all thought alike will have been puzzled by the fallout from Bolivia's nationalisation of its vast natural gas fields. For the most anguished reaction to President Evo Morales' move has come from a country that might have been considered one of his staunch natural allies - Brazil. Less than four months ago, in the run-up to Mr Morales' inauguration, he and Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva were seen smiling for the cameras after discussing co-operation in the energy sector. Mr Morales came to Brasilia with a track record...

President Evo Morales nationalized Bolivia's natural gas industry and oil Monday, ordering foreign energy companies to send their supplies to a state company for sales and industrialization. Speaking at the San Alberto gas and oil field in the south of the country, Morales warned that companies that reject the decree will have to leave Bolivia within six months. The main oil companies operating in Bolivia are Brazil's Petrobras, the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF, British companies British Gas and British Petroleum and Total of France. "The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control...

The election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia in December prompted a rash of headlines declaring that Latin America has tilted to the left. Latin Americans are fed up, some say, with the "Washington Consensus" of free markets and fiscal discipline, which has failed to erase all their poverty and inequality, and as a result their governments are reverting to protectionism, state ownership of industries and unlimited social spending. But judging from the victory of my social-democratic National Liberation Party in Costa Rica's Feb. 5 elections, our country didn't get the message that all of Latin America is veering...

LA PAZ, Bolivia - President Evo Morales on Monday accused the U.S. government of trying to intimidate Bolivia by announcing it would cut some aid because of a disagreement over the appointment of a military commander. Bolivia's armed forces received a letter from U.S. officials saying the United States was cutting about half a million dollars in funding for Bolivia's anti-terrorist unit, Morales said in a speech. "We cannot accept threats and intimidation of our armed forces," Morales said. "It's not possible that external forces come to change commanders and ministers." Morales, who took office Jan. 22, called the U.S....

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatens President Bush and insults Condoleezza Rice and nobody in Washington pays any attention. Chávez meets with his ''brother,'' Evo Morales, or with his spiritual father, Fidel Castro, to plan the conquest of the planet or the galaxy beginning with Latin America (if they have enough Leninist fervor that day), and The New York Times publishes a four-line item on Page 48, next to a story about a guy who swears that he was kidnapped by Martians who forced him to drink whiskey all weekend long....

China's communist leaders are advising the new leftist government in Bolivia to avoid upsetting the United States, but at the same time have offered to replace shoulder-fired missiles that a CIA-led operation removed from the South American country last year, U.S. intelligence officials said... Before Mr. Morales' election in December, the CIA led an operation that secretly took 38 Chinese-made HN-5 surface-to-air missiles. The agency was helped by Bolivian security officials concerned that the weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists linked to the new ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS), Mr. Morales' party. The official said a Chinese missile...

Posted on Tue, Jan. 24, 2006 LATIN AMERICA Bolivian praises coca and CastroEvo Morales' first day as president of Bolivia included meeting leaders of Cuba and Venezuela and the swearing-in of a leftist Cabinet. BY JACK CHANG, Knight Ridder News Service LA PAZ, Bolivia - Newly inaugurated Bolivian President Evo Morales began his historic, five-year term Monday by meeting with leaders from Cuba and Venezuela, two of Latin America's harshest critics of U.S. policy, before swearing in a Cabinet largely made up of political radicals. His Cabinet choices included a former housekeeper turned union activist as justice minister and a...

HOJAS DE COCA PARA EL ENVIADO DE BUSH La hoja de coca selló la distensión que Evo Morales propicia con Washington. Thomas Shannon, enviado especial del presidente Bush y subsecretario de Estado para asuntos del Hemisferio Occidental, recibió con sonrisa complaciente las hojas de coca que le obsequió el presidente boliviano horas antes de su toma de posesión. Hace unas semanas, el vicepresidente Alvaro García Linera dijo que Morales pronto daría señales claras de cambio. No hubo que esperar mucho para que se advirtieran que algo nuevo empieza en Bolivia. Evo no sólo hizo que Shannon aceptara la cita en...

