Reporting | Simeon Tegel

Peru: Where have all the anchovies gone? The Peruvian anchovy is the world’s most heavily exploited fish. Now Peru’s government is trying to reduce overfishing of the popular little forager.

April 14, 2013
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Growing to about 5 inches on average, the Peruvian anchovy might seem an unlikely candidate for the title of the world’s mightiest fish. Yet thriving in the Humboldt Current, the plankton-rich upwelling of Antarctic waters off South America’s Pacific coast, this diminutive, bright-silver forager gathers in vast shoals that have become the fishing industry's easiest pickings. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the Peruvian anchovy is “the most heavily exploited fish in world history,” with annual catches in Chile and Peru sometimes totaling more than 9 million tons, two or…Read more …

Peru’s military draft fires up critics for letting the rich off the hook Peruvians are outraged by the low-wage military’s new draft, and that the rich can afford to dodge it.

April 8, 2013
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The Peruvian government has sparked an uproar by reinstating the draft — but allowing those who can afford a $715 fine to skip military service. The measure has been almost universally attacked as discriminating against the poor, particularly from the Amazon and Andes, where entire families earn less than that sum in a year, while allowing rich kids to legally dodge the draft. It is especially polarizing in Peru where many of those with the cash to pay the fine are white, and most of those who can’t are either Afro-Peruvians or of…Read more …

No oxygen, no fear Few sports are as grueling as mountaineering, where just catching your next breath is a constant challenge. How do elite mountaineers prepare for the highest peaks?

March 23, 2013
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The distance between us grows slowly but surely in the gray light of dawn as we head up the steep snowfield 18,000 feet above sea level. It is not that Richard Hidalgo, Peru’s most accomplished mountaineer, is setting a blistering pace. In fact, he’s taking short, deliberate strides. But his metronomic rhythm toward the 19,872 foot summit of Mount Chachani is relentless. Unlike me, he doesn’t need to stop to catch his breath every few seconds, readjust his backpack, or just take in the stunning view of arid, rocky valleys through the clouds…Read more …

Cerro Rico: The mountain that eats men Bolivia’s fabulously rich silver mine has claimed thousands of victims, yet the men keep coming.

March 21, 2013
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CERRO RICO DE POTOSI, Bolivia — “There isn’t a man on this mountain who wants his children to work here,” Pablo Choque says as he prepares for his shift as a driller. Above us towers 15,800-foot Cerro Rico — literally the “Rich Mountain” — the greatest silver deposit ever known. Locals have another name for it: The Mountain that Eats Men. In its 17th century heyday, armies of indigenous and African slaves died here as the ore they mined helped keep the ailing Spanish empire afloat. Four centuries later, thousands of men like…Read more …

Peru: Amazonian conservation in action A stay at the Tambopata Research Center requires effort, but the rewards include stunning wildlife encounters, says Simeon Tegel.

March 9, 2013
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The low roar thundering through the undergrowth grew closer. Much closer. It was first light, just after 5am, on our first hike of the day out from the Tambopata Research Center (TRC), a lodge deep in the Peruvian Amazon, near the Bolivian border. Suddenly, Yuri, my guide, stopped and pointed into the dense canopy at the source of the intimidating rumble. "Don't move," he whispered urgently. But instead of some magnificent specimen of the Amazon's apex predator, the jaguar, Yuri was waving at a small, brownish lump of fur. Gazing nonchalantly down at…Read more …

Argentina’s bedeviled pact with Iran Argentina and Iran agree to investigate the deadly 1994 blast at a Buenos Aires Jewish center. Trouble is, Argentine prosecutors reckon Iran was behind it, and Tehran won’t let Iranian suspects be interrogated.

March 1, 2013
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Nearly two decades after the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Latin America’s deadliest terrorist atrocity is roiling Argentina once again. Eighty-five people were killed and hundreds injured in the 1994 attack, when a van loaded with 600 pounds of fertilizer detonated in front of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Society (AMIA by its Spanish initials). Prosecutors long ago blamed Iran. At 200,000, Argentina’s Jewish community is the largest in Latin America and the region’s most obvious target for anti-Jewish terrorism. Yet Tehran denies any involvement and refuses to allow investigators to…Read more …

Is the Brazilian Amazon shrinking faster? A new study of Brazil’s rain forest says deforestation last year occurred more than twice as fast as in 2011.

February 16, 2013
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Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has jumped alarmingly, according to a new satellite study. If confirmed, the survey, by independent Brazilian think tank Imazon, would be a sign that several years of record lows in jungle loss in the South American giant have come to a juddering halt. It found that 82 square kilometers (31.6 square miles) of tropical rain forest were lost in December 2012, a 107 percent increase over the same month the previous year. The study also revealed that December was the fifth consecutive month that deforestation had risen. From…Read more …

Peru exporting outlawed timber from Amazon to the US US consumers unwittingly support illegal logging. Is Washington’s new effort to crack down on the practice "just another action plan"?

