The poorer satellite of El Alto, perched on the top of the bowl, some 450m higher, was previously accessible only by a steep narrow rutted road. El Alto has a population of over 700,000 and a high unemployment rate of over 20%.
It is estimated that the cost of construction of the funicular will be in the region of US$32m, with a completion date tentatively set for July 2005. It will stretch for a total of 2,280 metres and have the capacity to transport 6,400 people an hour from top to bottom in eight minutes. The auction will be open for 120 days (until 15 November).
COLOMBIA/Uribelooking good. Life is looking rosy for President Alvaro Uribe. He is riding high in opinion polls and congress is about to debate whether to remove the constitutional barrier to presidential re-election to extend his tenure, after one of his supporters tabled a new bill to alter the rules.
The Ivamer Gallup poll, which was carried out in early July, shows that 70% of Colombians approve of Uribe personally, while 64% approve of his government. Uribe's tough line on the armed conflict is also still proving popular with Colombians. Some 65% of those surveyed said they felt safer than a year ago, while 69% felt the military were now in a position to defeat the guerrillas. Uribe's only Achilles heel, as with most Latin American governments, would appear to be the economy. While 48% approve of his performance, 45% disapprove, even though the economy is set to grow faster under Uribe than it did under his predecessor, Andrés Pastrana. Some 62% of respondents also said they disapproved of the president's policies on unemployment. Urban unemployment in Colombia was 16.7% in May.
Meanwhile, the bill that could pave the way for Uribe's re-election is backed by around 40 members of congress, and its sponsor, William Vélez, the outgoing president of the chamber of representatives, said that there was broad support for the proposal throughout Colombian society. 'Four years is a very short period for a good government to realise its plans,' he said.
Vélez said the measures would allow Colombians to reward governments that performed well by giving them a longer period in office. The new proposals would also apply to state governors and mayors of large towns and cities.
Uribe recently aired his concern that his government will be unable to achieve all of its objectives in just four years in office. There are three years of his mandate remaining.
PERU/Guerrilla conflict. The government will complete the installation of 15 military bases by the end of the month, to counter the growing threat of the leftist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso. The bases will be built in and around the departments of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac and Junín (all still under state-of-emergency rules) in a bid to pen in the group.
The government has been blamed by the opposition for contributing to the resurgence ('rebrote') of Sendero (see RC-03-05) by closing down many of the former military bases in the areas concerned, thus allowing Sendero to operate with complete impunity, especially in the Huallaga and the Ene river basins.
Military operations have been stepped up in the mountainous region in the wake of the ambush of an army patrol by senderistas on 10 July, which reaped a high toll: five members of the special forces and two civilian members of the self-defence militias were killed in the encounter.
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