Bolivian President Evo Morales, empowered by his country’s new constitution, began redistributing land to indigenous peasants in the Chaco region—as local ranchers pledged to resist.
Bolivian President Evo Morales ate a coca leaf at the UN summit on drug policy in Vienna to press his demand that the crop be removed from the list of internationally prohibited drugs.
In the remote Peruvian village of Huanta, Ayacucho department, forensic workers are exhuming the remains of 49 buried in a mass grave and thought to be victims of an army massacre.
President Evo Morales expelled a US diplomat, accusing him of “coordinating contacts” in a conspiracy to infiltrate the state oil and gas company on behalf of the CIA.
President Hugo Chávez called Colombian Defense Minister Juan Santos a “threat to peace in South America” and pledged to hit back hard if Colombia made any military incursion into Venezuela.
Colombian para commander Hebert Veloza Garcia was extradited to the US—over the protests of rights groups who fear details of government collusion with the paras may never be revealed.
Meeting with members of indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups impacted by floods and displacement in Colombia, the top UN relief official called for stepped up aid for these communities.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez ordered the army to seize control of all rice processing plants in the country, citing the companies’ failure to adhere to price control regulations.
Venezuela and Bolivia condemned US State Department reports on human rights and narcotics that single out the two South American countries, saying Washington has no right to pass judgment.
Unidentified assailants threw an improvised explosive at a community center in La Florida district of Caracas in a pre-dawn attack. The attack comes on the heels of the ransacking of a Venezuelan synagogue.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe restricted the power of the DAS secret police agency to carry out wiretaps in the wake of the surveillance scandal, as his government petitions Washington for more military aid.
Colombian President Álvaro Uribe clashed with the country’s Prosecutor General over the head of state’s proposal to re-criminalize possession of personal quantities of drugs.
