LatinNews Daily - 19 May 2011

BOLIVIA: On 10 November the Bolivian government formally requested that the US extradite former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his ex ministers Carlos Sánchez Berzaí­n and Jorge Berindoague. Sánchez de Lozada and his ministers are accused of ordering the army to halt anti-government protests in 2003: at least 65 people were killed by the army and more than 400 injured.  The extradition request is the culmination of a process begun by the Bolivian congress in 2004.
In June 2008 the US granted asylum to Sánchez Berzaí­n: this sparked protests outside the US embassy in La Paz, and prompted Washington to recall Philip Goldberg, the US ambassador, for two weeks. The Bolivian government eventually expelled Goldberg for interfering in domestic affairs at the beginning of September.
 
BRAZIL: On 11 November the US president elect, Barack Obama, put in a 15-minute telephone call to President Lula da Silva in which he praised the Brazil's economic and social development policies, as well as its renewable energy policies (Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar cane- based ethanol and is also investing in other biofuels). Obama also supported Lula's leading role in talks on the current global financial crisis, praising Brazil's regional role in the Americas and hinted at greater US support for a more permanent Brazilian position in key multilateral forums like the G-8/G-20, the UN and the IMF. Brazil hosted the first ever meeting of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors in São Paulo last weekend (8-9 November), while Lula will also attend the emergency G-20 presidential summit convened by President Bush in Washington on November 15.