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Six months after arrest, no trial date for Bolivian ex-president

AFP

Six months after being arrested on coup charges by a Bolivian government allied to her political rival Evo Morales, ex-president Jeanine Anez is still awaiting a trial date.

The 54-year-old, who claims she is the victim of “political persecution,” attempted suicide in a jail in La Paz last month while suffering from “severe depression” due to her prolonged pre-trial detention, according to her daughter, Carolina Ribera.

Last month, a Bolivian court added another six months to Anez’s custody, until March 2022, meaning she could spend a year in jail without seeing the inside of a court.

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“Evo Morales… is holding her to spread a message of fear to all opposition leaders and all Bolivians who think differently,” Ribera told AFP last week.

The conservative Anez had come to power in November 2019 after Morales and senior allies in his Movement for Socialism (MAS) resigned following weeks of protest over his controversial re-election to an unconstitutional fourth term.

As Morales fled into exile after 14 years in power, Anez was the most senior parliamentarian left and was sworn in by congress as interim president, despite the lack of a quorum, with MAS legislators boycotting the session.

Morales and his allies claimed they had been the victims of a right-wing coup.

Under Anez’s administration, Bolivia held elections in October 2020 in which Morales protege Luis Arce stormed to a landslide victory and she handed over the reins of power.

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Then in March this year, Anez was arrested and charged with leading a coup, terrorism, sedition, conspiracy and failure to perform official duties.

– ‘Servile’ justice –

The lawyer and former television presenter was more recently also charged with “genocide” over protesters’ deaths during violence between supporters and opponents of Morales — as well as between protesters and the security forces — that left 37 people dead in November 2019.

The accusation relates to two incidents in which 22 people died just days after she became president in what a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights described as “massacres.”

The same report questioned the independence of the South American country’s justice system and cautioned against the “arbitrary use” of “ambiguous” crimes on the statute book, including some of those leveled against Anez.

Her detention has elicited widespread international condemnation and Anez’s family has repeatedly asked the government to free her, or at least transfer her to a hospital for treatment for hypertension and other health conditions.

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“In Bolivia, justice is completely manipulated and servile to the government,” said her daughter, Ribera.

Bolivia’s opposition has decried the lack of separation of powers in the country, saying the courts, electoral body and public prosecutor’s office are all loyal to Arce.

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International

Alberto Fernández accuses Milei of hurting the relationship with Spain and other countries

Former Argentine President Alberto Fernández (2019-2023) accused Javier Milei’s Government on Saturday of damaging bilateral relations with Spain and other countries and questioned the travels of the current president, who is currently visiting Madrid.

“The national government has hurt our relations with Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, China and much of the Arab world. Wanting to get closer to the ‘powerful’, he has taken us away from our brothers in the region and from our main commercial export destinations,” Fernández said.

Through the social network X, the Peronist leader asserted that Milei “only cares about taking his violent speech to those who, like him, screen democracy, deny climate change and repudiate respect for gender diversity.”

“In just six months, he has traveled more than 100,000 kilometers and spent millions of pesos to participate in conservative and fascist conventions, present books in which he falsifies his background, give lectures that incite violence, meet with billionaires who manipulate social networks and even show off his worrying mysticism,” he said.

Fernández pointed out that this “would have cost” Argentina less “if it had a centered chancellor” – alluding to Foreign Minister, Diana Mondino – “and its foreign policy was governed by autonomy and not by the imposition of a dehumanized ideology and submission to a power in crisis,” alluding to Milei’s decision to align Argentina’s foreign policy with the United States, in addition to Israel.

“While in Argentina the lives of its inhabitants deteriorate, we continue to pay for the absurd decisions of an ‘ambassador of light’ who is leaving us in the dark,” Fernández said, alluding to the recognition as an “international ambassador of light” that the Jewish community of Miami gave to Milei on his trip to the United States last April.

Milei, leader of the far-right formation La Libertad Avanza and who assumed the Argentine Presidency last December, left last Thursday on the presidential plane bound for Spain, in what is his first official visit to the European country, despite the fact that he does not plan to meet with Felipe VI or government authorities, but he will participate in the annual convention of the far-right Vox party.

This Friday he presented in Madrid his new book, “The path of the libertarian”, and this Saturday he met with managers of Spanish companies and is scheduled a meeting with the deputy and president of Vox, Santiago Abascal.

The central act of the visit will take place on Sunday, when he participates with other international leaders of the far-right in the annual Vox convention, Europa Viva 24, in whose edition last year he already spoke, when he was still a presidential candidate.

This year, Milei will give a speech to the attendees.

“Milei travels with state money to a rally of world fascism. That happens while your salary is depressed and the registered job is broken. Do we understand that Argentine development and the well-being of the people are not in their plans?” asked Alberto Fernández.

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International

Israel intensifies attacks in the north and east of Rafah on another deadly day for Gaza

The Israeli Army issued new evacuation orders on Saturday on neighborhoods in the north of Gaza, where it intensified its attacks on the Yabalia refugee camp, on a day with more than 80 deaths and great devastation also in the east of Rafah.

According to medical sources, at least 28 Palestinians died this Saturday in Yabalia, including ten children and ten women, in an Israeli airstrike against a residential block near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in which an indeterminate number of people were also injured.

