December 22, 2005 [LINK]
Election fallout in Bolivia
Evo Morales has won 54 percent of the natiowide vote in the Bolivian presidential elections, an even more clear-cut victory than first appeared. During a telephone interview, he expressed a desire to work with Fidel Castro in seeking "social justice" in the region. Meanwhile, a Spanish radio station owned by the Catholic Church is in trouble because the host of a comedy show telephoned Morales with a bogus congratulatory message, pretending to be Prime Minister Zapatero, who is a socialist and sympathetic to the leftist surge in South America. See CNN.com [link label corrected].
Peace talks in Colombia
Representatives of the ELN (National Army of Liberation) met with government officials over a period of five days, in an initial round of discussions aiming toward a truce. Nobel-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and diplomats from Europe participated as facilitators.