A new report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that Peru has now achieved rough parity with Colombia in coca production, with vast new areas coming under cultivation.
Peru’s National Police say a Cessna full of cocaine intercepted at a clandestine jungle airstrip reveals that Sendero Luminoso guerillas are working with Bolivian drug lords.
Campesinos in Peru’s Cajamarca region pledge to block operations of Newmont Mining company that they say are preparatory to the controversial Conga gold mine project.
Peru’s government is set to convene the first “prior consultation” with Amazonian indigenous peoples on oil development in their territory—but local skepticism runs deep.
An employee of the controversial Yanacocha gold mine in Peru’s Cajamarca region was arrested for the slaying of a local campesino leader who opposed the mine’s expansion.
A proposed law in Peru would impose a prison term for “denial” of Sendero Luminoso’s terrorism, but critics insist that if the law is instated it should also include “state terrorism.”
Authorities in Peru admitted that wastewater laced with heavy metals from a major zinc mine has spilled into the Río Huallaga, a major tributary of the Amazon.
As protests continue in defiance of a state of emergency, the CEO of Newmont Mining acknowledged that conditions do not exist to move ahead with the giant Conga project.
Campesinos in Peru’s northern Piura region pledge to resist announced plans by Chinese mining company Zijin to move ahead with the long-contested Río Blanco copper project.
After a new Shining Path attack left five soldiers dead in Peru’s jungle, anti-terrorism prosecutor Julio Galindo said the guerillas control illegal gold-mining operations.
The Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI), meeting in Cundinamarca, Colombia, called for construction of a "new paradigm" for a "sustainable civilization."
Even establishment voices in Peru are calling for a suspension of the Conga mining project, as Cajamarca region remains under a state of emergency for another month.
