President Evo Morales has warned that sugar refineries that are "blackmailing" the Bolivian people by selling their product at elevated prices may be nationalized.

Morales said on Sunday, "If owners of sugar refineries continue selling their sugar more cheaply abroad and more dearly (domestically), I will see myself forced to nationalize ... those factories, without any fear."

La Paz, Dec 31- Bolivia has called on India's Jindal Steel and Power Limited to honour its pledge to invest $2.1 billion in an iron ore joint venture project in the country.

"We see that there's a delay in the investments. We trust that Jindal will understand that it has to respect its commitments. We're demanding fulfillment of those commitments," Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera told reporters Tuesday.

The Bolivian government and the Indian company signed a joint-venture agreement in 2007.

La Paz, Dec 8 : Bolivian President Evo Morales has said that the overwhelming victory in Sunday's general elections is neither for him nor for his party, but for the people.

"The social forces were the ones that have decided to continue bringing forward the changes started in 2006," the president said Monday at the Quemado Palace.

He also recognised the unity pact with the Bolivian Workers' Union (COB), the National Coordinator for Change (CONALCAM), and the Confederation of Bartolina Sisa Farmer Women, among other entities that extended firm support to him during the elections.

Buenos Aires/La Paz, Dec 6 - Four years after taking office, Evo Morales, Bolivia's first president of indigenous descent, is poised for re-election with a first-round majority.

A year ago, Bolivia seemed haunted by the ghosts of civil war, with deep divisions between east and west, town and country, and between Morales' supporters and opponents.

Ahead of Sunday's general election, however, little remains of last year's political hostility.

Washington  - The United States and Bolivia are "close" to reaching an agreement for the normalization of diplomatic ties, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Tuesday in Washington.

At the second round of bilateral dialogue, however, the two countries did not agree on a return of their ambassadors to each other's capitals.

"We are close to reaching an agreement. We have established that we will keep working to reach a new framework agreement that will allow us to establish a constructive relationship," Choquehuanca said.

Lima  - Peru beat Bolivia 1-0 Wednesday in Lima in a clash between the two weakest teams in the South American World Cup qualifiers.

Both Bolivia and Peru had long been out of the race for a place in South Africa 2010.

Johan Fano scored the lone goal in the 53rd minute of a very poor-quality match.

Brazil, Paraguay and Chile have already qualified for the World Cup. Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador were playing later Wednesday, with one last berth and the chance to take part in a play-off still at stake.  dpa

La Paz  - Police found five corpses at an office in Cochabamba, Bolivia, after neighbours in the same office building complained about the stench, Bolivian media reported Wednesday.

Police chief Julio Miranda said officers arrested one man who said he was the rector of a Brazilian university and had bought the bodies from a public hospital in La Paz for around 210 dollars each.

Madrid  - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday defended his country's right to have relations with Iran as he was beginning his first visit to Spain as head of state.

"We have the right to have relations with everyone, without submission," Morales told an economic forum before meeting King Juan Carlos and visiting parliament later in the day.

He mentioned the examples of Iran, with which Bolivia has stepped up relations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro,

New York  - Indigenous people of the Chaco regions in both Bolivia and Paraguay suffer forced labour, severe poverty and human rights abuses, a United Nations panel on indigenous issues said in a report released Monday.

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said, following visits to the regions in April and May, that forced labour continued to be practised despite government efforts to stop it.

La Paz  - Mauricio Baldivieso became the youngest person to play professional football for a first division side when the 12- year-old made his debut for Bolivia's Aurora in a 1-0 loss Sunday to FC La Paz.

Baldivieso, who will be 13 on Wednesday, was sent on as a substitute after 39 minutes by father and Aurora coach Julio Cesar Baldivieso.

According to South American media reports, the previous record was held by Peru's Fernando Garcia, who at the age of 13 played for first division team Juan Aurich in 2001. (dpa)

La Paz - A former interior minister of the dictatorship that ruled Bolivia from 1980-81 arrived in the South American country Thursday to serve a 30-year prison sentence in La Paz, after being deported from the United States.

