Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he would launch a state-run daily newspaper later this month, saying the paper would act as a counterbalance to the “anti-government” local media.
Morales has nationalized energy, mining and telecommunications firms since taking office in 2006. He is also starting an airline and plans to launch state paper, cement and sugar companies in an effort to tighten his government’s control over the economy.
“The state’s going to have its own newspaper and I’ve told the media team that we should launch it on Jan. 22,” Morales was quoted as saying by the official news agency ABI.
During a radio interview, Morales accused some Bolivian media of attacking his administration and said the nascent newspaper would be charged with “gathering the truth,” ABI reported.
Jan. 22 will mark Morales’ third anniversary at the helm of South America’s poorest country.
Morales, a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, frequently criticizes local media. Last month, he threatened to stop giving news conferences for local journalists.
He said almost all of Bolivia’s newspapers and broadcast networks strove to taint his image and has scorned reporters for being the puppets of media owners he said were aligned with the rightist opposition.
The National Association of Journalists said late last year that some of Morales’ comments against the media amounted to “verbal abuse.”
Morales is also planning to launch a television station representing trade, farming and mining unions and the indigenous groups that form his power base, ABI said.
It said Bolivia’s allies Venezuela and Iran would help set up the station.
The impoverished Bolivian state already runs a news agency, a television station, a weekly paper and a network of radio stations.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
‘OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE’: Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen are to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss EU-China relations and geopolitical challenges Top leaders from China and the EU are to hold a summit in Beijing this week, as the major economic powers seek to smooth over disputes ranging from trade to the Ukraine conflict. Beijing and Brussels have been gearing up to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, but a suite of squabbles over state subsidies, market access and wartime sanctions have dampened the festivities. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would visit on Thursday. The statement came after the EU
RSS