Latest La Paz Stories

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bomb blasts rocked two small hotels in the center of the Bolivian city of La Paz, killing two people, and officials said on Wednesday they had arrested two foreign suspects. La Paz prosecutor Jorge Gutierrez said the pair, apparently a Uruguayan and an American, were arrested in the early hours of the morning in the city of El Alto, which borders La Paz, soon after the second blast. "Both were carrying cartridges of dynamite and detonators. The woman is...

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Six Argentine military officials were killed on Thursday when their plane crashed as it was taking off from El Alto airport near La Paz, a Bolivian air force official told local radio. The official said all six people on board the executive jet were killed when the plane disintegrated soon after leaving the runway at about 3.30 p.m. local time (1930 GMT). "The plane rose and as it was in mid-take off, it disintegrated," the air force spokesman said, adding...

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - An Argentine government plane crashed on Thursday as it was taking off from El Alto airport near La Paz, a Bolivian air force official told local radio. The official said Argentine officials were on the plane but it was not immediately clear who they were, and there was no information about casualties. The plane was heading to Buenos Aires.

By Helen Popper LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Wednesday economic issues would dominate a weekend meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the first high-level talks between the leftist and Washington. Morales, who once described his movement as a "nightmare for the U.S.," announced the meeting at a news conference in which he reiterated sharp criticism of the United States after a string of spats in recent weeks. "I have asked that the...

By Helen Popper ORURO, Bolivia (Reuters) - Every day, miners in the Bolivian city of Oruro emerge from the underground gloom with dusty, grimy faces. On Friday, they emerged dressed in ceremonial ponchos, their faces smeared with the blood of sacrificed llamas. Simply to say thanks for staying alive for another year, the Oruro miners who eke out a living from abandoned state mines cut the hearts from llamas in a ritual offering to Mother Earth and Tio, who among Aymara Indians is the...

By Helen Popper EL ALTO, Bolivia (Reuters) - That Gap pullover you gave to charity might have ended up on sale at El Alto's muddy, makeshift market where mountains of imported second-hand clothes help dress the people of the impoverished Bolivian city. Stretched out on plastic sheets among the puddles, men and women rifle through heaps of tangled tracksuits, velvet jackets and sweaters, hoping to pick up a quality brandname for less than a dollar. The scene at the market in El Alto...

By Carlos Quiroga LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales criticized the United States on Thursday for canceling the visa of one of his closest confidantes in the leftist leader's first run-in with Washington since taking power a month ago. Sen. Leonilda Zurita, a leader of coca farmers whose battle cry was "Long live coca, Death to Yankees!," found out her multiple-entry U.S. visa, which was valid until 2008, had been canceled when she tried to travel to Miami to...

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales, who regularly called mass roadblocks as an opposition leader, faced a wave of similar protests on Wednesday for the first time since he was sworn into office last month. Local radio said roadblocks sparked by various regional disputes were affecting five of the South American country's nine provinces, including highways linking landlocked Bolivia to its neighbors. The roadblocks, which started on a smaller scale on Tuesday,...

By Helen Popper LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales has walked a careful and pragmatic path in his first two weeks in office, despite predictions he might emulate Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as a leftist antagonist of Washington. The resounding election of leftist Morales as Bolivia's first indigenous president has raised hopes of political stability and economic growth in South America's poorest country, after turmoil that saw angry street protests topple two...

By Mary Milliken LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, turned to fellow socialists, Indians, grass-roots activists and women to form his Cabinet on Monday and ordered them to root out corruption and adopt a new leftist economic model. The 12 men and four women were sworn in by Morales, some pledging allegiance with a raised left fist, others with a hand on their heart, and a few with both gestures. This was Morales' first official act after his...