For the closing concert of the GEMAS concert series, presented by Americas Society and Gotham Early Music Scene, Meridionalis teamed up with The Clarion Society in a concert of music written in the Jesuit missions of eastern Bolivia. 

Over the last seven years President Evo Morales has steadily increased state control over the country's economy, nationalising many key assets including foreign-owned energy firms and communications companies. AS/COA's Eric Farnsworth speaks to Inside Story Americas about the president's unsurprising announcement of the state's seize control of the Spanish-owned airports operator Sabsa. "The specific actions have been very consistent with what Evo Morales has been doing and for years his political party has called the movement towards socialism, which part of it is to implement state ownership of the heights of Bolivian economy. [But] over the longer term, is this a sustainable policy once the actual engines of growth in the country are nationalised and maybe the productivity is not as efficient or effective as it might otherwise be? [Though] in the short term, the president has reaped political benefits from it and I think he is going to continue to do that."

AS/COA Vice President Eric Farnsworth discussed Bolivia's unorthodox approach to coca leaf regulation on Al Jazeera's Inside Story. While President Evo Morales' system of small-scale coca farming for traditional purposes may have its benefits, cocaine production in Bolivia is still a reality with drug markets in Brazil, Europe, and West Africa, Farnsworth explained. Bolivia's model may not work in other countries, since there's no "one size fits all model" for combatting drug trafficking. "It's a global supply, global demand problem and working together, we have address both sides of the equation," Farnsworth said.