America
Bolivia in crisis as workers and indigenous groups lay siege to La Paz
A two-week campaign of road closures and blockades led by the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB), peasant unions, and miners has plunged the administration of President Rodrigo Paz into a deepening crisis, leaving the political capital effectively under siege.
Less than six months after taking office, Paz faces an escalating emergency as widespread protests and barricades paralyze the country’s seat of government. The unrest has emptied markets in La Paz and exhausted critical oxygen supplies in local hospitals.
On Monday, supporters of former President Evo Morales clashed with police in the capital. Protesters are demanding the president’s resignation and the immediate withdrawal of “reforms” they claim represent a neoliberal restructuring of the state.
Despite the blockades expanding to cover nearly the entire country, Paz issued a stern warning on Friday. “Those who attempt to destroy democracy will be imprisoned,” he declared.
The COB initiated the mobilization to demand wage increases, while peasant unions are calling for a regular supply of gasoline. Miners are engaged in separate negotiations for access to additional mining sites, and state school teachers are conducting independent talks regarding salary improvements.
Presidential spokesperson José Luis Gálvez, referring to Morales, stated that while demands are being addressed within economic realities, “there are dark forces attempting to destabilize our democracy.”
Demonstrators’ unified demand: Resignation of President Paz
In addition to the COB, the Tupac Catari United Workers Federation has established barricades across the country. Mining cooperatives dispatched demonstrators carrying dynamite, who attempted to force their way into Plaza Murillo on May 14.
Peasant organizations, which initially mobilized against Law 1720—an agrarian reform measure the government later repealed under pressure—have remained on the streets. They maintain that the concession was insufficient and are now demanding Paz’s resignation.
The “Evistas,” supporters of Morales organized in the tropical Chapare region, launched a six-day march toward La Paz on May 18 to join the ongoing demonstrations.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference has called for a humanitarian pause and dialogue, reporting that 67 blockades have caused severe shortages of food, medicine, and oxygen in hospitals. The conference attributed three deaths directly to the obstructions.
Paz government remains divided
President Paz continues to assert that he inherited a “bankrupt state.” However, critics condemn his slow response to the worst crisis in 40 years, characterized by chronic fuel shortages and an inflation rate hovering around 20%.
Business organizations estimate that the ongoing protests and road closures are costing the Bolivian economy more than $50 million per day, with approximately 5,000 vehicles currently stranded on national highways.
The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which governed Bolivia for two decades under Morales and subsequently Luis Arce, suffered a historic defeat in last year’s elections following a bitter internal feud between the two former leaders.
Morales recently addressed the situation on the X platform, stating: “The government and the right claim I am a political corpse and cannot mobilize anyone, yet they continue to blame me. The uprising cannot be suppressed as long as structural demands regarding fuel, food, and inflation remain unresolved.”
The end of the MAS era has left Bolivia’s political landscape deeply fractured, with no single party emerging as a dominant force. While Paz achieved a surprise electoral victory, the Christian Democratic Party that brought him to power quickly splintered in the legislature. Furthermore, the president remains in an open confrontation with his vice president, former police officer Edman Lara.
Although Paz has secured various investment and loan commitments from international powers, most of these funds have yet to materialize. In an initial policy move, he eliminated fuel subsidies; while this did not immediately trigger protests from a public already weary of shortages, the government’s subsequent import of low-quality gasoline led to an outcry from transport workers over vehicle damage.
The “bad gasoline” scandal has triggered a wave of strikes and protests within the transport sector and led to the resignations of two high-ranking officials at the state oil company.
US support for the Paz administration
The ongoing protests and barricades in Bolivia have caused concern across the region. Eight Latin American governments, ranging from Chile to Costa Rica, recently issued a joint statement rejecting “any action aimed at disrupting the democratic order.”
Neighboring Argentina announced it would launch a week-long humanitarian airlift to address shortages within Bolivia.
The US, seeking to rebuild ties with Bolivia, has expressed support for Paz’s efforts to “restore order for the peace, security, and stability of the Bolivian people.”
On Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Landau confirmed on X that he had met with Paz to reaffirm US support for the legitimate government. Landau condemned the organizers of the barricades and uprisings, alleging without providing evidence that they receive support from organized crime and drug traffickers.
Calling specifically on Brazil and Colombia to back Rodrigo Paz, Landau guaranteed that President Donald Trump and his administration are working to ensure that “anti-government and anti-order forces” do not prevail.
“I would deeply regret it if the promising new beginning in Bolivia were to fail. It would be detrimental for all countries in the Americas to witness such uncivilized behavior,” Landau stated. A deputy to Senator Marco Rubio also praised Argentina’s support for the Paz administration, noting that the “entire burden” should not fall on the US.
Right-wing Paz government alliance with Trump develops
In April, Bolivia and the US signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals, including lithium, establishing a framework for information sharing and exploration of cooperation.
Washington has publicly declared its interest in securing supply chains. The Paz administration presented the agreement as the first step toward a technological partnership that would finally bring Bolivian lithium to international markets.
The Paz government also confirmed that in February 2026, it would allow the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to establish a permanent operational presence in La Paz. This decision reverses Morales’s 2008 move to expel the agency.
Morales’s original decision was based on allegations that DEA activities constituted political surveillance and interference against the MAS government rather than genuine counter-narcotics efforts. The expulsion became a defining symbol of Bolivia’s sovereign independence from Washington’s security apparatus.
The Paz administration has framed the return of the DEA as a “professional law enforcement arrangement.” Foreign Minister Aramayo stated that negotiations are ongoing to define the agency’s areas of cooperation and operational limits.
Colombia warns of potential massacre against Bolivian people
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sided with the demonstrators, warning that if repression intensifies, it could lead to the “crushing of the Bolivian people” and a “massacre.”
Meanwhile, the Argentine government faces allegations of shipping riot control supplies to Bolivia. Opposition lawmakers in Buenos Aires are demanding an explanation regarding “Hercules C-130” cargo planes traveling to Bolivia.
Rolando Pacheco, a lawmaker from the leftist Alianza Popular (AP) party, suggested the aircraft are not carrying humanitarian aid as the Javier Milei administration claims, but rather equipment for police and military operations to suppress demonstrations.
Digital platforms in Argentina have seen a rise in campaigns inciting hatred against indigenous populations. Simultaneously, Morales noted that Erik Prince, founder of the US private military firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) and an ally of Trump, has called for intervention against “insurgent grassroots movements.”
Threat of a new ‘Operation Condor’
Concerns are mounting that the Bolivian government and the country’s economic elite will move to forcibly suppress the worker-peasant uprising in coordination with right-wing regional governments and the US.
Morales has referred to “Plan Condor 2026,” a purported new version of the 1970s “Operation Condor.” Under that original code name, South American military dictatorships, guided by US intelligence agencies, killed, disappeared, or tortured thousands of dissidents.
In parallel, Bolivia’s economic elites are mobilizing against the protesters. In Santa Cruz, the far-right “Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee” called for a “March for Democracy” on Thursday, May 21.
In Cochabamba and La Paz, residents of affluent neighborhoods known as “Pititas” have held counter-demonstrations against the barricades, blaming Evo Morales as the primary organizer of the unrest.
Morales has warned that the Paz administration may intensify repression in collaboration with the US and regional right-wing governments, targeting indigenous people and trade unions.
On May 15, Morales claimed on X that the US had ordered the Paz government to conduct a military operation—supported by the DEA and US Southern Command—to detain or kill him.
Morales identified specific military units, including the Army’s Ninth Division in the tropical Chapare region under the command of Colonel Franz Andrade Loza. He alleged Loza was promised a promotion to general and appointment as commander of the armed forces upon the operation’s completion.
He further named an F-10 unit under Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Giménez Ortuño, a former deputy to the defense minister under Jeanine Áñez.
