LA PAZ: Bolivia’s former acting president Jeanine Anez was arrested Saturday on terrorism and sedition charges linked to the ousting of her predecessor and political rival Evo Morales.
Police were also rounding up former ministers who backed the conservative politician’s caretaker government, which was in place for a year after Morales fled the country in November 2019 amid disputed elections, media reports said.
The arrests came months after Morales returned to Bolivia from exile on the back of a fresh election victory in October 2020 for the leftist Movement for Socialism (MAS) party he founded.
The presidency and congress are now under the control of MAS.
“I inform the Bolivian people that Mrs. Jeanine Anez has already been apprehended and is currently in the hands of the police,” government minister Carlos Eduardo del Castillo wrote on Twitter and Facebook.
From a police barracks in La Paz, Anez sent letters to the European Union and the Organization of American States asking them to send observer missions to follow the case.
She asked them to “objectively and impartially evaluate the illegal apprehension of which myself and my two former ministers have been victims, on Friday and at dawn this Saturday,” Anez wrote in the letters, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
Morales, for his part, showed support for the arrests in a tweet demanding punishment for the “authors and accomplices” of what he described as a coup against him.
Anez tweeted a copy of the warrant issued Friday by Bolivia’s public prosecutor with the response: “The political persecution has begun.”
She added the government was accusing her “of having participated in a coup d’etat that never happened.”
In the early hours of Saturday, Bolivian television showed images of Anez, not handcuffed, arriving at La Paz’s El Alto airport, accompanied by Del Castillo and several police officers.
She denounced her arrest as “illegal” in brief remarks to the press, before being taken to a government ministry building to be questioned.
Anez’s former energy minister Rodrigo Guzman and his justice counterpart Alvaro Coimbra, both listed on the prosecutor’s warrant, were detained on Friday.
Coimbra protested the “illegal and abusive” arrest of his former colleague Guzman, before he, too, was brought in.
“We have said that we will always make ourselves available to the law,” Coimbra told Bolivian TV as he was placed into a police vehicle.
Anez, a former senator, took over as caretaker president after Morales left Bolivia. He had lost the support of the armed forces amid violent protests against his re-election to an unconstitutional fourth term.
Several Morales allies who held senior posts also fled, leaving Anez the most senior Senate official still standing.
Morales was himself the target of sedition and terrorism charges in an investigation opened shortly after Anez took power.
But he returned from exile last November after his MAS romped to victory in an October 2020 general election that saw the party’s Luis Arce win the presidency.
Morales has since taken over the leadership of the party.
Last month, congress voted to give amnesty to those prosecuted during Anez’s presidency for acts of violence during the chaos that followed Morales’ resignation.
MAS party member Lidia Patty filed a complaint against Anez last December, claiming she, several of her former ministers, ex-military and police members, and others had promoted the overthrow of Morales, who had been in power for 14 years.
“The MAS has decided to return to the style of dictatorship. It is a shame because Bolivia does not need dictators, it needs freedom and solutions,” Anez tweeted Friday.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed “the importance of upholding due process guarantees and full transparency in all legal proceedings” against former government officials in Bolivia.
He also recalled “the important steps taken by all Bolivian actors toward the consolidation of peace” and reiterated the UN’s commitment to support these efforts.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted Saturday that he was following the situation in Bolivia, calling for a resolution “within the framework of transparent justice and without political pressure.”
Anez, a former lawyer, is a longtime critic of leftist Morales, who has branded her “a coup-mongering right-wing senator.”
He has said that Anez “declared herself... interim president without a legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices.”
Ex-presidents Jorge Quiroga and Carlos Mesa separately condemned the arrests.
“We are in a process of political persecution worse than in dictatorships. It is executed against those who defended democracy and freedom in 2019,” Mesa said on Twitter.
Quiroga accused Arce of being “a tyrant’s apprentice.”
But Justice Minister Ivan Lima insisted the system was independent from government.
“We cannot interfere in cases brought by the prosecutor and by justice. These cases must be pursued within the framework of objectivity and independence,” said Lima.
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Bolivia ex-president Anez arrested in ‘coup’ probe
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Bolivia ex-president Anez arrested in ‘coup’ probe
- The arrests came months after Morales returned to Bolivia from exile on the back of a fresh election victory in October 2020
- Last month, congress voted to give amnesty to those prosecuted during Anez’s presidency for acts of violence
Afghanistan’s only female diplomat resigns in India after gold smuggling allegations
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold.
Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai.
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity.
In a statement, Wardak made no mention of her reported detention or gold smuggling allegations but said, “I am deeply sorry that as the only woman present in Afghanistan’s diplomatic apparatus, instead of receiving constructive support to maintain this position, I faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying me.”
