Open letter to President Ollanta Humala

Environmentalists and civil society groups in three Peruvian regions began on Wednesday a national water march, aimed mainly at rejecting Newmont Mining’s Minas Conga project.  The marchers plan to converge in Lima by next week.

In Cajamarca region, where Conga is located, about 500 people began the march at the Cortada lake, Ideeleradio reported.

Supporters of the march also participated in Peru’s southern Arequipa region, which has also seen a number of conflicts over plans by mining companies to use Read more…

Peru’s government on Thursday declared an emergency in the country’s southern Ica region due to the extensive damage caused by an earthquake earlier in the week, according to daily El Comercio.

Cabinet Chief Oscar Valdes said that the government will provide 2 million soles (approximately $750,000) for works in the area affected by the quake.

Valdes said the quake caused the collapse of Ica’s sewage system, and announced Read more…

The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights, known as Movadef, has given up on its attempts to register as a political party in Peru, local media reported.

Movadef is known to be the political arm of the Shining Path, an insurgency that terrorized Peru in the 1980s and 1990s as it sought to overthrow the state and implement its Maoist ideology. Some 70,000 people were killed in the conflict, with the Shining Path responsible for some 54%, a truth commission found.

The group’s effort to register as a political party has been widely rejected by Peru’s Read more…

Survival International, the London-based indigenous rights group, has released up-close pictures of a family of the uncontacted Mashco-Piro tribe, known to live in the Manu National Park in in the Amazonian basin in south-east Peru.

The Mashco-Piro are one of about 100 uncontacted tribes in the world, according to Survival.

“Today’s photos are the most detailed sightings of uncontacted Indians ever recorded on camera,” Survival says.

Survival says sightings of the Mashco-Piro have increased in recent months. “Many Read more…

President Ollanta Humala, back from a trip to Europe, visited the city of Ica on Tuesday to inspect damage from a recent earthquake.

Early Monday morning, Ica was hit by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. The quake didn’t cause any major damage, but more than 100 people were injured, according to the government.

In August 2007,, the department of Ica was the site of a magnitude 8 earthquake that rocked the region, resulting in Read more…

Activity returned to normal on Monday following a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that rattled Peru’s south coast Ica region, daily El Comercio reported.

The earthquake occurred at 12:10 a.m. on Monday and its epicenter was 47 kilometers southwest of the city of Ica. Many of the residents spent the night in the street following the quake.

The quake was felt in Lima, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Junin regions, the Read more…

The owner of an unlicensed drug rehab center that was engulfed by a deadly fire over the weekend could receive eight years in prison, according to newspaper El Comercio, citing lawyer Mario Amoretti.

Raul Garcia Albornoz, owner of the Christ is Love center in Lima’s lower-class San Juan de Lurigancho district, turned himself into police following the fire on Saturday.

Peru’s Public Ministry opened an investigation into the cause of the fire, which broke out when two patients set fire to mattresses in an attempt to escape. The fire Read more…

President Ollanta Humala has a 54.5 percent approval rating after six months in office, according to pollster CPI.

State news agency Andina says Humala’s approval rating is higher than his predecessors after their first six months in office. Ex-President Alan Garcia (2006-2011) had an approval rating of 45.3 percent after his first six months, while Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) had a popularity of 30.6 percent, Andina said.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents say that Humala’s most important achievement during the first six months in office is his social programs, such as the Read more…

The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights, known as Movadef, has appealed a resolution that prevents the group from registering as a political party and participating in elections, daily El Comercio reported.

The appeal was presented on Friday to the National Election Board, or JNE. “With the appeal presented, the JNE will program a public audience in the next few days to receive the arguments from the claimants,” said Virgilio Hurtado, the director of the JNE’s electoral school. The time frame for the decision is 30 days.

The JNE rejected Movadef’s request last week. In its resolution, the JNE said that Read more…

Peru’s tourism promotion agency, PromPeru, expectes to see a 50 percent jump in Brazilian tourists this year, state news agency Andina said.

Brazil, the world’s sixth largest economy, is Latin America’s regional powerhouse and is increasingly becoming a player on the world stage.

While Brazil’s clout increases abroad, it is also seeing a growing middle class that is able to take international holidays, including trips to Peru.

In the first nine months of 2011, 92,000 tourists from Brazil visited Peru, up from Read more…