Connect with us

World

Bolivia foils coup attempt: All you need to know

Published

on

Bolivia foils coup attempt: All you need to know

President Luis Arce asserts authority as Bolivian Army General Juan Jose Zuniga, who was behind the coup d’etat bid, is arrested.

Bolivian President Luis Arce thwarted an apparent attempted coup on Wednesday, as Army General Juan Jose Zuniga was arrested, hours after he led troops and tanks to storm the presidential palace in the capital, La Paz.

President Arce from the left-wing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party has hailed the failed coup bid, calling it a victory for Bolivia’s democracy.

“Many thanks to the Bolivian people. Long live democracy,” he said, after asserting control over the military in the Latin American nation.

Advertisement

Here is all you need to know about the coup attempt in Bolivia:

Who is Luis Arce?

  • Arce, 60, was elected president of the South American country in November 2020.
  • Arce’s victory came after nearly a year of political turmoil after longtime left-wing President Evo Morales was forced to resign in 2019 after disputed election results. The then-opposition senator Jeanine Anez anointed herself the interim president. Anez dropped out of the 2020 presidential race. She was jailed for 10 years in 2022 for orchestrating the coup that brought her to power.
  • Originally an economist, Arce crafted the economic plan for Morales’s first presidential bid in 2005. In 2006, Morales appointed Arce as economy minister.
  • In recent years, tensions have been brewing between Arce and Morales, who each lead a faction of the dominant MAS political party. Morales, who had been Arce’s mentor, has even said he will challenge the current president for the presidential seat in 2025, despite a Constitutional Court barring Morales from contesting.
  • Arce’s 2020 election as president marked a return of stability to Bolivia.
  • However, he has struggled to manage a US dollar shortage and the turmoil of slow economic growth and surging inflation has continued to unfold.

Why was there an attempted coup in Bolivia?

  • Army commander Zuniga said Arce’s government was “impoverishing” the country.
  • Arce has struggled to address the economic woes facing the country of 12 million people. As well as the US dollar shortage, foreign reserves have dwindled and Bolivia’s fiscal deficit has increased under his watch. The economic situation has been exacerbated by the ballooning of its oil subsidies due to the Ukraine war and tightening of the global financial system.
  • Low commodity prices in a country dependent on mineral exports have also affected its finances. A commodity price surge in 2014 helped boost revenue in the country with huge mineral reserves, including lithium used in the manufacture of batteries. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, its economy was hit hard.
  • The Andean nation has for decades suffered from political instability, high income inequality and extreme poverty, particularly among the Indigenous community. During Morales’s 14-year presidency, the country witnessed political stability and a record number of people were lifted out of poverty.
  • The current economic state of Bolivia is dire, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projecting growth at a meagre 1.6 percent.
  • Besides citing economic woes, Zuniga said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners,” adding that the coup would make democracy true, not one in which the country is governed by the same few people for decades. The country has been governed by the MAS party since 2005, when Morales became the first Indigenous president.
  • Arce’s term has also seen political unrest. Right-wing forces have led deadly strikes in provinces such as Santa Cruz against Arce’s government’s decisions.
Military police block entry to Plaza Murillo in La Paz, Bolivia. [Juan Karita/AP]

How did the attempted coup unfold?

  • On Wednesday afternoon, troops with army vehicles entered the Plaza Murillo, an historic square in the capital, La Paz, where the presidency and Congress are situated.
  • One of eight tanks tried to break down the metal door to the plaza.
  • The coup attempt lasted about five hours.
  • Video footage showed an intense standoff between Arce and Zuniga, who was surrounded by a group of soldiers.

How was the coup averted?

  • “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce told the coup leader in the front of the presidential palace.
  • The troops pulled back from the plaza and Zuniga was forced into a police car.
  • “Many thanks to the Bolivian people,” Arce said, hailing the troops’ withdrawal. “Long live democracy.”
Bolivian President Luis Arce raises a clenched fist surrounded by supporters and media, outside the government palace in La Paz, Bolivia,
Arce raises a clenched fist surrounded by supporters and media, outside the government palace in La Paz. [Juan Karita/AP]

How did Bolivian leaders and people respond?