“Over the past year, I have encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation not only directed toward myself but also toward her close family and extended relatives,” she added.
Wardak said the attacks have “severely impacted my ability to effectively operate in my role and have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society.”
The Taliban Foreign Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment on Wardak’s resignation. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm whether she was the country’s only female diplomat.
She was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai during the former government and was the first Afghan female diplomat to collaborate with the Taliban.
The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of US and NATO withdrawal from the country — have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed despite initial promises of a more moderate rule.
They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and arresting those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.
Russia puts Ukraine's Zelensky on wanted list, TASS reports
- Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians
MOSCOW: Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The entry it cited gave no further details.
Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian police in February put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Russia also issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
- Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger
- His wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation
BEIJING: A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him about the collapse, local media reported.
Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News quoted Wang as saying. Meanwhile, his wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation, it said.
“I didn’t think too much. I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told the Chinese news outlet.
Wang’s courageous actions not only garnered praise from Chinese social media users but also recognition from the China Worker Development Foundation.
The foundation announced Friday that in partnership with a car company it had awarded Wang 10,000 yuan ($1,414). A charity project linked to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding also gave an equal amount to Wang, newspaper Dahe Daily reported. Wang told the newspaper he would donate the money to the families of the collapse victims.
Local media also reported that another man had knelt down to prevent cars from proceeding on the highway.
The accident came after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong. Some of the 23 vehicles that plunged into the deep ravine burst in flames, sending up thick clouds of smoke.
About 30 people were hospitalized. On Saturday, one was discharged from the hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The others were improving, but one remains in serious condition.
On Saturday, the Meizhou city government in Guangdong said in a statement that authorities would conduct citywide checks on expressways, railways and roads in mountainous areas. A team led by the provincial governor is investigating the cause of the collapse, Southcn.com reported.
The Chinese government had sent a vice premier to oversee recovery efforts and urged better safety measures following calls by President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s No. 2 official, Premier Li Qiang, to swiftly handle the tragedy.
The dispatch of Zhang Guoqing, who is also a member of one of the ruling Communist Party’s leading bodies, illustrates the concern over a possible public backlash over the disaster, the latest in a series of deadly infrastructure failures.
Russia says it shot down four US-made long range missiles over Crimea
- The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17
MOSCOW: The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday its air defense forces shot down four US-produced long-range missiles over the Crimea peninsular, weapons known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that Washington has shipped to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ministry said later that Russian aircraft and air defense systems had downed a total of 15 ATACMS in the past week.
On Tuesday, Russian officials said Ukraine had attacked Crimea with ATACMS in an attempt to pierce Russian air defenses of the annexed peninsula but that six had been shot down.
A US official said in Washington last month that the United States secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said.
The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, concerned that taking the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt US military readiness.
There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia, a step which could lead to an escalation of the war toward a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Separately on Saturday, the Russian defense ministry said that in the last week its forces had destroyed a military train carrying equipment and arms produced in the West and supplied to Ukraine by NATO.
The scale of the damage, exact date and location were not disclosed.
Reuters is not immediately able to corroborate battlefield accounts from either side.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron promised 3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) of annual military aid for Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” adding that London had no objection to its weapons being used inside Russia, drawing a strong rebuke from Moscow.
South Sudan removes newly imposed taxes that had triggered suspension of UN food airdrops
- The UN earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February
- There was no immediate comment from the UN on when the airdrops could resume
JUNA, South Sudan: Following an appeal from the United Nations, South Sudan removed recently imposed taxes and fees that had triggered suspension of UN food airdrops. Thousands of people in the country depend on aid from the outside.
The UN earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February. The measures applied to charges for electronic cargo tracking, security escort fees and fuel.
In its announcement on Friday, the government said it was keeping charges on services rendered by firms contracted by the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
“These companies are profiting ... (and) are subjected to applicable tax,” Finance Minister Awow Daniel Chuang said.
There was no immediate comment from the UN on when the airdrops could resume.
Earlier, the UN Humanitarian Affairs Agency said the pausing of airdrops had deprived 60,000 people who live in areas inaccessible by road of desperately needed food in March, and that their number is expected to rise to 135,000 by the end of May.
The UN said the new measures would have increased the mission’s monthly operational costs to $339,000. The UN food air drops feed over 16,300 people every month.
At the United Nations in New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the taxes and charges would also impact the nearly 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, “which is reviewing all of its activities, including patrols, the construction of police stations, schools and health care centers, as well as educational support.”
An estimated 9 million people out of 12.5 million people in South Sudan need protection and humanitarian assistance, according to the UN The country has also seen an increase in the number of people fleeing the war in neighboring Sudan between the rival military and paramilitary forces, further complicating humanitarian assistance to those affected by the internal conflict.