The Next Crisis By Oliver North January 13, 2006 Official Washington has the attention span of a fruit fly. A "crisis d'jour" momentarily captures the attention of the so-called mainstream media, politicians and government bureaucrats. For a few days -- occasionally for a few weeks -- the potentates on the Potomac will focus on "the problem," hold hearings, introduce some legislation, devise a way to spend more of our tax dollars, initiate an "investigation" -- and move on when they are "shocked," "stunned," and/or "surprised" by the next catastrophe or scandal. Like a pan of soup on a hot stove,...

As he took office yesterday, Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, railed against "radical neoliberalism" and hailed revolutionaries such as Che Guevara with an enthusiasm that confirms he has joined the growing legion of leaders tilting Latin America leftward. The new leaders in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay join the region's two veteran leftists and U.S.-bashers, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Later this year, leftists will have a shot at the top spot in Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua, where candidates include the Sandinista revolutionary dinosaur and former president, Daniel Ortega.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Leftist coca grower Evo Morales, a fierce critic of U.S. policies who helped topple two of his predecessors in deadly street uprisings against Bolivia's ruling elite, was inaugurated Sunday as the nation's first Indian president. The former llama herder and leader of Bolivia's coca growers union raised his fist in a leftist salute just before he swore to uphold the constitution during the ceremony in the ornate Legislative Palace Morales wept and bowed after he was presented with the yellow, red and green presidential sash -- the colors of the Bolivian flag. Outside, tens of...

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday accused the CIA of masterminding the theft of Bolivian surface-to-air missiles last year to prevent them from falling into the hands of leftist President-elect Evo Morales. Chavez, who often accuses Washington and the CIA of plots against his self-proclaimed socialist revolution, gave no evidence of his claim. Yet his allegations have moved the missile crisis to the center stage of growing suspicion among South America's resurgent left of Washington's intentions in the region. At the height of election campaigning, Morales, a former coca leaf farmer who is to take office...

January 22, 2006 Bolivia's Leader Solidifies Region's Leftward Tilt By JUAN FOREROand LARRY ROHTER TIWANAKU, Bolivia, Jan. 21 - When Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and former head of the Bolivian coca growers union, is sworn in as president on Sunday, it may be the hardest turn yet in South America's persistent left-leaning tilt, with the potential for big reverberations far beyond the borders of this landlocked Andean nation. While mostly vague on details, and recently moderating his tone, Mr. Morales promises to transform Bolivia. He has said he would "depenalize" cultivation of coca, the prime ingredient for cocaine,...

(AP) In the ancient temple of a lost civilization far from the capital, Evo Morales will ask Andean gods for help and guidance Saturday on the eve of his inauguration as Bolivia's first Indian president. Tens of thousands of people are expected to converge on the archaeological remains of the Tiawanacu civilization that flourished around 5,000 B.C. near the shores of Lake Titicaca, 40 miles outside of La Paz. There, Morales, a U.S. critic

Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales, the South American country’s first indigenous leader, visited South Africa last week seeking advice on racial reconciliation and solidarity with his plans to place his country’s vast gas reserves under public ownership and nationalize social services.Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist president-elect, ended a global tour this week, returning to South America after visiting Venezuela, China, and Europe, and stopping in South Africa where he discussed economic and political transformation and post-conflict reconciliation. Morales, who will become Bolivia’s first indigenous president after winning a landslide victory on 18 December, left South Africa disappointed only that he had not...

Bolivian President-elect to travel to Iran Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzzi. FARS, the regime-run news agency reports that the president-elect of Bolivia, Evo Morales, plans to continue his trip around the world by visiting several other countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. On Wednesday, Carlos Villegas, an economic adviser to Morales, in an interview in Beijing said: "The president-elect of Bolivia has decided to also visit India and Iran in order to further strengthen present ties." READ MORE In response to a question regarding the possible reaction of Washington to Morales' trip to Tehran, Villegas said:...

