The Supreme Tribunal decision effectively gives Chavez an extra five months in office to January 2007. The new constitution also allows the immediate re-election of the president, thus giving Chavez the possibility of keeping the top job until January 2013, which he has repeatedly said he wants to do. Chavez, who staged a failed coup attempt in 1992 only to win democratic elections six years later, has spent his first two years in office overhauling almost every institution in the oil exporting country. He believes his populist agenda, aimed at wiping out corruption and restoring social justice to the poor majority, will take at least a decade to complete. With about one in three Bolivian children aged 7 to 19 working instead of attending school, the government presented a plan Wednesday to fight child labor in South America's poorest country.
Laws exist here to protect working children, but they are largely ignored.
The plan calls for eradication of the worst forms of child labor, such as working in mines, prostitution and pornography. It aims to reduce the number of children under 14 working, and to better protect adolescent workers, who rarely get health benefits and often work more than 10 hours a day. About 800,000 children in Bolivia daily put in long hours doing jobs such as shining shoes, yelling out destinations on public buses, and cleaning houses. They are generally absent from school, or have simply never attended. President Vicente Fox is proposing a broad overhaul of Mexico's ineffective tax system that could generate billions of dollars for government spending by cracking down on evaders and broadening the tax base.