The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the South American country’s deposits of bird poo more valuable

As countries around the world wrestle with shortages of imported fertiliser as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Peru has turned to a tried and tested alternative: bird poo.

In the 19th century, fortunes were made and lost on guano, the potent excrement of fish-eating seabirds which was harvested by enslaved people from Africa and indentured Indigenous and Chinese labourers.

TV station finds 54% of document was apparently copied but Pedro Castillo calls accusations ‘malicious’

Peruvian prosecutors are investigating President Pedro Castillo and his wife for alleged plagiarism after a local television station said an investigation showed the couple may have copied more than half the master’s thesis they co-authored.

Panamericana television’s Panorama program used a transparency request to obtain the text of the 121-page thesis and submitted it to the plagiarism detection service Turnitin. Panorama said the couple appeared to have plagiarized 54% of it from other authors.

Pedro Castillo lifted a curfew in Lima but is still facing calls to resign after a rash of bad decisions and allegations of corruption

Peru’s beleaguered president, Pedro Castillo, is at the centre of a spiralling political crisis caused by rising fuel and fertiliser prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and his own heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest.

On Tuesday Castillo lifted a curfew in Lima that he had decreed less than a day earlier in an attempt to quell sometimes violent protests over rising fuel and food prices. But the move came too late to defuse public anger.

Decision restores humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year sentence for murder and corruption charges

Peru’s constitutional court has approved the release from prison of former president Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year sentence for murder and corruption charges.

Judge Eloy Espinosa-Saldana confirmed the 4-3 ruling in remarks broadcast on local channel Canal N. It was unclear when Fujimori could leave prison or if new legal challenges could halt the decision.