PRETORIA, South Africa - Bolivia's leftist President-elect Evo Morales extended a conciliatory hand to the United States on Wednesday, saying he forgives past humiliations and welcomes dialogue even as he believes U.S. officials may be plotting against him. Bolivia's first elected Indian leader criticized Mexican President Vicente Fox, telling The Associated Press in an interview that Fox was hostile toward him and all indigenous peoples in the Americas, including those of Mexico. Morales said he believes claims by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that the United States is plotting to overthrow Morales, but welcomes reports that U.S. officials are interested in...

While on a visit to Beijing, Bolivia's President-elect, Evo Morales, has invited China to help develop his country's energy sector. One of Mr Morales' economic advisers said China could be interested in converting Bolivia's natural gas into environmentally friendly diesel. Mr Morales will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday. Correspondents say his left-wing stance and anti-US speeches may have already won him support in Beijing. "For the government of President Morales, hydrocarbons is a fundamental topic, in particular the industrialisation of natural gas," Carlos Villegas, an economic adviser to Mr Morales, said in Beijing. "He invited the Chinese government,...

Morales signals growing ties with Venezuelan leader as well as Castro CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales, fresh from a visit with Fidel Castro, launched a world tour Tuesday by joining with Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez in a denunciation of free-market economics — a sign of the growing relationship among the three leftist leaders. Notably, the tour includes stops in Spain, France, Belgium, South Africa, China and Brazil — but not Washington. Morales' spokesman says he was not invited.Arriving in Caracas aboard a Cuban jetliner, Morales said he and Chávez were uniting in a "fight against neoliberalism and...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Praising Fidel Castro as a model, Bolivia's president-elect arrived Monday in Venezuela for a meeting with leftist leader Hugo Chavez, who said the nationalization of Bolivia's oil and natural gas was high on the agenda. ADVERTISEMENT Evo Morales arrived in Caracas aboard a Cuban jet and said he and Chavez were uniting in a "fight against neoliberalism and imperialism." "We are here to resolve social problems, economic problems," said Morales, an Aymara Indian coca farmer who has pledged to renegotiate international contracts to extract his country's vast natural gas reserves — the second-largest in South America after...

Bolivia's president-elect Evo Morales is due to arrive in Cuba for his first foreign trip since his sweeping election victory earlier this month. Mr Morales, who on 22 January will become Bolivia's first indigenous president, is due to hold talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Mr Castro is sending a jet to collect Mr Morales and about 60 supporters. Correspondents say the meeting is sure to be marked by anti-US rhetoric and calls for Latin American unity. An official Cuban government statement said Mr Morales' visit was "in keeping with the historic and profound relations of brotherhood and solidarity between...

HAVANA - Bolivia's socialist president-elect got a greeting reserved for heads of state when he arrived in communist Cuba on Friday: a red carpet, a military band and a smiling Fidel Castro. Stepping off the Cuban plane sent to pick him up in Bolivia, Evo Morales said his trip to the Caribbean island was "a gesture of friendship to the Cuban people." Castro embraced Morales, who has visited the island in the past as one of Latin America's leading protest organizers. The Cuban government has welcomed the election of the nationalist Indian activist as an important triumph over U.S. influence...

ETERAZAMA, Bolivia - After striking a conciliatory tone with business leaders the night before, President-elect Evo Morales resumed his anti-U.S. rhetoric at a party with coca farmers.Partying until dawn on Thursday with the coca growers who helped him win Bolivia's presidential elections, Evo Morales had the audience cheering with some anti-U.S. rhetoric. ''We are winning the green battle: the coca leaf is beating the North American dollar,'' said Morales, who leaves today for Cuba, the first stop in a world tour before his inauguration Jan. 22. Morales also won applause the night before with a strikingly different message to Bolivia's...

Evo Morales has fallen foul of a “bad taste joke” by a Catholic radio station joker who posed as the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero. The voice imitator telephoned Evo Morales to congratulate him for “joining the Cuban-Venezuelan axis” and asked him to make Spain his first international destination as president of Bolivia. The journalist involved in the hoax is said to be an anti-socialist activist very critical of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and the government of Rodriguez Zapatero. Erick Torrico, chairman of the Area of Communication and Journalism for the Andean University Simon Bolivar has called the action...

