On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

On December 18, 2005 Bolivians made history at the polls, as 54 percent of the country’s voters chose Evo Morales, an indigenous Aimara leader of the combative coca-growers’ unions, to become president.

Morales and his party, the Movement to Socialism (MAS), swept the elections in the first round with an absolute majority, trouncing competitors on the right: one a cement mogul and fast food franchise owner, the other a businessman-economist cultivated by the United States as its preferred choice.

After five days of a hunger strike, an opposition coalition within the Bolivian national congress has found its conditions met and is ready to end this stage of resistance. The coalition, comprising the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (MIP), the Movement Towards Socialism (MAP) and the New Republican Force (NFR), joined protesters in demanding a second emergency session of Congress to discuss compensation for the victims of Bolivia’s previous dictatorships etc.

Government authorities succumb to pressure from Indigenous Organizations, Local Civic Committees, Ombudsman Office and National and International NGOs.

The latest loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the Bolivian company Transredes, which is partially controlled by U.S.-based corporations Enron and Shell, suggests that if a business’ practices are deemed too shady for the United States, publicly administered overseas lending institutions have no qualms about using U.S. taxpayer money to export those methods to lesser developed countries.Transredes is jointly administered by Shell and Enron, which together have a 25% share in the company.