South America

LA PAZ, Jan 5 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Diego Pary, who served as Bolivian foreign minister, under Evo Morales, returned to La Paz on Saturday, to run for the presidency in the upcoming general elections.

Pary arrived from neighbouring Argentina,where Morales and several of his senior officials stayed, since early Nov, to seek political asylum.

In an interview with a local radio, Pary said, Bolivians wanted him to return, as a potential candidate. “I will be where the social movements decide I should be.”

LA PAZ (Reuters) - A rerun of Bolivia’s election has been set for Sunday May 3, the president of the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal said on Friday.

Salvador Romero said both presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on the same day.

“When we announce the electoral calendar over the next few days, together with the formal call for the election, all the deadlines that both political organizations and citizens must meet will be specified,” he told reporters in La Paz.

CARACAS, Jan 4 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — Venezuelan Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab said that he had sent an official communiqué to his Brazilian counterpart, Augusto Aras, warning him about the measure adopted by the Brazilian Government regarding five Venezuelan military deserters.

He explained that the five deserters assassinated a Venezuelan soldier and attacked a military unit and as such cannot be considered refugees in that country, and requested their extradition.

LA PAZ, Jan 4 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is leading a poll in the run-up to Bolivia’s presidential elections, even though it has not chosen its candidates for the posts of president and vice president of the Republic.

According to local media, the television channel Unitel released the poll in which the candidate of former president Evo Morales’ political party would secure 20.7 percent of the vote, surpassing his closest rival, de facto president Jeanine Añez (15.7 percent), by five percentage points.

TASS, January 3: Venezuela will sell oil and part of the gold it produces for its national petro cryptocurrency, the country’s President Nicolas Maduro said.

"We will sell Venezuelan oil in exchange for petros. We already sell Venezuela’s iron ore and steel for petros. We have already signed contracts for the sale of oil, steel, iron and aluminum, and we will sell part of the gold for petros," El Nacional newspaper quotes him as saying.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 31 (NNN-Xinhua) — Rio de Janeiro expects 3 million people to attend a grand celebration including a fireworks show and music concerts on New Year’s Eve, local media reported.

The New Year celebration on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro is among the most famous ones in the world, which usually attracts millions of visitors from home and abroad.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Heading into his second year as Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro has held firm to his combative culture-warrior policies while feuding with critics at home and abroad — an approach that has thrilled many supporters while eroding his efforts to win allies and lift the world’s 9th largest economy out of its doldrums.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate for the White House, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.”

Back then, Trump made it sound that his plan — “much less expensive and much better” than the Affordable Care Act — was imminent. And he put drug companies on notice that their pricing power no longer would be “politically protected.”

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 30 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — Deposed president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, meets in the Argentian capital with leaders of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party to define details for the next electoral campaign in the Andean nation.

Morales, in Argentina as a political refugee, exchange with MAS leaders in the nine departments of Bolivia, who in addition to addressing aspects related to elections will discuss holding a congress of that political formation to name its candidates.

29 December 2019; AFP: Bolivia on Saturday accused Spain of an abortive attempt to extract a wanted former government aide from Mexico's embassy in La Paz, prompting a sharp denial from Madrid.

It was the latest twist in a murky incident Friday involving embassy personnel in the Bolivian capital that has sparked a bitter diplomatic spat.