LA PAZ, Bolivia - President-elect Evo Morales has tried to gain crucial support from Bolivia's powerful business and civic leaders with a conciliatory meeting calculated to overcome widespread fears about the fiery leftist's economic policies. ADVERTISEMENT The Aymara Indian who rose to prominence as a coca-growing activist has been viewed with great suspicion by the Bolivian elite, but they applauded Tuesday night after Morales said his government would create a stable, legal and economic environment to attract investment and create jobs. "I do not want to harm anybody. I do not want to expropriate or confiscate any assets," Morales told...

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivia's president-elect said he will meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro during his first trip abroad since winning the Bolivian presidential elections this month.President-elect Evo Morales announced that he will travel Friday to Cuba as the first stop in a world tour that includes visits to Europe, China, South Africa and Brazil before he assumes office Jan. 22. ''We have a lot of invitations from governments, from presidents,'' Morales said Tuesday, adding that he was ''very impressed, very happy'' with the calls he received from leaders of governments and international organizations, including the United Nations.Morales said...

It didn't take long for the newly elected Bolivian President to intensify his verbal attacks against the United States. But the new Bolivian leader, an avowed Socialist and friend of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba, is going even further than rhetoric. He's threatening to take action against the US. President Evo Morales, according to a news story in the Washington Times, leveled allegations at the United States that its advisors secretly removed Chinese-made anti-aircraft missiles from Bolivia. US military and law enforcement personnel serve as advisors to the Bolivians in their drug control activities and...

Bolivia's incoming President Evo Morales could easily become the nightmare for the United States that he boasted about becoming on the campaign trail. He supports the growing of coca, the raw material for cocaine, is an ally of a prominent anti-U.S. firebrand, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and wants to nationalize Bolivia's oil sector. He will undoubtedly do everything in his power to counter U.S. economic and geopolitical interests in Latin America. Interestingly enough, the electoral landslide that will be bringing Mr. Morales to power was unwittingly aided by the architects of U.S. drug policy in Latin America. While it is...

Latin America: It's reasonable to cringe about the election of Bolivia's new president, anti-U.S. leftist Evo Morales. But amid fears of another Castro-ite in the hemisphere, this may not be as bad as it looks. Morales has been the troublemaker responsible for most of the turmoil in Bolivia that has rattled the hemisphere since 2003. The country has had four presidents in three years, and Morales is about to become No. 5. He ran for office on an anti-U.S. platform, vowing to be Washington's "worst nightmare." He openly consorted with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, who did their part to...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The leftist winner of Bolivia's presidential election, Evo Morales, was quoted on Tuesday as calling President George W. Bush a "terrorist", but a spokesman in La Paz said the remark must have been mistranslated. Morales spoke in Spanish to Arabic satellite television station Al Jazeera, which dubbed his comments into Arabic."The only terrorist in this world that I know of is Bush. His military intervention, such as the one in Iraq, that is state terrorism," Al Jazeera quoted him as saying."There is a difference between people fighting for a cause and what terrorists do," Morales was quoted...

Habana, Dec 20 - Evo Morales, who gained victory in Bolivia's presidential election, praised President Fidel Castro in an interview with government television broadcast Monday. "I want to tell you that this year I dreamt of joining the anti-imperialist struggle of Fidel and the Cuban people," he said in a message to the Cuban people. "Now I have the opportunity to be with him in this struggle, in search of peace with social justice," he said. Morales praised the resilence of Cuban in resisting the decades-old US trade embargo against the island. "I hope the government of the United States...

Evo Morales, the winner of Bolivia's presidential election, branded U.S. President George W. Bush a "terrorist", in an interview with Arabic satellite television on Tuesday. "The only terrorist in this world that I know of is Bush. His military intervention, such as the one in Iraq, that is state terrorism," he told Al Jazeera television. The leftist won slightly more than half the votes cast in Bolivia's election on Sunday and is set to become the country's first indigenous president. "There is a difference between people fighting for a cause and what terrorists do," he said in comments, which were...