Last weekend, the Army already ordered an evacuation of Yabalia, after the reunification of Hamas in this area, and since then has expanded it twice, now including the coastal areas of al Atatra and al Karama, as announced today by a military spokesman.

The destruction in Yabalia is “massive” and there are already more than 300 homes completely destroyed after a week of re-offensive, the spokesman for Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip, independent of Hamas, announced on Saturday.

“The atrocious attack carried out by the Fascist Occupation Army in the Yabalia camp continues for the seventh consecutive day, witnessing an intensification of brutal raids, the destruction of entire residential blocks on the heads of their residents and attacks on schools and shelters,” denounced today in a statement the Islamist group Hamas, which governs the enclave ‘de facto’.

For its part, the Israeli Army confirmed clashes with militiamen in this area, in addition to having dismantled a long-range rocket launcher, and located several tunnels, weapons and explosive devices in the area, according to a statement.

Troops have continued to penetrate the southern town of Rafah, from where the UN estimates that more than 630,000 Gazans have already fled since Israel began its ground offensive on the 6th, closing the Rafah crossing and further decreasing the entry of humanitarian aid, which has begun to arrive through the pier.

Since the early hours of Saturday, at least 18 more Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli “indiscriminate attacks” in various areas of the south, but also in the center of the enclave, medical sources told the Palestinian agency Wafa today.

Five civilians died and several more were injured in an Israeli air raid against a group of people, according to local sources, who were piled up on 20th Street of the Nuseirat refugee camp (center).

According to the Army, in recent weeks, about 130 alleged militiamen have been eliminated – by soldiers of the Givati and 401 brigades – in specific areas of the east of Rafah, where they also located dozens of rifles, grenades and ammunition.

“The Givati reconnaissance unit also located an important infrastructure of underground tunnels in the area,” a military statement said today, which will be destroyed.

While the attacks in Gaza continue, the Israeli government faces new divisions after almost seven and a half months of war, more than 35,200 Gazans killed and areas where Hamas militiamen have regrouped while the Army does not seem to have clear directives.

After the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days ago that he would not accept military control in a post-war Gaza, today the also Minister of the Cabinet of War Benny Gantz announced that he will give a speech in the coming hours, and local media point out that he could launch an ultimatum to Netanyahu and demand clear guidelines.

Opponant Yair Lapid joined the dispute today, and said on social network X that Gantz should announce that he is “retiring from the worst government in the history of the country.”

“He must announce that he is no longer willing to help the abandonment of the kidnapped, the abandonment of the north, the crushing of the economy and the middle class. He should say that he will no longer help Netanyahu stay in power,” he added.

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International

Afghanistan, a risky tourist destination but on the rise since the arrival of the Taliban

The promise of authentic adventure through the less traveled corners of the planet has been attracting tourists to the violent Afghanistan, which received about 5,000 foreign tourists between March 2023 and March 2024, despite being under the Taliban regime and the international warning not to visit the country for any reason.

Most of the tourists last year come from neighboring China, the result of good diplomatic relations between Beijing and the de facto Taliban government. But there were also visits by tourists from European countries, the Deputy Minister of Information and Culture of the Fundamentalist Government, Muhajir Farahi, told EFE recently.

The Taliban have strived to accentuate the security condition that the country has been experiencing since its arrival in August 2021, and although the attacks have decreased because they were the ones who committed most of the attacks before taking power, the presence of the jihadist group Islamic State has become their biggest challenge.

The attack last Friday on a group of foreign tourists in a bazaar in the city of Bamiyán, in the center of the country, a popular tourist destination for its archaeological heritage, put the focus on this flow of visitors.

In addition to three Afghans, three tourists of Spanish nationality died and four others – a Spanish, a Lithuanian, a Norwegian and an Australian – were injured, according to the Spanish Government.

According to the Taliban, the attack was perpetrated by unidentified armed men who opened fire on tourists from a vehicle.

The 5,000 visitors of the last year is a number that is very far from the almost 90,000 foreigners who traveled the Asian nation in 1970, decades before the emergence of the Taliban.

Insecurity, added to instability, placed it as one of the least visited in the world, according to World Bank international tourism income statistics, which date back to 2020.

The country has beautiful landscapes especially thanks to its mountainous regions, and was part of the famous ‘hippie path’ between Europe and South Asia in the 60s and 70s, before the Soviet invasions, in 1979, and American invasions, in 2001.

Although the return to power of the Taliban, after their victory in the war in August 2021, meant the total paralysis of tourism, the country is increasingly trying to be an attractive destination, especially promoted by the fundamentalists.

An online travel agency based in the United Kingdom offers visitors “the hidden gems and the rich cultural tapestry of Afghanistan; a land that has captivated hearts for centuries,” with trips starting at $2,858 per person for about nine days departing from Kabul.

The provinces of Kandahar, Gazni, Mazar e Sharif, Herat, Bamiyan and Kabul are the most attractive and exotic.

In addition to its lakes and caves, the huge stone sculptures of Buddha that were once destroyed by the Taliban for considering them an example of idolatry were what made Bamiyan famous, long considered one of the safest areas of a country devastated since then by decades of war and conflict.

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