LatinNews Daily - 29 July 2026

*Bolivia’s former hydrocarbons minister, Mauricio Medinaceli (2025-2026), has been arrested in relation to a fuel contamination scandal which sparked long-running protests by transport workers earlier this year. Medinaceli was detained in La Paz after an arrest warrant was issued yesterday by the attorney general’s office, which accused him of dereliction of duty and anti-economic conduct. Protests sprang up in February as drivers demanded compensation for engine damage caused by the contaminated fuel, and continued intermittently until June as the protest movement swelled into a far broader expression of discontent with President Rodrigo Paz’s government.