Bolivia’s democratic gains are in danger. During the last four years, divisive regional, ethnic, and economic antagonisms have challenged the country’s democratic institutions almost daily. Increasingly, demands from various groups -- ranging from the secessionists of the wealthy Santa Cruz region to peasant and Indian groups -- have resulted in violent street demonstrations. On two occasions so far, these have brought down elected presidents. The current leader has been under constant threat of removal. On December 18, however, Bolivians will vote for a new president and Congress, changes that some hope will bring stability to a political system historically characterized...

As you probably already know from the dramatic coverage of the news media, another left-wing thug became the new president of a South American country. This same thug may also be the downfall of Bolivia, as well. Evo Morales, a radical socialist and a coca farmer is another tough guy leader who's getting some favorable press in the United States thanks to our own left-wing news media. His verbal attacks on President George W. Bush make American news reporters almost giddy with delight. It brings to mind the axiom: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Evo Morales was...

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Socialist Evo Morales appears assured of becoming Bolivia's next president, according to unofficial results Monday, an outcome that would solidify South America's shift toward the political left. Morales, who has promised to end a U.S.-backed crusade to eliminate coca, the crop used to make cocaine, may have won a clear majority in Sunday's vote, which would avoid having Bolivia's congress choose among the top two vote-getters in January. His closest challenger among seven other candidates received only about 30 percent, independent counts showed.

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — Evo Morales, the socialist coca farmer who would be Bolivia's first Indian president, appeared poised to join the ranks of like-minded leaders who have pushed Latin America's democracies to the left in recent years. With exit polls running strongly in his favor, Morales took an early congratulatory phone call from Venezuela's belligerently anti-American president Hugo Chavez. At a party at Morales' home in Cochabamba, his supporters toasted as the candidate announced that Chavez planned to contact Cuba's Fidel Castro. Said Morales of Chavez: "He's going to tell Fidel the good news" _ eliciting laughs from those nearby....

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivia's Socialist presidential candidate Evo Morales, who has promised to become Washington's "nightmare," held an unexpectedly strong lead over his conservative rival in Sunday's election, according to two independent exit polls. The wide margin means Morales, a coca farmer who has said he will end a U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating the crop used to make cocaine, will likely be declared president in January. "If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome," Morales said after voting, holding a news conference where piles of coca leaves were spread atop a Bolivian flag. "But no to a relationship of submission."...

CARACOLLO, Bolivia - As a little boy in Bolivia's bleak highlands, Evo Morales used to run behind buses to pick up the orange skins and banana peels passengers threw out the windows. Sometimes, he says, it was all he had to eat. Now, holding the lead ahead of Sunday's presidential election, he's threatening to be "a nightmare for the government of the United States." ADVERTISEMENT It's not hard to see why. The 46-year-old candidate is a staunch leftist who counts Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez among his close friends. Moreover, he's a coca farmer, promising to reverse the...

The forces of Latin American populism are arrayed behind Evo Morales, the former coca grower who toppled two Presidents of Bolivia through violent street action and promises a nationalist revolution if he wins the elections on December 18th. Although he is ahead in the polls, a parliamentary vote will decide who the next President is if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the ballots. But even if Morales does not, the next President, possibly center-right candidate Jorge Quiroga, will be at the mercy of Morales' movement. Unfortunately, Morales is not a character in a Romantic novel by Chateubriand,...

Mar del Plata, Argentina, Nov 4 (EFE).- A Nobel laureate and a leftist Bolivian presidential candidate - but not, as had been promised, an Argentine soccer icon - led a march of thousands of anti-U.S. protesters through the streets of this seaside resort city Friday, hours before the inauguration of the Summit of the Americas. Retired athlete Diego Maradona, who had vowed to lead the demonstration to "repudiate" the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush, was in town but did not join the vanguard of the marchers. The explanation provided was that the former captain of the national soccer...

