Rosatom pours concrete for Bolivia's first reactor
28 July 2021 | By GCR Staf
Rosatom has broken ground on Bolivia’s first nuclear reactor, a research facility in the city of El Alto.
The reactor is part of a $350m plan to build a Centre for Nuclear Technology Research and Development (CNTRD) in the city, on the western outskirts of the capital, La Paz (see further reading).
The 200kW reactor is part of the third phase of the development, along with a radioisotope production complex and neutron activation laboratories.
A ceremony on Monday marked the pouring of first concrete, attended by Bolivian president Luis Alberto Arce Catacora and Rosatom deputy director Kirill Komarov.
President Catacora commented: “Thanks to the centre, Bolivian and foreign scientists will be able to conduct unprecedented nuclear research at an altitude of 4,000m above sea level, which will help us in various industries, such as mining, water resources, agriculture, and they will also carry out a multitude of other studies for the benefit of the Bolivian people.”
The first two phases will involve the installation of the “Preclinical Cyclotron-Radiopharmacology Complex”, which will produce radioactive isotopes for cancer treatment, as well as the “Multipurpose Irradiation Centre”, which will make a gamma-ray unit for medical devices and agricultural products.
More:
https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/rosatom-pours-concrete-bolivias-first-reactor/
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Don't forget, Evo Morales, the first indigenous Bolivian President, installed the incredible, life-altering transportation for Bolivians who had to commute daily to La Paz, with the fantastic aerial cable car system. It was an amazing short cut for so many living far above La Paz!
It would be so good if people in the US realized how FAR the country has come since Evo Morales was first elected, with total opposition from the George W. Bush regime, and the actual fascist European former rulers who had ruthlessly controlled Bolivia before the people finally got to elect their chosen leaders.
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Umbilical cord for millions of people
deutschland.de asks what mobility will look like in the future: In Bolivia's capital, La Paz, the cable car is a democratic transport alternative.
Klaus Ehringfeld / 30.08.2019
https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/life/la-paz-transports-commuters-through-the-city-by-cable-car
. . .
In La Paz, Bolivia's capital, located 3,600 meters high in the Andes, is the world's best-developed, widest-branched and largest urban cable railway network. It is over 30 kilometers long, spread over ten lines. It is a sort of underground net in the air, connecting La Paz and its two million people to El Alto, the bedroom community lying at 4,000 meters. The "Teleférico" transports 100,000 people every day and serves as a kind of steel umbilical cord joining the two cities.
More:
https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/life/la-paz-transports-commuters-through-the-city-by-cable-car
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Luis Arce's presidential win is triumph of indigenous pride in BoliviaHis win has gladdened the hearts of leftists in Latin
By R. Viswanathan October 28, 2020 12:22 IST
Luis Arce was elected as President of Bolivia in the elections held on October 18. He is the chosen successor of Evo Morales, who was president of the country from 2006 to 2019.
Morales made history as the first native Indian to be elected as president in 2006. Although two thirds of the 11 million Bolivians are indigenous, they had been ruled by a tiny (15 per cent of the total population) white elite of European descent in the last five hundred years. The oligarchic rulers had excluded the Indians away from political and economic power. They had marginalised and discriminated against the Indians keeping them as poor, illiterate and backward. Bolivia was like South Africa minus the formal label and laws of Apartheid. Morales fought against this racial domination by mobilizing the Indians, uniting them and getting them to vote him as president in 2006. Morales comes from a typical poor Aymara Indian family without any educational qualifications.
As president, the first priority of Morales was to uplift the Indians from poverty, provide access to economic opportunities and empower them politically. In 2009, he got a new constitution for the country to reflect the rights and aspirations of the Indians. He got the name of the country changed to “ Plurinational State of Bolivia” in recognition of the many distinct indigenous communities of the country.
Morales had done a tremendous job of transforming the country. Firstly, he gave unprecedented political stability to the country which had gone through many coups and dictatorships. There were five presidents in five years before he came to power. 36 of the 83 governments in the past had lasted a year or less. Morales was the longest-serving president of the country. He survived a few coup attempts, separatist insurgencies and US destabilisation.
Secondly, his government had reduced poverty drastically in the fourteen years of his government with pro-poor and Inclusive Development programmes. His administration had reached out to the indigenous communities in rural areas with building of schools, hospitals, roads and utilities. The World Bank and other outside agencies have recognized this as the most successful poverty reduction in Latin America.
More:
https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2020/10/28/luis-arce-presidential-win-triumph-indigenous-pride-bolivia.html
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Bolivia's new leftwing president: 'We have reclaimed democracy'
Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
This article is more than 8 months old
Luis Arce takes power after landslide win for Movement for Socialism, but experts predict bumpy road ahead
Sun 8 Nov 2020 10.26 EST
Bolivia’s new president, Luis Arce, has vowed to rebuild his country’s battered economy, revive ties with leftwing neighbours and serve one term only, as he prepared to take office after October’s landslide election.
Speaking to the Guardian before his inauguration on Sunday, the UK-educated economist was cautious about characterising his victory as proof that Latin America’s leftwing “pink tide” of the early 2000s was bouncing back after a period of rightwing dominance. Since 2018 the left has returned to power in Mexico and Argentina, while a leftwing economist is well placed to win Ecuador’s presidential election in February.
But Arce’s win did represent a sensational domestic resurrection for the Movement for Socialism (Mas) party, which some observers thought was doomed after its figurehead, Evo Morales, was driven abroad last year after a failed election, social unrest and what supporters call a US-backed coup. “The left is not defeated in Bolivia – on the contrary, we have a new opportunity now to work for the Bolivian people,” the incoming president said.
Arce, 57, said his emphatic first-round win showed Latin Americans would no longer accept anti-democratic, rightwing regimes, such as the interim government that took power after Morales abandoned Bolivia in November 2019. “We have reclaimed democracy for Bolivia, and our message is that we will not tolerate any kind of de facto dictatorial regime or coup in Latin America,” he said, promising to seek justice for the victims of a shooting of unarmed civilians at the height of last year’s unrest.
He promised to repair ties with Argentina’s Peronist leaders and restore relations with the leftwing governments of Cuba and Venezuela, which Bolivia’s conservative interim president, Jeanine Áñez, severed, despite lacking a democratic mandate. He said Juan Guaidó, the Trump-backed Venezuelan opposition leader who has been trying to topple Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, since declaring himself the country’s rightful leader in January 2019, “represents no one”.
. . .
He promised to repair ties with Argentina’s Peronist leaders and restore relations with the leftwing governments of Cuba and Venezuela, which Bolivia’s conservative interim president, Jeanine Áñez, severed, despite lacking a democratic mandate. He said Juan Guaidó, the Trump-backed Venezuelan opposition leader who has been trying to topple Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, since declaring himself the country’s rightful leader in January 2019, “represents no one”.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/08/luis-arce-bolivia-president-elect-left-morales
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While the racist fascists ruled over Bolivia, the indigenous people were, and continue to be, treated with open hatred by the descendants of the invaders. They were not allowed to vote, or even walk on public sidewalks, until after the revolution of 1953.
Monstrous! They are called "llama abortions" and "f***ing Indians" in the present day by their pig-faced former rulers.
In the short period of Bolivian history, with actual indigenous people in government, look how far they have come! Amazing.