The governor of Bolivia’s Chonchocoro prison has been sacked after revelations that former military ruler Luis García Meza was being housed in luxury quarters at the facility.
The Bolivian Armed Forces announced the declassification of files from the years of military dictatorship. The files will be used to investigate the disappearance of opposition figures.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called for Internet controls and demanded that authorities crack down on an independent news website he accused of spreading false information.
Venezuela tested six training and light attack jets bought from China for defense and anti-drug flights in a deal that dodges an embargo banning sales of US weapons parts.
Following an “extraordinary assembly,” the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) called for an “uprising” to press demands for a “pluri-national state.”
The China-Peru FTA took effect, calling for phasing out tariffs on 90% of goods exchanged between the two nations. Peruvian minerals are critical to the pact.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court voted down the proposed referendum to allow President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term, calling the idea “unconstitutional in its entirety.”
The UN International Narcotics Control Board finds an 8% decrease in overall coca production in South America last year—but a 45% increase in Peru.
Indigenous peoples are once again caught in the middle as the Colombian army launches a major offensive against the FARC guerillas in the southern Andean department of Cauca.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced the creation of a new Campesino Militia, which will be under the command of the national Bolivarian Armed Forces (FAB).
Bolivian President Evo Morales appointed 18 judges ahead of the country’s judicial elections, calling the move “the beginning of the decolonization of the judiciary.”
Gubernatorial candidate José Pérez Restrepo in Colombia’s Guaviare department was wounded and three of his bodyguards killed when presumed FARC guerillas attacked his caravan.
