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Continue reading...Category Archives: Peru
Outbreak of Oropouche virus in Brazil should be a ‘wake-up call’, say experts
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...Crisis at Tres Fronteras: how criminal syndicates threaten Amazon’s future
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...Uncontacted tribe seen in Peruvian Amazon where loggers are active
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...US mountaineer buried by avalanche 22 years ago found preserved in ice, police say
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...Peruvian soldiers found guilty of rapes committed during civil war in historic verdict
‘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...Peruvian reporter is target of smear campaign after taking on political elite
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...Brother and lawyer of Peru president held as corruption inquiry widens
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.
Continue reading...Peru’s embattled president dismisses ‘Rolexgate’ investigation as a ‘smoke-screen’
Dina Boluarte has denied wrongdoing after being accused of illicit enrichment in relation to her use of at least three Rolex watches and designer jewellery
Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, has dismissed an investigation into her use of luxury watches as a “smoke-screen”, denying wrongdoing and saying that the items had been loaned to her, though she admitted to journalists that it was a “mistake” to have accepted them.
Earlier on Friday she faced closed-door questioning by prosecutors which lasted nearly five hours, amid allegations of illicit enrichment linked to her use of at least three Rolex watches and designer jewellery that appeared inconsistent with her modest monthly presidential salary of about £3,320 ($4,200).
Continue reading...Peru president Dina Boluarte under pressure amid ‘Rolexgate’ scandal
President under investigation over allegedly owning jewellery worth $500,000 despite earning a monthly salary of $3,320
Peru’s first female president, Dina Boluarte, is embroiled in a scandal over her alleged possession of a collection of Rolex watches and luxury jewellery that has put her at the centre of a corruption investigation.
The unpopular leader shook up her cabinet on Monday, swearing in six new ministers, after a rash of resignations following reports that she owned jewellery worth £400,000 ($502,700) despite earning a monthly presidential salary of around $3,320.
Continue reading...Home of Peru’s president raided in search of luxury watches
The government criticised the move, with the country’s prime minister calling it ‘disproportionate and unconstitutional’
Peru’s government on Saturday criticised the raid on the home of its president, Dina Boluarte, as part of inquiries into possible illicit enrichment and failure to declare ownership of luxury watches as “disproportionate and unconstitutional”.
Police broke down the door of Boluarte’s residence early on Saturday morning, television images showed, apparently after calls by officials to allow them access to search for evidence went unanswered.
Continue reading...Scientists find skull of enormous ancient dolphin in Amazon
Fossil of giant river dolphin found in Peru, whose closest living relation is in South Asia, gives clues to future extinction threats
Scientists have discovered the fossilised skull of a giant river dolphin, from a species thought to have fled the ocean and sought refuge in Peru’s Amazonian rivers 16m years ago. The extinct species would have measured up to 3.5 metres long, making it the largest river dolphin ever found.
The discovery of this new species, Pebanista yacuruna, highlights the looming risks to the world’s remaining river dolphins, all of which face similar extinction threats in the next 20 to 40 years, according to the lead author of new research published in Science Advances today. Aldo Benites-Palomino said it belonged to the Platanistoidea family of dolphins commonly found in oceans between 24m and 16m years ago.
Continue reading...Machu Picchu train line reopens after protesters strike deal to readmit tourists
Access to Incan site in Peruvian Andes restored after dispute over new electronic rail ticketing system
Peruvian authorities have reopened the train route to Machu Picchu, after an agreement was struck to end more than a week of protests that had blocked access to the famed Incan site and stranded tourists.
PeruRail said in a statement a partial service had restarted on Wednesday and that a regular service would return on Thursday from the city of Cusco to Aguas Calientes, a town near the archaeological site.
Continue reading...Machu Picchu tourists stranded as protesters block trains to site
Train services suspended due to safety concerns as people demonstrate against Peru’s consolidation of ticket sales
Protesters in Peru are blocking access to Machu Picchu, leaving some tourists stranded amid local anger over a new ticketing system halting rail transport to one of South America’s most popular heritage sites.
Train services to the ancient ruins high up in the Andes have been suspended since Saturday due to safety concerns over demonstrators blocking the railway line. Travel links were still not reopened on Monday, two tour operators told Reuters.
Continue reading...Jack Russell terrier who loves to surf makes a splash on beaches of Peru
Four-year-old dog named Efruz ‘loves the sea’, according to his owner, and often perches on a surfboard to ride waves
Clad in a yellow vest, little Efruz balances himself on the front of the surfboard as waves foam around him and his companion as they skim over the Pacific waters off Peru.
Efruz is a four-year-old Jack Russell terrier and he is a common sight these hot days of the southern hemisphere summer.
Continue reading...Ecuador ‘at war’ with drug gangs, says president as violence continues
Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across country
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.
At least 10 people have been killed, including police officers, in the attacks.
Continue reading...Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s divisive former president, released from jail
The 85-year-old was pictured leaving prison in Lima where he was serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses
Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s former strongman leader, was freed from jail after a ruling from the country’s highest court granted him a humanitarian pardon, despite a request from the regional Inter-American Court of Human Rights to delay his release.
Looking frail and wearing a face mask, the 85-year-old was received by his lawyer, two of his children Kenji and Keiko Fujimori – his political heiress and three-time presidential candidate – and helped into a waiting vehicle amid cheers from his supporters, who waved banners, honked horns and chanted “Fujimori Libertad”, or “Fujimori freedom”.
Continue reading...International court urges Peru not to release ex-president Fujimori from jail
Country’s highest court orders freeing of Alberto Fujimori as Inter-American court points to conviction of human rights crimes
Peru risks being ranked alongside authoritarian states like Venezuela and Nicaragua, lawyers have warned, if it flouts international law by freeing former president Alberto Fujimori from jail after its highest court ordered his “immediate release”.
In the latest chapter of a drawn-out legal saga, Peru’s constitutional court ruled on Tuesday to free the former authoritarian leader who, since 2009, has been serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and ordering massacres committed by an army death squad in the early 1990s.
Continue reading...‘There was no one better’: Peruvian singer finally takes her place among all-time greats
Lucha Reyes was compared to Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf. Now, fifty years after her death, her songs are released for a new audience
On a late spring morning 50 years ago this week, 30,000 people gathered outside the baroque facade of the church of San Francisco in central Lima to weep, sing and say goodbye to the young woman whose coffin was hoisted on to the crowd’s shoulders and carried, for three hours, to El Ángel cemetery a few kilometres away.
Lucha Reyes, who had died the previous day from a heart attack brought on by diabetes, knew her end was approaching. In keeping with the raw and pained songs and performances that had made her Peru’s darling, the 37-year-old singer had even commissioned a valedictory waltz. Called Mi última canción, or My Last Song, it was written in a funeral parlour.
Continue reading...Environmental crime money easy to stash in US due to loopholes, report finds
Secrecy and lax oversight mean illegal loggers and miners in Amazon can park billions in real estate and other assets
Secrecy and lax oversight have made the US a hiding place for dirty money accrued by environmental criminals in the Amazon rainforest, a report says.
Illegal loggers and miners are parking sums ranging from millions to billions of dollars in US real estate and other assets, says the report, which calls on Congress and the White House to close loopholes in financial regulations that it says are contributing to the destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.
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