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.

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.

La Paz - Ecuador obtained a vital 3-1 win against Bolivia Wednesday in La Paz to keep up their hopes of playing the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Edison Mendez put the visitors ahead just four minutes into the game, while Luis Valencia scored a brace for Ecuador in the 46th and 56th minutes. Gerardo Yacerotte scored the lone goal for Bolivia in the 86th minute.

"We were able to play for a win, and now we can keep dreaming," Mendez said after the game.

Fans in La Paz showed their displeasure with their team, and cheered Ecuador's play with "ole."

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  - 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.

La Paz  - Former world top scorer Joaquin Botero was the hat- trick hero for Bolivia as they stunned Argentina 6-1 Wednesday in the South American World Cup qualifiers.

"Bolivia was better than us and gave us a thrashing that would have seemed impossible if we had thought about it before the game," Argentina coach Diego Maradona said. "They did well to beat us, and we have to start again. Bolivia has been better than us in every corner of the pitch."

La Paz  - Argentina coach Diego Maradona admitted Wednesday that his men were overpowered in every aspect of the game they lost 6-1 to Bolivia in La Paz, in a phenomenon that he described as "inexplicable."

"The whole of Bolivia played very well," he admitted. "They played good football."

As for his own men, Maradona was critical and said they did nothing of what they had planned ahead of the match.

"Argentina surprised me. I was surprised by the fact that they created so many chances," he said.

La Paz  - Former world top scorer Joaquin Botero was the hat- trick hero for Bolivia on Wednesday as they stunned Argentina 6-1 on Wednesday in the South American World Cup qualifiers.

Botero, who scored 49 goals for Club Bolivar in 2002, scored from the spot in the first half and then added two in the second half to give his side a hugely popular victory against Diego Maradona's team.

Marcelo Martins put the hosts ahead in the 11th minute, but Luis Gonzalez equalized for the two-time world champions 13 minutes later. However, Botero gave his side the lead again in the 33rd minute, and Alex da Rosa widened the gap before the break.

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.

Buenos Aires/La Paz  - Broad support for a new constitution signalled another impressive victory for Bolivia's left-wing populist President Evo Morales, who was celebrating even before the official results were in.

The new text was approved by 60 per cent of voters in a referendum Sunday, according to exit polls made public by Bolivian media.

The president celebrated the unofficial victory and hailed it as a "new founding" of the poor Andean country, with equal opportunities for all citizens.

La Paz  - Eleven people died in southwestern Bolivia while they slept at a rural lodge that was also being used as a pesticide deposit, police said Tuesday in the Bolivian province of Chuquisaca.

The dead - including one boy and three women - were peasants from the Japo K'asa, some 720 kilometres southwest of La Paz, who had opted to sleep there en route to Sucre. They were carrying agricultural produce from the Nor Cinti valley to market.

The lodge held bottles of chemicals that are used as pesticides.

La Paz  - Bolivia broke diplomatic ties with Israel over the "disproportionate" attacks of the Israeli Army on the Gaza Strip, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Wednesday in La Paz.

Morales made the announcement as diplomats accredited in Bolivia greeted the president in accordance with protocol, Bolivian media reported.

He exhorted the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate the ongoing attacks in Gaza which have already over 1,000 lives.

La Paz  - Two speeding buses crashed into each other, killing 14 passengers and leaving at least 43 wounded, local media reported Saturday.

The accident took place a few kilometres from Oruro city, about 220 kilometres south of La Paz, police said.

Buses are the lifeline of Bolivia, where few people own cars and there are few train services. However, accidents are disturbingly common as most of the buses are old and dilapidated, the drivers are reckless and the roads are of poor quality. (dpa)

La Paz - Bolivian President Evo Morales saluted Wednesday the "historic" triumph of Barack Obama, who was elected to become the first African-American president in US history.

"Mr. Obama's triumph is really historic. We congratulate him on that triumph and we await the improvement in our (bilateral) relations in the future," Morales said as he arrived at the presidential palace in La Paz for a ministerial meeting.

Morales himself achieved a historic electoral feat when he was elected to become the first president of indigenous descent in Bolivia's history in 2006.