Peru’s President Ollanta Humala flew into a remote jungle military base in the Upper Huallaga Valley to announce the capture of “Comrade Artemio,” the last Shining Path commander dating back to the high noon of the insurgency 20 years ago.
Peru raided an illegal logging site in Manú National Park, just days after the UK-based Survival International released the first detailed photos of the “uncontacted” Mashco-Piro tribe that inhabits the Amazon rainforest reserve.
A procession of some 1,000 entered Lima after a nine-day cross-country march, holding a massive rally in Plaza San MartÃn to oppose the Conga mining project in Cajamarca region, and like projects across Peru’s sierras.
Indigenous leaders in Bolivia have filed a complaint with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission over a new “consultation law” they say is designed to lubricate approval of the controversial Amazon highway that has already led to violence.
Colombia’s former Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, now on the lam, was charged with conspiracy, fraud and illegal arms trafficking related to the bogus “demobilization” of non-existent FARC fighters in a “criminal enterprise.”
President Mauricio Funes named retired general Francisco Ramón Salinas as director of El Salvador’s National Civil Police, replacing former director Carlos Ascencio—removing the last high-ranking FMLN member of the public security cabinet.
Chevron and coastal communities in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state are odds on whether oil from a spill at the offshore KS Endeavor platform has affected local communities, but state authorities say they are rushing in emergency aid.
Arms sales from China and Russia are fueling human rights violations in Darfur, Amnesty International said. While the war has disappeared from headlines, some 70,000 were displaced from Darfur in 2011, in a renewed wave of ethnically targeted attacks.
The Greek cabinet approved new austerity measures demanded by the EU and IMF, as unions began a two-day general strike. This second bailout would cut €3.3 billion from state spending, lower the minimum wage by more than 20%, and lay off thousands of workers.
Buddhist monk Shin Gambira, recently freed under a government amnesty, was again arrested in Rangoon. Wildcat strikes have meanwhile hit two Rangoon footwear factories, and ceasefires with Shan and Karen rebels have broken down in Burma’s north.
Two Tibetan protesters were killed in Sichuan province, and protests were also reported from Qinghai. The new violence comes as the number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in acts of protest since the wave began in February 2009 reached 22.
Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike since Dec. 17, and Physicians for Human Rights now say that his life is at risk. His protest against administrative detention has sparked solidarity demonstrations across the West Bank.
