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Bolivia's vice president sworn in as new president
Bolivia's newly-appointed President Carlos Mesa has sworn in late on Friday to replace Gonzalo Sanchezde
Lozada, who resigned as president Friday amid riots and mounting calls for him to step down.
Under Bolivia's constitution, Mesa can serve as president
until the end of the elected term in August 2007. However, he has proposed an early election and shortened mandate, according to news reports reaching here.
In his inaugural address to the lawmakers in the
administrative capital of La Paz, Mesa called for unity for solve the
country's worst crisis. "I'm taking office at a crucial time in Bolivia's history," Mesa said.
"My first obligation is to listen to what the thousands of people have said during the last few weeks," he said. "Our
destiny is at stake. I urge you all to help me."
He said he wanted to build a government "without party representatives".
Former president Sanchez de Lozada, now 72, tendered his resignation to the Congress and left Bolivia late Friday with his family members on a commercial flight that is expected to land in the United States.
Earlier Friday, in an emergency meeting, the lawmakers
approved the resignation after the former president's two-page resignation letter was read aloud in a raucous session punctuated by jeering and arguing between lawmakers.
In his resignation letter, which was submitted to Congress earlier Friday, Sanchez de Lozada admitted that he resigned "unwilling", and urged that Vice President Carlos Meza be swiftly named his successor to fill out his elected term until 2007.
Shortly after the president's resignation was affirmed by Congress, Vice President Carlos Meza, who is also President of Congress, was appointed by Congress as new president of Bolivia.
The resignation of Sanchez de Lozada came after tens of thousands of Bolivians had marched and blockaded La Paz for weeks to reject the president's pro-United States, free-market economic policies and demanded his resignation.
The general protests against Sanchez de Lozada was triggered mainly by a controversial plan to export gas to the United States and Mexico through neighboring Chile.
The plan, which was unveiled in mid-September, tapped deep discord with Bolivia's decade-old free-market experiment, which has failed to narrow the enormous gap between rich and poor in Bolivia, one of the poorest Latin American countries.
The plan also underscored growing public distrust with the government's US-backed anti-coca growing policies, which have deprived thousands of poor Indian farmers of their livelihood and plunged the president's popularity ratings into the single-digits.
Protesters complain that under the natural gas export plan, Bolivia would get only 18 percent of the profits and the economic benefits would not reach the poor majority in the country.
Opponents were particularly angry with the government's possible use of a port in Chile to ship the gas. Bolivia fought a war with Chile in 1879, during which Bolivia lost its coastline.
Sanchez de Lozada temporarily suspended the gas export plan last week in the face of growing protests, which reportedly left at least 86 people dead and 500 injured over the past four weeks.
Late Wednesday, the president sought to defuse the growing crisis with a nationally televised address in which he offered to hold a national referendum over his natural gas export plan. But opponents rejected that offer.
The mounting unrest in Bolivia drew expressions of concern
from countries near and far, which called for a halt to violence and urged peaceful settlement of differences.
At home, Sanchez de Lozada's high-handed policy toward protesters also led him to increasing isolation. His vice president withdrew his support for the president and four ministers tendered their resignations. The defection stripped the president of a workable majority in Congress.
In fact, the recent protests were also seen as an eventual eruption of poor Bolivians' discontent about the president's economic policy.
Bolivia is one of the poorest Latin American countries, with 70percent of its population living in poverty.
Sanchez de Lozada had launched a free-market drive during his first term between 1993 and 1997. He adopted a similar
free-market policy during his second term which started in August 2002, and brought in an austerity program.
The program, including a levy of a 12.5 percent salary tax
from public sector workers, has been criticized by many as a policy to woo the International Monetary Fund at the price of Bolivians' basic interests.
The program also triggered a rash of deadly protests earlier this year, leaving 33 people dead and more than 180 others injured.
Brazilian-Argentine mission to mediate Bolivian crisis
The presidents of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, sent their representatives to Bolivia Friday to attempt to facilitate a solution to the month-long unrest which has left at least 86 people dead.
The two presidents made the decision during Lula's visit in Argentina, which concluded on Friday.
However, latest reports said Bolivia's Congress has accepted the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who is replaced by Vice President Carlos Mesa.
The unrest in Bolivia started when peasant, trade unions and opposition parties went to street to protest the government's
plan o export natural gas to the United States and Mexico, a deal
that could bring about 1.5 billion US dollars a year to the impoverished Andean nation.
However, the protesters believed that the money would only go into the pocket of some interested groups, and the program would damage the nation's natural gas resource.
Pressed by the intensity of the protest, president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada proposed a referendum on the natural gas
program on Wednesday. This was turned down by the protesters who insisted on the resignation of the President.
One killed, six injured in explosions in Colombia
One was killed and six others were injured in two explosions taking place on Thursday night in downtown of Colombia's second largest city of Medellin, as informed on Friday by the metropolitan police.
Both explosions occurred near a clinic and a bookstore in Medellin, in the northwestern state of
Antioquia.
In the first explosion, a 50-year-old man died, as he was in the spot of the explosion. Six other people were injured, but they were soon released from the hospital.
In the second explosion outside the bookstore, no one was injured except some damage to properties. The bomb was made of 2.5 kilograms of R-1 explosives.
It is reported that the attacks were committed by urban guerrillas that seek to sabotage the normal development of the popular referendum and the local elections on Oct. 25-26.
Over 150,000 soldiers and police agents were deployed to guard the coming electoral session.
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