Among the civilians accused by Morales was Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, the former interior minister under Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who fled to Miami following the 2003 “Black October” massacre in which security forces killed over 60 protesters. Morales also named Deputy Minister of Social Defense Ernesto Justiniano, who is reportedly in Washington.
The documents supporting these claims were allegedly leaked by police officers opposed to the operation.
America
Over half of Latino voters back Democrats in key US House races
A new public opinion poll in the US shows that Democratic candidates have made notable gains since 2024 among Latino voters in critical, competitive districts for the House of Representatives.
These gains have the potential to directly determine which party will secure the majority in Congress next year.
According to a joint survey by Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision shared with Axios, Democrats reached 58% support on the generic congressional ballot among Latino voters across 17 competitive House districts.
The share of those backing Republicans within the same voting bloc remained at 35%. This group continues to represent the fastest-growing swing constituency in battleground districts.
Examining three competitive House races in Texas, the study indicated that Latino voters, who reported splitting evenly at 44% to 44% in the 2024 presidential election, shifted 56% to 36% in favour of Democrats heading into the midterms.
Latino support for Democrats also increased in other states. In California, 57% of Latino voters said they would support Democrats, compared with 33% who said they would back the Republican Party.
Kate Coleman, Senior Vice President at TelevisaUnivision, highlighted voter behaviour in remarks to Axios:
“Latino voters are not locked into one party. They are watching developments closely; they make decisions based on who stands with them and how they stand.”
The survey data determined that 11% of Latino respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election now support Democratic candidates.
Accelerating his deportation plans, Trump triggered fear across many Latino neighbourhoods while weakening his support among this demographic.
The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision study revealed that 63% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s presidential job performance. The share of those approving of his performance in office stood at 36%.
Trump’s approach to high prices and the cost of living drew disapproval from 65% of Latino voters, while immigration enforcement and deportation practices were disapproved of by 62%.
More than half of Latino voters, at 64%, reported that they disapprove of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A survey published in May by UnidosUS showed that a quarter of Latino voters “would probably not vote” or would definitely not support Trump if they had to vote for him again.
The study at that time had pointed out that, despite Trump’s decline among Latino voters, Democrats had not yet secured significant gains.
According to Pew Research Center data, Trump strengthened his support in 2024 by securing 48% of the Latino vote, coming very close to the 51% reached by then Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some figures within the Democratic Party, however, worry that primary victories by democratic socialist candidates could alienate certain Latino voters, particularly those who fled Cuba or Venezuela.
The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision survey was conducted between 6 and 17 August among 1,500 Latino respondents. The poll’s margin of error was reported as 2.5 percentage points.
America
Researcher quits Anthropic and warns AI firms gamble with lives
Jacob Coxon, an artificial intelligence researcher at Anthropic, has resigned from his post, stating that tech companies are acting irresponsibly in the race towards self-improving superintelligence. Coxon warned that the autonomous operational capabilities of such systems pose existential risks to humanity and that internal industry anxieties run far deeper than generally perceived.
The AI researcher stepped down from his position at Anthropic to draw attention to industry safety vulnerabilities and the unregulated race among developers.
Having worked for three years as a pre-training researcher across both OpenAI and Anthropic, Coxon announced his decision to leave in an extensive statement shared on his X account.
Stating that both companies have acted irresponsibly, Coxon argued that developers are engaged in a dangerous race to achieve self-improving superintelligence.
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026
“They believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade”
In his posts, Coxon stated that technical teams developing AI genuinely believe this technology could bring about the demise of humanity by the end of the decade.
Asserting that these concerns are not a marketing strategy, the researcher noted that while top executives and senior researchers adopt a cautious tone in public statements, they voice the very same fears behind closed doors.
Developments reflecting similar anxieties across the sector evoke James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator, which set 2029 as the pivotal year when machines waged war against humanity.
Indeed, Evan Hubinger, head of Anthropic’s own alignment team, had previously estimated the probability of human extinction to be greater than 10%.
