Leaders at Apec summit in Peru, with Biden intending to urge ‘stability, clarity and predictability’ through transition
Joe Biden will meet with Xi Jinping Saturday afternoon in what is expected to be the last time the two leaders meet before Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January.
The two leaders are attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Peru and are expected to have a meeting on the sidelines of the summit.
Continue reading...Anthony Albanese meets with leaders of Peru and Indonesia as middle nations seek to diversify trade away from the US
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has hailed “inclusive trade and investment” at a major Asia-Pacific economic forum in Peru where leaders are attempting to push against the protectionist policies favoured by US president-elect Donald Trump.
Speaking at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders summit, which assembles 21 of the world’s largest economies, Albanese told a press conference that Apec leaders consistently “spoke about the importance of free and fair trade between our economies to lift up the living standards of people throughout this region”.
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Continue reading...Warming climate has caused rivers used for transport to dry up, leaving children with little food, water or school access, says Unicef
Two years of severe drought in the Amazon rainforest have left nearly half a million children facing shortages of water and food or limited access to school, according to a UN report.
Scant rainfall and extreme heat driven by the climate crisis have caused rivers in what is usually the wettest region on Earth to retreat so much that they can no longer be traversed by boats, cutting off communities.
Continue reading...Lightning has killed a 34-year-old player and injured five others during a football match in Peru.
Sunday’s game between Juventud Bellavista and Familia Chocca in Huancayo province, about 70km south-east of Lima, was halted when lightning first struck, but a second bolt hit players as they began leaving the field. Video footage shows eight of the players collapsing after a loud crack.
Continue reading...Country ordered to compensate victims of programme that affected more than 300,000 women in 1990s
A UN committee has urged Peru to compensate women who were forcibly sterilised in the 1990s, ruling that the state policy could constitute a “crime against humanity”.
Forced sterilisation was part of a programme implemented by Peru’s then president Alberto Fujimori during the final four years before he left office in 2000 after a decade in power.
Continue reading...Dominican friar hailed as ‘prophet of the poor’ for belief that the church had political duty to end poverty
Gustavo Gutiérrez, the influential Peruvian priest known as “the father of liberation theology” and hailed as a “prophet of the poor”, has died in Lima at the age of 96.
Gutiérrez, a theologian and Dominican friar, was a celebrated – and sometimes controversial – proponent of the idea that the church needed to side with the poor and to fight to improve their lot.
Continue reading...Newly discovered figures dating back to 200BCE nearly double the number of known geoglyphs at enigmatic site
Archaeologists using artificial intelligence (AI) have discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs depicting parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales and even decapitated heads near the Nazca Lines in Peru, in a find that nearly doubles the number of known figures at the enigmatic 2,000-year-old archaeological site.
A team from the Japanese University of Yamagata’s Nazca Institute, in collaboration with IBM Research, discovered 303 previously unknown geoglyphs of humans and animals – all smaller in size than the vast geometric patterns that date from AD200-700 and stretch across more than 400 sq km of the Nazca plateau.
Continue reading...Brian Jeffrey Raymond of California was found guilty of drugging and raping women in his government apartments
A former CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced.
Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa, California, drugged more than two dozen women and performed nonconsensual sexual acts or made sexual contact with at least 10 women, the justice department said in a press release.
Continue reading...Despite his convictions for corruption and human rights abuses, many see the president who has died at 86 as the country’s greatest leader
At 11.45 on Thursday morning, six white-gloved pallbearers carried a coffin holding the body of the most divisive, beloved and reviled Peruvian politician of the last four decades. They passed the mourners, the cameras and the flag-topped lances of the Húsares de Junín cavalry regiment, and set it down in the hall of Lima’s brutalist culture ministry.
Behind the coffin, holding hands and dressed in black under a pale but warm spring sky, came its occupant’s eldest daughter and youngest son. A crowd of ministers, political allies and military top brass awaited them at the ministry.
Continue reading...Decision to honour authoritarian leader jailed for corruption and human rights abuses sparks mixed reactions
Peru has declared three days of national mourning after the death of its former strongman leader Alberto Fujimori, who died on Wednesday aged 86 and was the only Peruvian president to have been convicted and jailed for human rights crimes.
The government of Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, also decreed that flags be flown at half-mast in public and military buildings as Fujimori, who governed Peru throughout the 1990s, lies in state in the Museum of the Nation until the burial on Saturday.
Continue reading...Two more people missing and one injured after attack by ‘uncontacted’ Mashco Piro in rainforest
At least two loggers have been shot dead with arrows, one has been injured and two more are missing after a confrontation with members of the “uncontacted” Mashco Piro people in the Peruvian Amazon, according to Indigenous activists who have criticised the government for failing to formally recognise and protect all of the isolated people’s territory.