  • Massive international condemnation and the people’s solidarity in favour of Arce played a role in foiling the coup attempt. Some Bolivian citizens took to the streets in protest against the attempted coup.
  • The attempt also earned condemnation from Morales, who said, “We will not allow the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate people.”
  • Two days before the coup attempt, Zuniga had said in a statement on television that he would arrest Morales if he insisted on running for office again in 2025.
  • Even conservative ex-president Anez, who remains in jail, rebuked the army’s actions. She posted on X: “I fully reject of the mobilization of the military in the Plaza Murillo attempting to destroy constitutional order,” adding “the MAS with Arce and Evo must be got out through the vote in 2025. We Bolivians will defend democracy.”
A supporter of Bolivian President Luis Arce enters Plaza Murillo after a failed coup
A supporter of Bolivian President Luis Arce enters Plaza Murillo after the failed coup. [Juan Karita/AP]

What happened to General Juan Jose Zuniga?

  • “General, you are under arrest,” Deputy Interior Minister Jhonny Aguilera told Zuniga on Wednesday.
  • Zuniga was appointed by Arce as general commander in 2022 and has held high military ranks in the past. However, the relationship between the two soured, and Zuniga criticised Arce in the week leading to the coup attempt.
  • Bolivia’s Justice Minister Ivan Lima posted on X on Thursday that criminal action has been initiated against Zuniga under articles 121, 127 and 128 of the penal code.
  • These codes pertain to armed uprisings against security and state sovereignty, incitement of troops and attacks against the president and state dignitaries.
  • Lima added that the maximum possible sentence for the crimes is 20 years in prison.
  • Senior military officer and head of Bolivian navy, Juan Arnez Salvador, was also arrested.
  • Inside the presidential palace, Arce appointed Jose Wilson Sanchez as military commander, the post previously held by Zuniga.
Bolivian police hold the detained Juan Jose Zuniga, former general commander of the Army, in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, June 26, 2024.
Bolivian police hold the detained Zuniga. [Juan Karita/AP]
  • The coup attempt drew international condemnation, with world leaders calling the Bolivian army’s actions illegal.
  • Leaders of Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela condemned the attempt, advocating for the preservation of democracy.
  • “I am a lover of democracy and I want it to prevail throughout Latin America,” Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, said in an X post. “We condemn any form of coup d’etat in Bolivia.”
  • “We express the strongest condemnation of the attempted coup d’état in Bolivia. Our total support and support for President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora,” Mexico’s outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador posted on X.
  • The Organization of American States (OAS) said the international community would “not tolerate any form of breach of the legitimate constitutional order in Bolivia”.
  • A United States National Security Council spokesperson said Joe Biden’s administration was keeping a close eye on events in Bolivia and “calls for calm”.
  • United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned” by events in Bolivia and called on all actors, including the military, to “protect the constitutional order and to preserve a climate of peace”, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Bolivia’s history of coups

  • Even amid South America’s long and sordid history with coups, Bolivia stands out. It has witnessed dozens of coup attempts since the 1950s, the most of any country.
  • Most recently, the 2019 forced resignation of Morales was deemed a coup by the MAS.

World

Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children

Published

on

Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Israel reacted angrily over a new United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry report alleging the Jewish state had engaged in the “deliberate targeting of Palestinian children.”

Prior reports from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel garnered accusations of antisemitism and incitement to violence.

The latest report, released Wednesday, said that, “based on the evidence reviewed, and consistent with its previous reports, the Commission finds on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have continued to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

UN EXPERT REPEATS ISRAEL ‘GENOCIDE’ CLAIMS AFTER US CALLS FOR HER REMOVAL

Advertisement

A woman kneels by a memorial site in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, as the community commemorates members killed, taken hostage, or who died in captivity following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital that “this is not an investigative report. It is a political blood libel disguised as a U.N. document. This commission reaches its conclusions before examining the facts and repeatedly publishes reports that serve one purpose only: to vilify Israel. Instead of addressing Hamas’ crimes, the October 7 massacre, the hostages, and Hamas’ cynical use of children and civilians as human shields, the commission has once again chosen to place Israel in the dock.”