"We acknowledge the work of the United States justice system to deport Luis Arce Gomez," Bolivian President Evo Morales said. "It is a historic day for human rights and to reflect on dictatorships. Justice comes sooner or later."

La Paz - Eight members of a Mennonite community were jailed Wednesday in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, accused in the rapes of about 60 women in the municipality of Manitoba and its surroundings, said public prosecutor Freddy Perez.

"The men arrested will be charged with the crimes of rape, rape of a minor, rape in a state of unconsciousness and criminal association," Perez said.

La Paz  - Rufina Morales, a first cousin of Bolivian President Evo Morales, was murdered and mutilated in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba, police said Wednesday.

The woman, 73, who had gone missing last week, was found dead by locals Tuesday in a ravine.

Police were working on the hypothesis that she had been attacked by robbers who then threw her body in the ravine, then dismembered by stray dogs. Only her head and her pelvis were found intact, while her heart and other internal organs were missing

La Paz  - Prince Masahito Hitachi, younger brother to the Japanese emperor, was to visit Bolivia Monday to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the Japanese migration to the South American country, the Bolivian government announced Sunday.

The prince's wife, Princess Hanako, will be travelling with him from Peru, where they have been visiting.

The royal couple will travel to Santa Cruz, east of the Bolivian capital, where they will stay for five days. They will also meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales on Tuesday at a special reception.

La Paz  - Bolivia on Monday marked the 200th anniversary of the start of its war for independence from Spanish colonialism with two rival ceremonies.

Leftist President Evo Morales and his supporters gathered in the town of El Villar about 230 kilometres from a rival ceremony in the constitutional capital, Sucre, where the opponents of the first elected indigenous president held their own event.

On May 25, 1809, a revolt against the Spanish colonialist began in Sucre and became known as the call to freedom for Latin America. The country gained its independence in 1825.

La Paz  - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Friday announced the nationalization of Air BP, a subsidiary of British Petroleum.

Air BP has British and Spanish capital and sells fuel for commercial aviation, Bolivia's Energy Ministry said. It is headquartered in the southern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Morales' left-wing populist government, which has been in power since January 2006, nationalized the country's oil and gas reserves in its first year in office, benefiting from the income gained from the export of natural gas to Brazil and Argentina.

India's Jindal Steel and Power, the third largest steel manufacturing company in India, expects to start producing gas in Bolivia in June this year, for export to Argentina.

A company official, who did not want to be recognized, informed that the gas supplies would come from a processing plant in the eastern province of Santa Cruz.

It should be noted that the company and its Bolivian partners began drilling at the El Palmar gas field at the end of March and have already invested around $7 million in the project.

La Paz/Caracas  - An elite Bolivian police squad killed three members of an alleged terrorist group Thursday at a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Bolivian President Evo Morales saif from the Venezuelan city of Cumana that the dead were foreign "mercenaries" who were planning attacks on Morales himself and other high government officials.

The Santa Cruz daily El Deber reported in its online edition, citing national Police Chief Victor Hugo Escobar, that the three dead included one Bolivian with a Hungarian and a Colombian.

Vienna - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Wednesday chewed a coca leaf at a United Nations drug conference in Vienna, underscoring his view that the plant should not be on the UN list of narcotic substances.

Morales was speaking at a conference of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is expected to adopt an action plan Thursday to tackle the global drug problem in the coming decade, against the backdrop of limited progress over the last 10 years.

La Paz  - Bolivia's new constitution passed with 61.4 per cent of the votes in favour, according to the final official count of referendum ballots released by the country's electoral authorities on Monday.

The measure received 2.06 million votes, with close to 1.3 million votes (38.6 per cent of the total) against the proposed text.

The abstention rate was 9.74 per cent, the lowest in Bolivia in the past 25 years.