Infinite Unknown

FYI.

- Bolivian President Says “Almost Certain” Chavez was Poisoned (RIA Novosti, March 10, 2013):

CARACAS – Bolivian President Evo Morales said Saturday he was “almost certain” that “the empire” (the United States) had poisoned his political ally, late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, regional media reported.

President Chavez, who led Venezuela for 14 years, died Tuesday at the age of 58 after a two-year-long fight against cancer.

Continue reading »

Tags: Assassination, Bolivia, Evo Morales, Global News, Government, Hugo Chavez, Israel, Mossad, Politics, U.S.

- Bolivia nationalises Iberdrola electricity companies (Reuters, Dec 29, 2012):

Bolivia nationalised two electricity distribution companies owned by Spanish utility Iberdrola on Saturday, the latest move by leftist President Evo Morales to assert control over the country’s resources.

Iberdrola will be compensated according to a valuation to be drawn up by an independent arbiter, Morales said, adding that the measure was aimed at enhancing rural energy services.

“We considered this measure necessary to ensure equitable energy tariffs … and to see to it that the quality of electricity service is uniform in rural as well as urban areas,” Morales said.

President Morales has nationalised oil, telecommunications, mining and electrical generation companies.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bolivia, Economy, electricity, Energy, Evo Morales, Global News, Government, Politics, Society

The US government (CIA) hates competition:

- Veterans Today’s Gordon Duff: Obama’s Drone Strikes On Pakistan Not Targeting Terrorists, But Securing $80 Billion US Opium Empire

- Afghanistan: Opium Cultivation Rose Substantially In 2012 (New York Times)

- Afghan Opium Poppy Farming Increases 20%, Fuelled By High Opium Prices (Guardian)

- CIA Created Afghan Heroin Trade (Veterans Today)

- Afghanistan: Is Creating A ‘Narco-State’ Considered ‘Nation-Building?’ (Veterans Today)

- Brought To You By Poppy Bush, Obama Bin Bush And Al-CIAda: Photos Of U.S. And Afghan Troops Patrolling Poppy Fields June 2012 (Public Intelligence)

- Breaking News: Afghanistan – America’s ‘Total Lie War’ (Veterans Today)

- Afghanistan: Heroin Production Rose Between 2001 And 2011 From Just 185 Tons To A Staggering 5,800 Tons/Year (Daily Mail)

- Afghan Opium Production Increases By 61 Percent, Opium Yield Rises 133 Percent From 2010 (AFP)

- War On Drugs Revealed As Total Hoax: US Military Admits To Guarding, Assisting Lucrative Opium Trade In Afghanistan (Natural News)

- Afghan Opium Production ‘Rises By 61%’ Compared With 2010 – Per-Hectare Price Of Opium More Than Doubled (BBC News)

U.S. Special Forces board two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. The State Department uses similar aircraft to try to slow down the drug trade. Photo: DoD

- U.S. Ready to Offer Mercenaries $10 Billion for a Drug-War Air Force (Wired, Dec 4 , 2012):

Unsure how your private security firm makes money as the U.S. war in Afghanistan winds down? One option: Go into the drug trade — more specifically, the lucrative business of fighting narcotics. The State Department needs a business partner to keep its fleet of drug-hunting helicopters and planes flying worldwide. You could make up to $10 billion-with-a-B.

Starting next month in Melbourne, Florida, the State Department will solicit some defense-industry feedback on a contract to help operate its 412 aircraft, based in at least eight nations, before it reopens the contract for bidding. Among the missions the diplomatic corps needs fulfilled: “Provide pilots and operational support for drug interdiction missions such as crop spraying, and the transport of personnel and cargo,” according to a pre-solicitation the department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs released on Friday.

From its headquarters at Florida’s Patrick Air Force Base, the State Department directs 51,000 annual hours worth of air operations. In Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Pakistan, and Guatemala, it mostly performs “counternarcotics and law enforcement activities,” explains State Department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala, and in Afghanistan it does transportation support as well. Diplomats at the mega-embassy in Iraq also rely on State’s contractor air fleet to move about the country. And in recent years, that fleet has also needed to perform short-term air missions in Sudan, Honduras, Malta, Libya and Egypt. Private-security giant DynCorp currently holds the contract for supporting the diplomatic fleet.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Bolivia, Colombia, Drug Cartels, Drugs, DynCorp, Egypt, Global News, Government, Guatemala, Heroin, Honduras, Libya, Malta, Military, Obama administration, Opium, Pakistan, Pentagon, Peru, Politics, State Department, Sudan, U.S.

- ‘End of capitalism’: Bolivia to expel Coca-Cola in wake of 2012 Mayan ‘apocalypse’ (RT, Aug 1, 2012):

In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it will expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality, the Bolivian govt says.

“December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca decreed, with bombast worthy of a viral marketing campaign.

The coming ‘end’ of the Mayan lunar calendar on December 21 of this year has sparked widespread doomsaying of an impending apocalypse. But Choquehuanca argued differently, claiming it will be the end of days for capitalism, not the planet.

“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” said Choquehuanca as quoted by Venezuelan newspaper El Periodiquito.

Continue reading »

Tags: 2012, Bolivia, Coca Cola, Economy, Global News, Maya, Mayan calendar, McDonald's, Politics

YouTube Added: 06.07.2011

- McDonald’s Failure In Bolivia (Global Post, Nov. 1, 2011)

It’s the country that turned its back on McDonald’s.