The deadly attack, which occurred last Thursday but was made known only this week, took place a day before the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) suspended for eight months the sustainability certification of a logging company that campaigners have accused of encroaching on the fiercely territorial Indigenous group’s ancestral land.
Continue reading...Pilot scheme in Amazon communities of central Peru aims to help people choose a more sustainable way of living
“At the beginning, there was a lot of fear and disbelief,” said Ketty Marcelo. “There was a perception from the communities that this was another scam, that it was only looking to steal information or our integrity.”
Indigenous communities in the Amazon have grown weary of people coming in from outside with plans that could mean them losing their land or way of life. When a team from Cool Earth, a climate action NGO, came to the Amazon communities of central Peru in October 2022, local people were hesitant. “These fears caused some families not to participate,” Marcelo said. “And we, as an organisation, were afraid this would be another project that would seek to impose activities without respecting the autonomy of the communities.”
Continue reading...Where are you Tommy and Elon? Marina Hyde finds that those provoking the race riots are far, far away; the dead hang delight – how this quick, surprisingly simple exercise can change your life; and ‘A bolt of lightning struck my plane’ – one woman’s incredible story of survival
Continue reading...The disease, spread by midges and mosquitoes, has been linked to two deaths as cases surge in previously unaffected areas
The deaths of two young women, miscarriages and birth defects in Brazil have been linked to Oropouche virus, a little-known disease spread by midges and mosquitoes.
A surge in cases has been recorded in the country this year – 7,284, up from 832 in 2023. Many have been recorded in areas that have not previously seen the virus.
Continue reading...At the lawless triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru, drug trafficking, illegal logging and gangs jeopardise the ecological and social fabric of the rainforest
The area of the Amazon where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet – referred to as Tres Fronteras (triple frontier) – brims with wildlife and natural resources. It is also a hotbed of illicit activity. Criminal groups are clearing the forest to plant coca and erect laboratories to turn the crop into cocaine. In the process of making coca paste, these labs discharge chemical waste – including acetone, gasoline and sulphuric acid – into rivers and soil.
Increasingly, these outfits are branching into illegal logging, gold dredging and fishing, in part because these activities allow them to launder money made from drug trafficking. These activities compound the environmental harm the groups are inflicting.
Continue reading...Mashco Piro sighted coming out of rainforest more frequently, apparently moving away from loggers
Rare images of the Mashco Piro, an uncontacted Indigenous tribe in the remote Peruvian Amazon, have been released by Survival International, showing dozens of the people on the banks of a river close to where logging companies have concessions.
The reclusive tribe has been sighted coming out of the rainforest more frequently in recent weeks in search of food, apparently moving away from the growing presence of loggers, said the local Indigenous rights group Fenamad.
Continue reading...William Stampfl was trying to climb Mount Huascarán in 2002 with two friends, one who was found and one who is still missing
Police have found the well-preserved body of an American mountaineer who was buried by an avalanche 22 years ago as he tried to climb one of the highest peaks in the Andes.
Police in the Ancash region found the body of William Stampfl on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level. The 58-year-old Stampfl had been trying to climb the 6,768-meter Mount Huascarán.
Continue reading...‘Landmark’ case is first to deal with use of sexual violence in state’s conflict with Shining Path rebels four decades ago
Ten soldiers have been found guilty at a court in Lima of crimes against humanity for rapes committed four decades ago during Peru’s civil war.
In what is being hailed as a landmark verdict, a panel of three judges on Wednesday said the systematic use of rape by soldiers in the Manta y Vilca case – named after the communities where the abuses took place – qualified as a crime against humanity.
Continue reading...Gustavo Gorriti, who has long exposed corruption, is the target of a criminal investigation campaigners call ‘politically motivated’
For more than four decades, Gustavo Gorriti has been a thorn in the side of corrupt elites, relentlessly uncovering government wrongdoing in Latin America – most recently exposing an unprecedented level of graft in Operation Car Wash, the continent-wide scandal that has ensnared nearly every elected Peruvian president of this century.
Gorriti made his name reporting the bloody rise of the Mao-inspired Shining Path. He was kidnapped by military intelligence agents during Alberto Fujimori’s 1992 power grab after unmasking his shadowy spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos.
Continue reading...Dina Boluarte, caught up in ‘Rolexgate scandal’, denies accepting watches in exchange for favours amid police raids on key allies
Police in Peru have detained the brother and the lawyer of the country’s embattled president, Dina Boluarte, as part of a widening corruption inquiry, weeks after a similar raid on the Peruvian leader’s home.
Boluarte’s brother Nicanor and her lawyer Mateo Castañeda were placed under preliminary detention on Friday, accused of influence trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation. Six other people were also detained.
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