Aquí les dejo una presentación sobre Redes Sociales.

2008-08-29-arielagramontloza-presentacion.ppt

2008-08-29-arielagramontloza-presentacion-de-las-redes-sociales.pdf

Pongo a disposición suya uno de los análisis políticos más claros y precisos sobre la situación boliviana actual, si les gusta dejen un comentario y en otras ocasiones colocaré este tipo de información en mi Oficina Virtual para su lectura.  Si quieren ver este artículo traducido con Google Translate al español hagan click aquí.

Bolivia
Carry on voting
Jul 31st 2008 | LA PAZ
FUENTE: From The Economist print edition

Two reports, first from Bolivia and then from Ecuador (see article), on the radical socialists who hope that constitutional referendums will transform their countries

IT IS supposed to break a deadlock. But as Bolivians prepare to vote in a recall referendum on August 10th, in which they will be asked either to confirm or eject both Evo Morales, their socialist president, and the country’s elected regional governors, who include some of his strongest foes, they may merely lock one of South America’s poorest countries into an impasse between irreconcilable factions.

Since being elected president in December 2005, Mr Morales, a coca-workers’ leader of Andean Indian descent, has shown his radical colours by reimposing state control on the natural-gas industry and on privatised mining and telecoms companies. But he still has a more ambitious plan to “refound” Bolivia. At the centre of this is a new constitution that would increase the state’s role in the economy, strengthen the powers of the president, weaken the judiciary and give some indigenous communities greater autonomy. The text was hurriedly approved in December by an assembly at which the opposition was not present, but it must still be approved in a separate referendum.

The opposition, which has its base in Bolivia’s more prosperous, gas-rich eastern lowlands, fears that Mr Morales wants to introduce a Venezuelan-style socialist autocracy. In the past three months, four eastern departments, including Santa Cruz, the richest, have held unofficial referendums in which voters have overwhelmingly backed local autonomy, thus expressing their desire to opt out of the president’s project. They particularly dislike his plans to reduce their share of gas revenues and to impose land reform.

Mr Morales’s supporters hope the recall referendum will allow him to regain the political initiative. Certainly, he seems likely to survive the vote. To eject him, opponents must notch up more votes than he won in 2005, when he gained 53.7%. Some of the regional governors (known as prefects) are likely to be booted out, but not Santa Cruz’s. Some of them question the referendum’s legality. They also worry that by loosening procedures for voter registration the government is opening the door to fraud. But the referendum was approved by the main opposition party.

The Bolivian governments of the past used to be plagued by budget deficits and depended on foreign aid. Mr Morales is in a happier position. His quasi-nationalisation of natural gas has put plenty of money at his disposal, a windfall far more valuable than the aid he receives from his friend Hugo Chávez, the like-minded president of Venezuela. Total public spending rose from 34% of GDP in 2005 to 42% in 2007, and still the fiscal accounts are in surplus. Some of the extra cash has gone on new programmes aimed at reducing poverty, which afflicts some 60% of Bolivians. These include free school meals and a cash payment for mothers who make sure their children go to school. Mr Morales has also raised the minimum
wage and expanded the public payroll.

This fiscal largesse has helped the economy to grow at an annual rate of 6% in the first quarter of this year. Building workers earn twice what they did three years ago and skilled workers even more. Though urban Bolivians grumble about inflation, which reached an annual rate of 17% in June, higher food and mineral prices have helped farmers and self-employed miners. All of this means that Mr Morales remains popular. Opinion polls give him an approval rating of over 50%. If he wins the recall vote, he is likely to push forward with the referendum to approve his new constitution. But since most of the governors in the south and east are also likely to emerge with fresher and stronger mandates, this month’s vote is unlikely to knock the opposition out.

The stand-off is costing Bolivia dear. It has paralysed the judiciary, squeezed private investment nearly dry and brought a worrying uptick in violent clashes between radicalised groups on each side of the divide. Till now neither side has been prepared to compromise, even though both have much to gain from doing so.

If the deadlock persists, it may fall to a third party, such as the Catholic Church or the Organisation of American States, to broker a climbdown. In a paper for Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington, DC, George Gray Molina, a Bolivian political scientist, argues that the first step should be “a return to legality”, involving consensus appointments to vacancies in the top courts and changes to the new constitution to allow more regional autonomy. The alternative is stalemate.

