LatinNews Daily - 19 May 2011

BOLIVIA: On 30 June the Bolivian government announced that the US had frozen US$657m in aid from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) to Bolivia. Bolivia's planning minister Graciela Toro told the local media that the decision to freeze the funds from the MCA - a US cooperation initiative launched in 2002 “devoted to projects in nations that govern justly, invest in their people and encourage economic freedom" - had already been taken in December 2007. She said that the decision not to renew access to the funds was based on three reasons; the “treatment" of US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg; the situation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the country and ongoing uncertainty over the new constitution. Goldberg who returned to Bolivia on 2 July - had been recalled to the US on 16 June after violent protests outside the US embassy in La Paz, caused by revelations that former Bolivian defence minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaí­n had been granted political asylum by the US over a year ago. Meanwhile USAID was expelled from Chapare after local coca growers accused the agency of backing opponents of President Evo Morales - who subsequently praised the coca growers for their decision.
 
COLOMBIA/MEXICO: US Republic presidential candidate John McCain recently visited Colombia where he met Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and various members of the cabinet including defence minister Juan Manuel Santos and foreign minister Fernando Araújo. Issues discussed include free trade; progress made against the leftwing guerrilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc); human rights and drug-trafficking. McCain then went to Mexico on 2 July for a two day visit, where he met Mexican President Felipe Calderón; businessmen and security officials and discussed issues such as trade, immigration and efforts to combat drug-trafficking.