When Bolivia's 3.5 million voters headed to the polls on 18 December 2005 to vote for a new president to lead one of Latin America's poorest, most divided countries, it was to re-affirm they wanted change and to follow the tide that is tilting Latin America to the left. Free article

Republicans across Ireland were saddened to hear of the death last week of Tyrone republican and former Hunger Striker Matt Devlin. Matt participated both in the H-Block Blanket Protest and the 1981 Hunger Strike. Free article

Sinn Féin held a series of pickets in Belfast, Dublin, Derry and Cork on 22 December to highlight the ongoing issue of political policing. Speaking outside PSNI Headquarters at Knock Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said: "Yesterday I spoke to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and told him that at the core of the current crisis is an element of the British policing and intelligence system which vehemently opposes the Peace Process and the Good Friday Agreement. Free article

Portadown Sinn Féin Councillor Brian McKeown has described Christmas morning arson attacks on homes in the Obins Street area as a "mass murder attempt". A number of homes in Obins Street were badly damaged in the early morning blazes. The area where the fires occurred is adjacent to an interface with loyalist districts in the town and only yards away from where local Catholic man Francis Brown was murdered several years ago by a loyalist bomb. Free article

The killing of former UVF leader Lindsay Robb has lead to speculation about who was responsible and whether unionist paramilitaries are on the brink of yet another bloodletting feud. Free article

Hospital campaigners from Monaghan staged a mock funeral outside the Dáil on New Year's Eve to highlight a further reduction of services at the besieged hospital. Sinn Féin TD for the area, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, joined Monaghan councillors, members of the Monaghan Community Alliance and the Monaghan Ladies' GAA team as a hearse was driven to the gates of Leinster House. Free article

Sinn Féin Cavan/Monaghan Deputy and Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin has described as "scurrilous and despicable" an article in a Sunday newspaper stating that he is rumoured in County Monaghan to be under suspicion as a Garda informer. Ó Caoláin said it was part of an effort to demoralise and divide republicans in the wake of the revelation that Denis Donaldson was a British agent. Free article

A round-up of the week's other stories. Free article