Bolivia

Voters favor allowing export of natural gas

Bolivians voted Sunday in favor of exporting the nation’s vast natural gas resources in a show of support for a president seeking to quell simmering social unrest that threatens to fracture South America’s poorest country, exit polls showed.

Exit polls by television stations Unitel and ATB reported that between 56 percent and 63 percent of voters said gas should be exported. The polls had margins of error of 2.3 and 3 percentage points, respectively.

The issue is a sensitive one in Bolivia. Nine months ago, then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was ousted for planning to export liquefied natural gas to Mexico and California. Clashes between highland Indians and security forces in and around La Paz left nearly 60 dead.

Current President Carlos Mesa, formerly the vice president, offered to hold the referendum immediately after taking office.

Although Indian leaders had threatened to burn down polling stations Sunday, there were only minor incidents of violence.

Valued at more than $70 billion, the gas fields in this landlocked country are the second largest on the continent, behind those in Venezuela.

Iran

Sept. 11 hijackers may have crossed border

Iran said Sunday some al-Qaida operatives blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States may have illegally passed through Iran from Afghanistan months before the terror strike, but Tehran dismissed as “fabrications” U.S. reports that Iran may have helped in the assault.

“It’s normal that five or six people may have crossed the border within a couple of months without our knowledge. … Our borders are long and it’s not possible to fully control them,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

Asefi was responding to a September 11 Commission report, expected out Thursday, that says Iran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks in the United States by providing eight to 10 al-Qaida hijackers with safe passage to and from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

“Even more people may (illegally) cross the border between Mexico and the United States,” he said.

The spokesman said possible crossings through Iran occurred months before the Sept. 11 attacks but Iran has since increased border security.

“Who knew Sept. 11 was going to happen?” Asefi told reporters.

Iran insists it has made a significant contribution to the war on terror by arresting agents of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, but the United States accuses Tehran of harboring — not cracking down on — al-Qaida fugitives.

Asefi said Iran will remain committed to fighting al-Qaida. “Iran has proved it is against terrorists and extremism and that it is serious in fighting terrorists,” he said.