Presidential candidate and Indian leader Evo Morales said Tuesday night that if elected president he will reject the U.S. government's policy on eradicating much of the country's coca leaf crop, which is the primary ingredient of cocaine. Morales also pledged to launch an international campaign to legalize the coca leaf. During a campaign stop in the city of Sucre, Morales said that United States government's policies have the sole objective of "eliminating coca" and "tormenting the cocaleros," the people who grow coca. Currently, the Bolivian government permits the cultivation of 29,600 acres (11,980 hectares) of coca leaf for traditional uses....

Beginning his presidential bid last month, center-right front-runner Jorge Quiroga accused MAS leader Evo Morales of being an "agent for Venezuela's brazen interference in the internal affairs of Bolivia." Mr. Quiroga charged that Mr. Chavez and Mr. Castro had a "regional plan" to "destabilize" South America. Mr. Morales lashed back by accusing Mr. Quiroga of "following orders from [President] Bush." Charges of Venezuelan interference are based in part on a meeting last month in Caracas between Mr. Morales and Mr. Chavez. The talks also were attended by Felipe Quispe, the extremist head of the Pachakutec Indigenous Movement (MIP). While MAS...

WASHINGTON - Cuba and Venezuela are trying to install leftist governments throughout Latin America and are closest to achieving their objective in Bolivia, a Defense Department official said Tuesday. Roger Pardo-Maurer, a deputy assistant secretary who specializes in Western Hemisphere issues, said Bolivia has become the main target of the two leftist Caribbean countries because revolutionary conditions exist there. "There is no question" that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "providing money and moral support" for opposition forces in Bolivia, who are led by a populist congressman, Evo Morales. While Chavez provides the resources for the Bolivian opposition, Cuban President Fidel...

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- A growing indigenous movement has helped topple successive governments in Bolivia and Ecuador and, angered by the destruction of Andean coca crops, now threatens the stability of other countries where Indians are in the majority. Drawing support from European leftists and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the long-marginalized Indians are tasting political influence for the first time since the Spanish conquest and beginning to wrest power from South America's white elites. The leader of Bolivia's Movement to Socialism party (MAS), Evo Morales, talks about "uniting Latin America's 135 Indian nations to expel the white invasion, which began...

My goddaughter's parents built a restaurant on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca. I say "built" rather than "opened" because they made the bricks themselves, dried them in the sun, and stacked them into a two-room cafe. The sightseeing boats come in several times a day from Copacabana, full of earnest backpackers eager to see the Island's Aymara ruins. This is high season for tourists. It is also, in Bolivia, high season for politics. Politics in Bolivia all too often involve dynamite (it's a dollar a stick or so in the mining town of Potosi), tear gas, hunger...

Sicuani, a market town of about 30,000 people 150km south-east of the tourist resort of Cusco, is rarely mentioned during the day-to-day circus of Peruvian politics. In a sense, that makes it a perfect setting for a revolution. Tomorrow the town is to host the launch of the Peruvian version of Bolivia's Movement to Socialism (MAS), the radical anti-globalisation party headed by Evo Morales, the indigenous coca-growers' leader whose militant rhetoric sends shivers down the spines of many in Washington. Mr Morales will be guest of honour. Poor, and sited about 3,600m above sea level, Sicuani may be a backwater...

...Russian news services are reporting that both U.S. and Colombian military sources have confirmed that Venezuela's defense ministry has purchased several advanced MiG-29 fighters and that that U.S. sources have detected them on training missions. ..."Venezuela plans to spend approximately $5 billion on acquisition of Russian fighters including purchase of armament, airdrome and airborne equipment." ...UPI: "letters addressed last year to the director general of Russian Aeronautic Corp., Nicolai F. Nikitin, the Venezuelan air force requested the 'latest version' of the MiG-29 SMT equipped with high-tech weaponry, including radar-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs." UPI: "The plane must have the capacity...