Category Archives: Bolivia

Jair Bolsonaro claims without evidence that NGOs are setting fires in Amazon rainforest

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Brazilian president claims green groups behind rise in blazes, but offers nothing to support his assertion

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world’s biggest rainforest.

A surge of fires in several Amazonian states this month followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity.

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Italian court jails 24 over South American Operation Condor

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Dictatorships of six countries conspired to kidnap and kill political opponents in 1970s

An Italian court has sentenced 24 people to life in prison for their involvement in Operation Condor, in which the dictatorships of six South American countries conspired to kidnap and assassinate political opponents in each other’s territories.

Related: How an Argentinian man learned his 'father' may have killed his real parents

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Archaeologists discover ‘exceptional’ site at Lake Titicaca

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Underwater haul of Tiwanaku ceremonial relics is unprecedented, say academics

An ancient ceremonial site described as exceptional has been discovered in the Andes by marine archaeologists, who recovered ritual offerings and the remains of slaughtered animals from a reef in the middle of Lake Titicaca.

The remarkable haul points to a history of highly charged ceremonies in which the elite of the region’s Tiwanaku state boated out to the reef and sacrificed young llamas, seemingly decorated for death, and made offerings of gold and exquisite stone miniatures to a ray-faced deity, as incense billowed from pottery pumas.

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How a populist president helped Bolivia’s poor – but built himself a palace

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The link between South American populism and declining inequality is striking – especially in Evo Morales’ landlocked nation

The whirr of a helicopter setting off from Evo Morales’ new 29-storey presidential palace sends the pigeons in a nearby square scattering. To critics of Bolivia’s longest-serving leader, the glass-fronted building adorned by a helipad is an alarming sign of the president’s increasing vanity.

Inocencio Carvajal Lopez, however, remains unfazed. For this 62-year-old indigenous leader, the sight of the bright red helicopter is, like the palace itself, a sign that Bolivia is at last on the up.

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People swept away by mudslide as mountainside collapses in Bolivia – video

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A mudslide in Bolivia was captured on camera as people attempted to traverse a track on foot in an area of the mountains north-east of Sucre. The disaster came after a third successive day of heavy rain in the area, and there was no immediate report of casualties. 

A day earlier another mudslide buried vehicles in the same area, killing at least 11 people. Tonnes of earth and mud collapsed on to a mountain highway near a spot known as El Choro on Saturday. The mountainside gave way as cars were lined up to make their way along a muddy patch of road.  

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Cesare Battisti arrest highlights rightwing alliance of Italy and Brazil

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Matteo Salvini celebrates likely extradition of leftwing militant by Jair Bolsonaro

Cesare Battisti, a former leftwing guerrilla fighter wanted by the Italian authorities over four murders in the late 1970s, has been arrested in Bolivia and has been extradited to Italy.

The prime minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, said a government aircraft was on its way to bring Battisti, 63, back to Rome and Brazilian officials later confirmed his extradition. Conte praised the Bolivian and Brazilian authorities for the overnight capture of Battisti, who has been on the run for almost four decades, in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and said he would begin his life sentences as soon as he lands on Italian soil.

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