Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post


Monthly archives
(all categories)


December 19, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Regional strife in Bolivia

Protests against the proposed new constitution in Bolivia are growing again, as the departments (provinces) of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando, and Beni are demanding autonomy from the central government. Those are the states with higher incomes levels, mainly reflecting their natural resources such as natural gas. Hunger strikes and petition drives are among the tactics employed by the dissenters. The country is teetering on the brink of dissolution, and yet President Evo Morales seems unperturbed in his campaign to take control on behalf of the Indian population -- and presumably the coca leaf traffickers whose cause he has espoused. See Washington Post and BBC.

Home for the holidays?

In Colombia, the FARC rebels are dangling the prospect of a hostage release as a public relations gesture for the holidays. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is doing his best to stay involved, contrary to the express wish of President Uribe, and the rebels (drug-running thugs, basically) are clearly looking to him for protection and international legitimacy. The most famous hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, recently sent a letter to her mother as "proof of life," and the daughter is quite weary of being a captive since 2002. See Washington Post. Speaking of which, I highly recommend the movie Proof of Life, starring Russell Crowe; see Internet Movie Database. It is gripping and very realistic portrayal of the hostage-taking "industry" in Latin America.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 19 Dec 2007, 11: 39 PM

(unformatted URL)
      .



This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

Category archives:
(all years)



This (or that) year's
blog highlights

NOTE: Thus far, only blog posts related to politics and baseball are included in this list.

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)