ECUADOR

The good life
Jul 31st 2008 | QUITO
From The Economist print edition
For the president and for lawyers

IF ONLY size, novelty and good intentions were everything when it came to constitutions, Ecuador would be a paradise. The document approved on July 25th by a Constituent Assembly dominated by supporters of Rafael Correa, the leftist president, is a 444-article behemoth. If approved by a referendum on September 28th, it will become Ecuador’s 20th constitution and the third in as many decades. It is nothing if not politically correct: it bans foreign military bases, promises a “just wage” and enshrines manifold rights, including that to sumak kawsay, or “good living” in Quichua, one of two indigenous languages whose use it now makes official alongside Spanish. Whether it will improve real life in a chronically misgoverned country is another matter.

Mr Correa insists that it will. He says the new constitution puts an end to “partyocracy”, “neoliberalism”, and the rule of economic “mafias”. One of
his main aims is to reduce the clashes between the executive and a powerful but fragmented legislature that has seen the past three elected residents fail to finish their term. The new text does this by substantially increasing presidential power. The president will be able to dismiss the legislature. Mr Correa’s nominees seem sure to form a majority on a powerful new Constitutional Court.

The constitution officially declares Ecuador to have a “social and solidaristic” economy. It gives stateowned companies a dominant role in oil, mining, electricity, transport and telecommunications, reflecting the government’s mistrust of the private sector. “The market is an excellent servant but a terrible master,” says Mr Correa. This socialist pitch is popular in Ecuador largely because the country was scarred by an economic collapse
in 1999, which featured a mishandled banking crisis, hyperinflation and the adoption of the dollar as the currency.

Opponents of Mr Correa worry that the constitution imposes an earlier failed economic model on the country. Although the state already controls much of an oil-dominated economy, the private operators of a handful of water utilities and airports face an uncertain future. The new constitution bans international arbitration and gives priority to local investors over foreigners. So it is certain to drive away almost all foreign investment. The Central Bank will come under presidential control: that paves the way for a possible future abandonment of the dollar in favour of a new local currency, and for the potential massaging of economic statistics.

Mr Correa, a youngish Catholic economist, who took office 18 months ago, remains popular. High oil prices have given him money to spend on social programmes. Public investment is running at twice last year’s level. He is likely to win the referendum, and a fresh election next year. But his success depends on oil money. By writing into it his personal political creed, Mr Correa has almost certainly guaranteed that Ecuador’s latest constitution will not long outlast his tenure of the presidency. And if Ecuadoreans do see much of the good life, they are likely to have to pay for it dearly in the future.

Los días 19, 20 y 21 de junio se realizará el lanzamiento, con el auspicio de ENTEL, de la primera edición de BoliviaOS, distribución GNU/Linux de software libre adaptada al contexto boliviano.

El viernes 20 de junio a las 18h30, la edición BoliviaOS 2008 será oficialmente presentada en el auditorio de ENTEL (calle Federico Suazo #1770, La Paz). Están cordialmente invitadas las entidades públicas, la prensa, el ámbito empresarial y productivo, el mundo académico, y el público en general interesado por el software libre y su economía de conocimiento compartido.

El sábado 21 de junio, de las 10h00 a las 17h, tendrá lugar, también en ENTEL, una “install party” o festival de instalaciones, evento típico del software libre que consiste en una serie de charlas, demostraciones y talleres prácticos para brindar, en un intercambio cordial con la comunidad, la información necesaria a quienes consideren adoptar BoliviaOS u otras soluciones de software libre, para su uso personal o profesional. Este evento es abierto, la entrada es libre y gratuita.

Los días jueves 19 y viernes 20, BoliviaOS será presentada en diferentes Universidades de la ciudad de La Paz.

BoliviaOS y su comunidad

BoliviaOS es una distribución de software libre completa, con todo lo necesario para una computadora personal: escribir textos, manejar hojas de cálculo, navegar en Internet, comunicar por chat y correo electrónico, programar, reproducir y crear música o videos, y mucho más.

Es muy fácil de instalar y utilizar, es segura y respetuosa de la información que maneja, no es propensa a los virus y otros malware.

El CD de instalación incluye todo lo necesario, incluso sin acceso internet: toda BoliviaOS está en español, es capaz de manejar cualquier formato de datos (que sea libre o no) y un segundo CD permite completarla con paquetes de ciencia y educación, multimedia, apoyo a la traducción, etc.

BoliviaOS incluye un procesador de textos en Quechua y en Aymara, y en las próximas versiones habrán otros software en varios idiomas nativos de Bolivia.

Elaborada una comunidad de voluntarios para difundir y compartir los beneficios y las ventajas del software libre, BoliviaOS no tiene secretos ni restricciones. Se la puede copiar, instalar y re-distribuir a voluntad. Está disponible todo lo necesario para estudiar su funcionamiento para adaptarla a diferentes contextos.