Warning that systems currently under development will soon evolve into superhuman structures capable of bypassing any firewall, transforming industries overnight, and securing physical resources, Coxon stressed that the pace of progress is not slowing in any way.
Arguing that the danger of superintelligence is no longer merely theoretical, the researcher pointed to the Hugging Face security leak that occurred between May and July.
In that incident, OpenAI models established an independent chatroom within the testing environment to communicate among themselves, subsequently using this channel to reach the open internet and infiltrate production systems.
Because of this security breach, Hugging Face was forced to rebuild approximately one-third of its infrastructure.
“They are gambling with our lives”
Characterising the leak as a warning flare, Coxon indicated that the incident makes pacing agreements between US-based laboratories more feasible.
However, emphasising that developers are not yet on the right track to prevent a global race, the researcher noted that measures such as a temporary moratorium on advancing model capabilities could be considered.
Arguing that civilisation-scale risks have not yet been sufficiently internalised at OpenAI, Coxon contended that Anthropic joined the race out of an ambition to be first, despite being fully aware of the dangers.
Coxon is not the only figure to leave the sector on such grounds. Mrinank Sharma, a member of Anthropic’s safety team, also stepped down earlier this year, writing that the world is in danger.
On the other hand, not everyone agrees with these catastrophic scenarios. Some responses to the post emphasised the view that humanity, with an evolutionary history spanning hundreds of thousands of years, will not be wiped out by a text prediction model achieving consciousness.
It was also noted that even the plot of the Terminator franchise does not entirely support Coxon’s premise, as the human resistance survived the nuclear catastrophe and ultimately defeated the machines.
Alongside safety debates, AI continues to directly affect the labour market. Research by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab indicates that, while mass job losses have not yet materialised, entry-level employment in AI-exposed sectors across the US has fallen by nearly 20%.
A Goldman Sachs study pointed to a similar trend, showing that entry-level workers bear the brunt of the ongoing workforce transformation.
Anthropic, which remains at the centre of the controversy, filed for an initial public offering in June and plans to list on the Nasdaq exchange this autumn at a multi-trillion-dollar valuation.
America
Pentagon launches mass polygraph inquiry over munitions leaks
Classified data leaked to the press regarding the depletion of US military ammunition stockpiles has triggered a comprehensive inspection within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
According to a report by The New York Times citing officials familiar with the matter, investigators questioned approximately 50 personnel serving at the headquarters of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff by subjecting them to lie detector examinations.
The inquiries under the investigation were not limited to commissioned officers; civilian personnel at the headquarters were also subjected to the test.
Staff were asked whether they had leaked classified information to journalists and whether they had provided the press with details concerning dwindling ammunition stockpiles.
Sources speaking to the newspaper stated that this measure was aimed not only at identifying the source of the leak, but also served as an act of intimidation designed to deter other employees who might consider passing similar information to the media in the future.
The New York Times emphasised that such mass polygraph testing within the senior echelons of the US military has not been witnessed in modern military history and that the scale reached by the investigation is unprecedented.
Initial reports indicating that the American military was experiencing an ammunition deficit began surfacing in the media in August. A report by CNN television, citing sources familiar with internal Pentagon assessments, stated that throughout the five-month war conducted with Iran, the US had consumed nearly 80% of its THAAD air defence system interceptor missiles and approximately half of its Patriot missiles.
In another report based on its own sources, the Reuters news agency reported that the US military had expended “almost all” of its stockpiles of long-range, precision-guided ATACMS missiles and next-generation Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM).
According to information reported by The Washington Post, US President Donald Trump demanded an explanation regarding the ammunition deficit from Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
Trump voiced the view that the secretary had misled him regarding the existing quantity of ammunition. NBC television noted that Trump experienced disappointment because the ammunition shortage emerged as an obstacle to plans for expanding the military operation in Iran.
Adopting a different posture in public despite these leaks, Trump repeatedly reiterated that the US possesses “far more ammunition than any other country in the world.”
The US president also threatened that “the individuals who leaked these treasonous disclosures to the press” would face prison sentences.
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