Bolivia rocked by protests as US warns of ‘coup d’état’

Key points

• Protests blocking roads across Bolivia and turning the centre of the capital, La Paz, into a battleground between demonstrators and police have entered a second week.
• It is the most turbulent moment of the centre-right president Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s mere six months in office since he ended nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).
• In response to the protests, the president said later on Wednesday that he would carry out a cabinet reshuffle and would not “dialogue with vandals” involved in acts of violence, but would set up a council to allow Indigenous groups, farmers, miners and other workers who have been on the streets “to be part of the decision-making process”.
• After taking office in November, one of the former senator’s first moves was to restore relations with the US, which now describes the uprisings as “an ongoing coup d’état” against Paz Pereira.
• Alongside...