Iran plans to open a television station "for all of Latin America," to be based in the coca-growing Chaparé region of Bolivia, President Evo Morales announced at a gathering of cocaleros after his re-election as president of Bolivia's coca-growers union. The station would be "for all of Bolivia, for all of Latin America, recognizing the great struggle of this peasant movement," Morales told the gathering in Cochabamba. (AP, Feb. 19)

Bolivia's National Electoral Court (CNE) issued a ruling March 7 postponing a referendum on the new draft constitution scheduled for May 4, saying there is not enough time to ensure "legal guarantees" and an "adequate electoral environment." CNE president José Luis Exeni said: "No technical, operative, legal or political conditions exist to allow it to go forward." He added that the schedule failed to meet a constitutional requirement that referendums be held at least 90 days after being approved by the congress. It is unclear if the decision will also apply to the referendums on regional autonomy called without congressional approval by Bolivia's eastern departments. (BBC, AP, March 8)

Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer accused by both the UN and Amnesty International of flouting embargos, was arrested at a five-star hotel in central Bangkok March 6. Thai authorities issued the warrant based on information from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). A former KGB officer, Bout allegedly sold arms to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Colombia's FARC rebels and warring sides in several African conflicts. Russia and the US are both seeking his extradition.

Ecuadoran authorities are trying to detemrine if five students and professors from Mexico "carrying out investigations in the zone" were killed in Colombia's March 1 air-strike on a FARC guerilla camp in the Ecuadoran Amazon. At least one Mexican student apparently wounded in the attack has asserted that five of their comrades were killed, according to Ecuador's Security Minister Gustavo Larrea. Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it is "working with Ecuador and Colombia to corroborate reports of two Mexicans who possibly died in the incident."

Some 40,000 people took part in a Bogotá march for victims of Colombia's paramilitary and armed forces. Organized by the State Crimes Victims Movement (MOVICE), the march was a direct response to last month's mobilization against the FARC guerillas. The Bogotá march was joined by a three-day cross-country procession, mostly by campesinos, indigenous people and Afro-Colombians from the war-torn departments of Chocó and Cauca, which swelled along the way with marchers from Colombia's central departments of Tolima, Huila and Cundinamarca. The BBC reported that "hundreds of thousands" marched in local mobilizations in cities and towns across the country.

In a disconcerting Feb. 29 clip from Cuba's Prensa Latina, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez suggests that CIA-backed "anarchists" could be behind recent campus violence and bomb attacks in the country:

The conservative attack on the regional elections slated for November in Venezuela and emerging anarchism caused President Hugo Chavez to call for revolutionary discipline.

Colombia's Constitutional Court has issued a ruling upholding the rights of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in the northern war-torn Urabá region, ordering the Colombian government to take steps to end the state of impunity in the crimes committed against the community since its formation ten years ago.

The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution March 5 declaring the Colombian military raid into Ecuador a violation of sovereignty. The resolution was approved in Washington after talks in which the United States was the hemisphere's only nation explicitly supporting Colombia. While the measure stopped short of condemning Colombia for the raid, Ecuador's Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said: "We consider this agreement a triumph for the concept that every nation's territory cannot be violated whatever the reason. Ecuador is a peaceful country that had been dragged into this unfortunate situation."