Four more deaths in Bolivia protests: rights commission

Police launch tear gas to disperse the supporters of former President Evo Morales in La Paz, Bolivia, Friday, Nov. 15, 2019. (AP)
Updated 17 November 2019
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Four more deaths in Bolivia protests: rights commission

  • The new deaths were announced after five protesters were killed in clashes with security forces on Friday in central Bolivia
  • The Washington-based IACHR, a part of the Organization of American States, also recorded 122 wounded since Friday

LA PAZ, Bolivia: Four more people have died in protests in Bolivia, raising the total number killed in the political unrest to 23, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said Saturday.

The new deaths were announced after five protesters were killed in clashes with security forces on Friday in central Bolivia, a political stronghold of exiled ex-president Evo Morales.

The Washington-based IACHR, a part of the Organization of American States, also recorded 122 wounded since Friday.

While the rights commission counts nine dead over the past two days, the official government tally remains at five.

Interim leader Jeanine Anez’s cabinet chief Jerjes Justiniano told reporters Saturday night that he would ask for “forensic doctors to speed up their work,” but did not confirm a higher toll.

Fierce clashes between Morales’ supporters and police forces have been ongoing since Anez, 52, declared herself acting president on Tuesday.

The former deputy senate speaker took over the top job to avoid a power vacuum — a move endorsed by the Constitutional Court.

The IACHR said it considers as “serious” her Thursday decree authorizing the armed forces to participate in maintaining order and exempting them from any criminal responsibility.

Morales, 60, said on Twitter that the measure gave “carte blanche and impunity to massacre people.”

Unrest in Bolivia first erupted when Morales — the country’s first indigenous president — was accused of rigging the results of October 20 polls to gain re-election for a fourth term.

He eventually resigned and fled to Mexico after losing the support of Bolivia’s security forces following weeks of protests.


US Secret Service says shot and killed man trying to access Trump Florida estate

An aerial view of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida. (File/AP)
Updated 57 min 23 sec ago
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US Secret Service says shot and killed man trying to access Trump Florida estate

  • Trump was in Washington at the time of the incident, which officials said happened around 1:30 am (0630 GMT)

MIAMI: The US Secret Service said Sunday its agents had shot and killed an armed man who illegally entered the premises of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump was in Washington at the time of the incident, which officials said happened around 1:30 am (0630 GMT).
“An armed man was shot & killed by US Secret Service agents & @PBCountySheriff after unlawfully entering the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early this morning,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a post on X.
The suspect, a man in his early 20s, was observed by the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can,” the agency said in a statement.
Agents confronted the man and fired shots. No US officers were injured.
Trump has been the target of several assassination plots or attempts.
Earlier this month, Ryan Routh, 59, who plotted to assassinate the president at a Florida golf course in September 2024, two months before the US election, was sentenced to life in prison.
Routh’s planned attack on Trump came two months after an assassination attempt on the Republican leader in Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old Matthew Crooks fired several shots during a rally, one of them grazing Trump’s right ear.
That attack, in which a rallygoer was killed, proved to be a turning point in Trump’s return to power. Crooks was immediately shot and killed by security forces and his motive remains unknown.