The fast food giant added the traditional llajwa sauce to its classic patties, but still Bolivians weren’t conviced.

So after five years, McDonald’s closed its eight branches and left the country in 2002.

Now a new documentary, ”¿Por qué quebró McDonald’s en Bolivia?”, explores why McDonald’s failed. Filmmaker Fernando Martinez focuses on social and cultural aspects to explain the company’s lack of success. ”Culture beat a transnational, globalized world,” he said.

Watch the trailer above.

And for comparison’s sake, here are numbers from the film on McDonald’s reach throughout South America, courtesy of the BBC.

• Argentina: 192
• Brazil: 480
• Chile: 55
• Colombia: 97
• Ecuador: 19
• Paraguay: 7
• Peru: 20
• Uruguay: 19
• Venezuela: 180

Tags: Bolivia, Corporations, Documentary, Food, Global News, McDonald's, Society

Law of Mother Earth expected to prompt radical new conservation and social measures in South American nation

John Vidal reports from La Paz where Bolivians are living with the effects of climate change every day Link to this video

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.

“It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all”, said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. “It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Bolivia, Environment, Evo Morales, Global News, Government, Health, Law, Politics

Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon.

The San Julián fish farm in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia lost 15 tonnes of pacú fish in the extreme cold.Never Tejerina

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere’s recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country’s tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

Scientists who have visited the affected rivers say the event is the biggest ecological disaster Bolivia has known, and, as an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife, it is unprecedented in recorded history.

“There’s just a huge number of dead fish,” says Michel Jégu, a researcher from the Institute for Developmental Research in Marseilles, France, who is currently working at the Noel Kempff Mercado Natural History Museum in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. “In the rivers near Santa Cruz there’s about 1,000 dead fish for every 100 metres of river.”

With such extreme climatic events potentially becoming more common due to climate change, scientists are hurrying to coordinate research into the impact, and how quickly the ecosystem is likely to recover.

The extraordinary quantity of decomposing fish flesh has polluted the waters of the Grande, Pirai and Ichilo rivers to the extent that local authorities have had to provide alternative sources of drinking water for towns along the rivers’ banks. Many fishermen have lost their main source of income, having been banned from removing any more fish from populations that will probably struggle to recover.

The blame lies, at least indirectly, with a mass of Antarctic air that settled over the Southern Cone of South America for most of July. The prolonged cold snap has also been linked to the deaths of at least 550 penguins along the coasts of Brazil and thousands of cattle in Paraguay and Brazil, as well as hundreds of people in the region.

Water temperatures in Bolivian rivers that normally register about 15 ˚C during the day fell to as low as 4 ˚C.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bolivia, Climate Change, Dolphins, Environment, Fish, Global News, South America

I have NOT seen any proof that this could have been caused by Corexit.

Corexit is certainly lethal stuff. Make no mistake about that:

- Scientists: Evidence Of Gulf Oil And Dispersant Mix Making Its Way Into The Foodchain

- The Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf of Mexico:

Corexit also contain arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, cyanide, and other heavy metals. Dispersing oil with it increases toxicity 11-fold ….

- EPA Whistleblower On Gulf Health Risk Cover-Up: ‘People Who Work Near Corexit Are Hemorrhaging Internally.’:

People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do.EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic-it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.

COREXIT KILLS MILLIONS OF FISH AND ALLIGATORS IN BOLIVIA 8-7-2010

Tags: Bolivia, Corexit, Environment, Global News

ALBA members are Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent and Antigua and Barbuda

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — Leftist Latin American leaders have agreed on the creation of a regional currency to scale back on the use of the US dollar as well as economic sanctions against Honduran coup leaders.

Nine countries of ALBA, a leftist bloc conceived by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, met Friday in Bolivia where they vowed to press ahead with a new currency for intra-regional trade to replace the US dollar.

“The document is approved,” said Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, who is hosting the summit.

The new currency, named the Sucre after Jose Antonio de Sucre, who fought for independence from Spain alongside Venezuelan hero Simon Bolivar in the early 19th century, will be rolled out beginning in 2010 in a non-paper form.

That move echoes the European Union’s introduction of the euro precursor, the ECU, an account unit designed to tie down stable exchange rates between member states before the national currencies were scraped.

ALBA’s member states are Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent and Antigua and Barbuda.

In a resolution on Honduras, members of the group agreed “to apply economic and commercial sanctions against the regime that came to power as a result of a coup.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Bolivia, Cuba, Dollar, Economy, Ecuador, Evo Morales, Honduras, Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua, Politics, Sucre, Venezuela

A Bolivian indigenous man participates in the celebrations marking the 228th anniversary of the siege of La Paz March 13, 2009. REUTERS

LA PAZ (Reuters) – Emboldened by a new leftist constitution, Bolivia President Evo Morales on Saturday handed over ownership of farmland seized by the state from wealthy estate holders to poor indigenous people.

Morales handed out around 94,000 acres of lands recently confiscated from five big ranches in Bolivia’s wealthy eastern lowlands, a stronghold of his conservative political opponents. The ranchers have been accused of employing workers in conditions of semi-slavery.

“Private property will always be respected but we want people who are not interested in equality to change their thinking and focus more on country than currency,” said Morales, flanked by military and police personnel.

Among those who lost land was U.S. cattleman Ronald Larsen, who has emerged as a key opponent of the Morales government’s land reforms, which are designed to distribute more of the nation’s riches to poor indigenous peoples.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bolivia, Evo Morales, Government, Politics