Bolivia's state energy company YPFB last month awarded Argentina's Astra Evangelista SA a $160 million contract to build a natural gas processing plant at in Rio Grande in the eastern province of Santa Cruz. The plant, due to come online in 2012, will process will producing 380 metric tons of liquefied petroleum gas and 600 barrels of gasoline per day, mostly for export to Brazil. The original plan called for the plant to be built in 2009, but the project was stalled after a corruption scandal that led to the dismissal and subsequent jailing of YPFB chief Santos Ramírez.

Following a wave of angry protests across the country, Bolivia's President Evo Morales revoked a decree that lifted fuel subsidies and caused price hikes of up to 82%. In a message late Jan. 31, Morales said he had decided to rescind the decree after meeting with labor and indigenous leaders who convinced him that the price hike for gasoline, diesel and other fuels was "inopportune."

Bolivian prosecutors brought charges Dec. 19 against 39 people in an alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales and launch an armed rebellion last year. The accused include leading opposition politicians and Gary Prado, the ex-general who captured legendary guerilla leader Che Guevara in 1967. The supposed plot was uncovered in April 2009, when national police killed three suspected European mercenaries in the eastern lowland city of Santa Cruz. The accused deny the charges, calling them politically motivated. Most of those charged are already in custody, but 17 are now living outside Bolivia. The most prominent figure among the accused is Branco Marinkovic, a business leader and former head of the opposition Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, who is exiled in the US.

China's Foton Motor Group signed a preliminary agreement in Bogotá Nov. 2 with Colombiana de Comercio SA to build an auto assembly plant in Colombia. The agreement was signed by representatives of the Colombian Trade Ministry, the Colombian Export Promotion Fund (Proexport), and the vice president of the Chinese group, Wang Xiangyin. The plant, to be built at a cost of some $4 million, will manufacture light vehicles for export to markets within the region. Proexport president Maria Claudia Lacouture said the decision to build the plant "shows the importance that Colombia is gaining...as an investment destination. We are pleased with this show of trust that Foton today is giving the country." (EFE, Nov, 4)

The guerilla fighter who in 2008 killed "Ivan Rios," one the FARC's top commanders, has been sentenced to 31 years for kidnapping and rebellion, local media reported on Nov, 6. Pedro Pablo Montoya AKA "Rojas" was was convicted in the 2001 kidnapping of a farm owner from the Caldas department. The former guerrilla was also sentenced to pay a $170,000 compensation to the farm owner. "Rojas" was apprehended in March 2008 when he and his girlfriend surrendered to security forces delivering them the hand and the computer of his boss. A year after his surrender, the demobilized guerilla complained he felt betrayed by the authorities, who had put a reward on the head of Rios. (Colombia Reports, Nov, 7)

Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe on Nov. 3 was subpoenaed to testify in a civil case against Alabama coal giant Drummond over the company's alleged ties to paramilitary death squads. A group of 500 Colombian victims of the paramilitary violence demand compensation from Drummond and claim Uribe "has direct knowledge of a number of key cases, including until what point the armed forces supported the paramilitary protection of mining properties of Drummond," Terry Collingsworth, the attorney of victims of the paramilitary organization AUC, told radio station La FM. The former president "knows the levels of cooperation between the armed forces and the AUC, specifically in regions like Cesar where Drummond was active," the lawyer added.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, on an official visit to Iran, said Oct. 25 that the Islamic Republic and Bolivia pursue a common objective in fighting against imperialism and injustice in the world. "Iran and Bolivia have identical revolutionary conscience which allows for the expansion of relations and accounts for the closeness of the two states," IRNA reported the Bolivian leader as saying in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz.

Spanish Jesuit missionary José María Korta, 81, a founder of the Indigenous University of Venezuela (UIV), began a public hunger strike this week at the gates of the National Assembly building in Caracas, to demand liberty for three Yukpa indigenous leaders charged in the killing of two people during a gunfight last year. Korta says the three, Sabino Romero, Olegario Romero and Alexánder Fernández, have been falsely accused because of their efforts to defend traditional Yukpa lands. Korta is joined in the hunger strike by Ramón Sanare, agro-ecology director at the UIV. (Ultimas Noticias, Oct. 23; El Universal, Caracas, Oct. 21)