The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc) has released its latest survey on coca cultivation in Bolivia. The report suggests that, for all the US insistence to the contrary, the left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government led by President Evo Morales is continuing to make progress in coca eradication efforts. The Unodc’s findings are a fillip for the Morales government’s ‘Coca Sí, Cocaína No’ policy, which distinguishes between the raw coca leaf (an important symbol of Bolivian indigenous culture) and cocaine, the illegal narcotic. That policy remains an ongoing bone of contention with the US, whose Drug Enforcement…

There has been fresh unrest in the mining and hydrocarbons sectors, both of which already are struggling in the face of lower mineral commodity prices. On 17 August a local police sergeant, José Luis Quispe de la Cruz, died after falling 200 meters into a ravine following clashes in Tacacoma, La Paz department, between local protesters and security officials. Ten other security officials were injured. The clashes, in which protestors reportedly attacked police officials with sticks and rocks, took place after months of simmering tensions between local residents and mine workers from a local mining cooperative, Rosario de Ananea. The…