Danon added that “Israel will continue to defend its citizens and fight terrorism, regardless of how many false reports are published by fringe actors within U.N. institutions.”

Representatives from the COI and Human Rights Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the concerns addressed about the report.

Asked for a reaction from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to the report, his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital “it’s not his report to comment on.”

Advertisement

ISRAELI AMBASSADOR LASHES OUT AT UN OFFICIAL, CONDEMNS UK, FRANCE, CANADA STATEMENT ON AID

A bloodied handprint stains a wall inside a house in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border after a Hamas attack days earlier. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission told reporters during a press briefing that, “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.” He said “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”

SIGN UP FOR ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED NEWSLETTER

Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “sham ‘inquiry’ makes the totally unjustified claim of legal authority, while at the same time systematically violating every conceivable legal rule of fairness, impartiality, and due process. Since its creation in 2021, every call for submissions, every consultation and every hearing held, has been contrived to take seriously the allegations of only one side – trashing literally millions of data points both historical and current to the contrary.”

Advertisement

She said, “the first COI report focused on children…fails to even mention the sickening murders of 9-month-old Kfir Bibas and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas.” She says that “also ignored in the COI report are the hundreds of thousands of Israeli children traumatized by October 7th, by the subsequent mass displacement, and by the excruciating longing for parents absent while defending their country against an inhumane foe.”

Photos of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz, 84, who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and later killed, are displayed next to candles in the dining room in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Feb. 25, 2025, the day of Lifshitz’s funeral after their bodies were returned under a ceasefire agreement. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

NETANYAHU SHOWS PICTURE OF BIBAS FAMILY AT COMBAT OFFICERS’ GRADUATION: ‘REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR’

Bayefsky complained that though the current COI report “was produced weeks ago,” the COI members “deliberately withheld” the report when appearing before the Human Rights Council last week. “They didn’t publish it until June 23, minutes prior to holding a stage-managed press conference designed to avoid accountability for their wild, unverified accusations,” she claimed.

Another member of the commission told reporters in Geneva that, “There can be no doubt in anyone who reads today’s report that every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children and they need to be held accountable.”

Advertisement

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 18, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told Fox News Digital that the latest report contains “no evidence to support any of the claims against Israel” and is filled with “inconsistencies in methodology.”

He said the report represents “an escalation, and it marks maybe the most severe attempt by the U.N. ecosystem to delegitimize Israel.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Salo Aizenberg, director of media watchdog group HonestReporting, who has researched and debunked many of the claims made by those claiming genocide in Gaza, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “report is built on a fictional battlefield where Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] do not exist, and where hospitals are treated as purely civilian spaces despite extensive evidence of their military use and infiltration by Hamas operatives. It then accuses Israel of deliberately targeting children without producing a single incident supported by evidence of intent.”

Advertisement

Conricus said the report erases “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the battlefield to create the false kind of perception that Israel was operating out of wanton aggression in a vacuum without there ever being a need for Israeli operations and this is a reoccurring theme.” He also noted that this report and others “use the statements of medical professionals as evidence, even when it’s way beyond their medical expertise, specifically when it comes to how wounds were inflicted.”

Continue Reading

World

Prioritise workers’ health during heatwaves, says ETUI

Published

on

Prioritise workers’ health during heatwaves, says ETUI

Published on

Europe is breaking heat records. These extreme events pose a threat to people’s health both at home and at work. The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), a research centre affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation, presented a report on Thursday laying out solutions aimed at safeguarding workers’ health in the face of climate change.

ADVERTISEMENT


ADVERTISEMENT

One of the report’s authors emphasised that the danger is not limited to the south of the continent.

Advertisement

“The problem is the worst in the south, of course; that’s where we see most of the accidents. At the same time, though, we have been recording the highest increases in accidents in central and northern Europe,” said Andreas Flouris, professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.

“The south is already hot, and it’s a problem. But the centre and the north are catching up very fast.”

According to the report, around 130 million workers across Europe are exposed to workplace heat stress, resulting in 277,000 related injuries and 230 deaths annually.

An EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) survey from 2025 found that around one in five workers in the EU reported exposure to extreme heat at work in the previous 12 months. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of these heatwaves, which affect health and reduce work capacity.

“The optimum temperature to work at is 16°C. Beyond that, for every 1°C rise, there is an average productivity loss of around 2%,” Flouris told Euronews.

Advertisement

“During an average heatwave in southern Europe, productivity losses reach around 20 to 25%. In central Europe, the figure is between 8 and 14%, and even in Scandinavia, we have recorded losses of 3 to 6% due to heatwaves over the course of a year,” he added.

Based on scientific evidence, the report’s authors propose that the European Union introduce legislation specifically targeting heat risks in the workplace.

“What we propose is a mandatory heat risk assessment, in order to oblige employers to assess and identify the risks related to heat exposure in their workplace. Only by knowing what we are dealing with can we protect workers and prevent the risks associated with heat exposure at work,” said Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute.

The report also proposes using a broader index to assess heat stress exposure. The authors argue that temperature should not be the sole indicator, and that humidity and wind speed should also be factored in when determining exposure levels.

The researchers emphasised that heatwaves are a measurable, predictable, and therefore preventable phenomenon.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

World

Mubi to Publish Lost ‘Faust’ Bible on Centenary of F.W. Murnau’s Silent Cinema Classic (EXCLUSIVE)

Published

on

Mubi to Publish Lost ‘Faust’ Bible on Centenary of F.W. Murnau’s Silent Cinema Classic (EXCLUSIVE)

Arthouse distributor, streamer, production company and — since 2015 — publisher Mubi is set to release a book about the silent era classic “Faust” containing material that was until recently thought lost.

“The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” is being published by Mubi Editions, presented in partnership with la Cinémathèque française, which will publish globally on Oct. 17.

The book marks 100 years since F.W. Murnau’s fantasy epic, considered one of the prime examples of German expressionist cinema, and brings to light a recently-unearthed artefact of film history: a visual diary of approximately 400 photographs and original illustrations documenting the making of the film almost step-by-step.

Compiled by “Faust” crew members Robert Herlth, Carl Hoffmann, and Walter Röhrig, and originally presented to Murnau inside a prop Bible, this collection was gifted as a memento to the director on the film’s completion and ahead of his move from Germany to Hollywood. However, it was then lost for many years, thought to have been destroyed in World War II, before its recent rediscovery and painstaking restoration by la Cinémathèque française, who acquired it for their collection in 2017.

Now published in full for the very first time, “The Faust Bible: The Making of F.W. Murnau’s Masterpiece” will contain stills and sketches showcasing the film’s lavish costuming and set design, plus detailed storyboarding.

Advertisement

The publication is guided by Laurent Mannoni, scientific director of heritage at la Cinémathèque française, who also contributes a newly commissioned essay and annotations on the discovery of the Bible and its rare contents. Accompanying him are Stefan Drössler, director of the Filmmuseum München, writing on the production history of the film, and K.J. Relth-Miller, director of film programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, on the film’s lasting legacy in contemporary cinema.

”Preserving and revitalizing film history is at the heart of what we do at Mubi,” said Daniel Kasman, Mubi’s vice president of publishing. “The discovery of the astonishing Faust ‘Bible’ presents a beautiful opportunity to share this glorious classic of silent cinema with audiences new and old. It offers profound new insight into the mind of one of cinema’s greatest auteurs, revealing the meticulous artistry behind this groundbreaking visual fantasia, created by some of the most talented craftspeople of their day—while standing as a remarkable work of art in its own right.”

To mark both the book’s publication and the centenary of “Faust,” Mubi will present a series of international events and screenings throughout autumn 2026, including a public launch at la Cinémathèque française in Paris on Oct 17. Further details are to be announced.

“One of the most influential and pioneering filmmakers of the silent era, F.W. Murnau was known for the privacy of his film sets,” said la Cinémathèque française’s Mannoni. “Reluctant to welcome visitors, he was even less inclined to reveal his creative process. The rediscovery of the Faust ‘Bible’ offers extraordinary insight into the making of one of cinema’s great masterpieces. Published in its entirety for the first time, it allows readers to trace the creation of this legendary film.”

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending