Manuela Picq reports for Intercontinental Cry: The bolivian lowlands have been burning for over a month. Over 4 million hectares of biodiverse forests has already burned to ash–an area larger than Switzerland. Uncontrolled, the fires continue to spread across protected areas and Indigenous territories, provoking an incommensurable loss of life. The tragedy is increasingly referred to as…
Tag: corruption in public office
Bolivia Is Burning. Who Will Stop Its Fires?
Manuela Lavinas reports for The New York Times: Ms. Lavinas Picq is a specialist in indigenous politics and Latin America. President Evo Morales must issue a national disaster declaration to control the fires and avoid further loss of life. Fires have been ravaging the Bolivian lowlands for over a month. Nearly ten million acres have already burned,…
Economic and geopolitical interests behind the fire in Chiquitania
El Diario reports: Congresswoman Jimena Costa The MAS Senator candidate Rogelio Mayta warns “political opportunism” in opponents of the disaster in eastern Bolivia So far in the last months, at least 3.3 million hectares burned in the Chiquitania were counted, an accident that, in the opinion of the deputy of the Democratic Unit (UD), Jimena…
El Alto shares Evo Morales’s indigenous identity, not his socialism
The Economist reports: High and mighty The surprising liberalism of Bolivia’s “Aymara capital” El alto hovers over La Paz, Bolivia’s administrative capital, like the blade of a guillotine. In 1781 Tupac Katari, an indigenous leader, laid siege to Spanish La Paz 500 metres (1,600 feet) below. In the early 2000s protests by alteños forced out of office two…
UMSA declares the Chepete-Bala project unfeasible
El Diario reports: Study warns of environmental risk The document indicates that the construction of the hydroelectric plant will cause a serious impact on the populations of the area, such as Rurrenabaque and San Buenaventura According to ENDE, the Bala project would guarantee energy sovereignty for our country. Meanwhile, Waldo Albarracín says the consultancy study…
Porvenir, without future
Pagina Siete reports, photo from the internet: It has been 11 years since the violent and dark events of the Porvenir town were raised and Pando’s former Prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, remains deprived of his freedom. Until 2013 he was imprisoned in jail, and since then, for health reasons, remains in house arrest. The events of…
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