February 1, 2013
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Some of the fine wooden furniture that makes for chic centerpieces in American homes is being sourced in far less elegant ways in this South American country. Environmentalists have long sounded alarms about illegal logging, claiming that export companies profit from ransacking the jungle of rare hardwood species in poor countries with lax law enforcement. Now, the US government is taking a tougher stance. Washington has given Peru one more chance to clean up its forestry sector and stop exporting illegally logged timber to the United States. The move is a response to…Read more …

Venezuela forced to face prospect of life without president Hugo Chavez Under the constitution, new elections must be held if the President is too ill to be sworn in

January 2, 2013
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As Hugo Chavez struggles to recover from his fourth cancer operation in 18 months, Venezuelans are digesting the fact that he may be too ill to be sworn in next Thursday for his fourth successive presidential term. Mr Chavez, 58, has been suffering from complications including a severe respiratory infection and has not been seen in public since shortly before his surgery on 11 December. Yesterday, Nicolas Maduro, the country’s Vice-President, said after visiting Mr Chavez in Cuba that the president’s health was “complex and delicate” but insisted he was slowly recovering. “We…Read more …

Peru: Lima’s progressive mayor vs. gangster order Mayor Susana Villaran has battled rats, tax cheats and chaotic streets of Peru’s capital. Now gangsters are attempting to bring her down.

December 29, 2012
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When Susana Villaran was unexpectedly elected mayor of Lima, few believed she would make headway in the urgent task of modernizing what may be Latin America’s most chaotic capital. The moderate leftist former human rights campaigner had no experience of running a major organization. Even supporters worried she was unprepared to take charge of this troubled city of 9 million. Yet now, halfway through her four-year term, just as she appears to be making progress in overhauling Lima’s catastrophic public transport system, she faces a recall election linked to a previous mayor accused…Read more …

Would Latin America accept Assad? Analysis: Latin America has a history of being a popular paradise for disgraced foreign despots. Will Syria’s Bashar al-Assad be next?

December 7, 2012
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might want to think twice before fleeing to Latin America with his family. He is reported to have sent his deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, on a trip to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela to sound out their respective leaders about the possibility of asylum. All three countries have left-wing governments that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, antagonistic toward the US. The most likely destination for the Syrian despot would appear to be Venezuela. Its President Hugo Chavez recently described Assad as his country’s “legitimate” leader. That…Read more …

Stakes are high as Mexico’s new President bids to end the bloodshed caused by drug conflict Enrique Peña Nieto takes office with calls to pursue the drug barons and protect the public

December 1, 2012
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As he is sworn into office as Mexico's new president today, Enrique Peña Nieto may privately wonder if his campaign promises to slash the death toll from his country's ferocious drug conflict can ever be fulfilled. Despair at the bloodbath is what drove millions of Mexicans to vote for Mr Peña Nieto and his reviled Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose previous corruption-riddled, 71-year rule ended in 2000 after it was finally forced to stop rigging elections. The telegenic 46-year-old former state governor has vowed not to enter unwritten deals with the cartels…Read more …

Bolivia tells fat kids: “Eat like a native” Eat your heart out Jamie Oliver. To trim down, Bolivian school kids chow quinoa and other indigenous staples.

November 22, 2012
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“The hardest nut to crack is weight,” says Gabriela Aro, who heads a groundbreaking school meals program based on traditional indigenous ingredients in the Bolivian capital, La Paz. The program targets nutritional problems among 153,000 needy youngsters in 411 public kindergartens and schools in one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries. But along with long-established conditions such as malnutrition and anemia, a new threat is rapidly emerging: obesity. Although there is a dearth of reliable data, most experts agree that Latin Americans are, on average, rapidly packing on the pounds. At an annual…Read more …

For Peru’s rebels, terror didn’t work, now for politics Blamed for Peru’s savage 1980-1992 civil war, Shining Path guerrillas have birthed a movement seeking to play politics and free their jailed leader.

November 19, 2012
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Two decades ago, security forces captured the Shining Path's messianic leader, precipitating the group's rapid military decline. Now, supporters of the Maoist insurgent group that once bathed Peru in blood are attempting a comeback. Pushing the group’s fundamentalist agenda and calling for the release of those convicted of terrorism, the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (MOVADEF, as it is known here) is winning adherents among a new generation with no memories of the horrors of the 1980s and early 1990s. The movement started in 2009, claiming to be against “globalization” and “imperialism”…Read more …

Farc demands land in return for peace Colombian guerrillas begin ceasefire talks – but where are the missing victims? Simeon Tegel reports

November 18, 2012
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Peace talks between the Colombian government and Marxist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, are due to resume in the Cuban capital, Havana. But it is the thorny issue of land ownership that could make or break the negotiations aimed at ending Latin America's longest-running insurgency. Colombia's hopelessly unequal tenure of farmland was the reason the Farc first took up arms in the 1960s, as millions of desperate peasants, guided by Marxist ideologues, finally decided they had had enough of a powerful post-colonial élite whose ranches covered vast stretches…Read more …

Uruguay approves abortion law The country is set to become one of the few Latin American countries to legalize abortion. So why aren’t women’s rights advocates celebrating?

October 18, 2012
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Uruguay is set to become the third nation in Latin America to allow abortion on demand. The country’s senate approved a bill Wednesday, by 17 votes to 14, which would permit pregnancy terminations for Uruguayan residents in the first trimester. The lower chamber voted by the narrowest margin, 50-49, in favor of the bill following a heated debate last month. President Jose Mujica, a former left-wing rebel, has already said he will sign it into law once congress sends it to him. The move marks a watershed in deeply Catholic Latin America. In…Read more …

Hugo Chavez finally meets his match He has survived cancer and a coup attempt in 14 years as Venezuela’s President, but ’el Comandante’ may be about to lose power in Sunday’s vote

October 5, 2012
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Judging by the heated rhetoric, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez could not be taking the challenge from opposition candidate Henrique Capriles more seriously. Even by his own strident standards, the president's recent warning to Venezuela's moneyed classes to vote for him or face "civil war" was inflammatory. Denying he was intimidating opposition voters, "el Comandante" claimed Mr Capriles (a telegenic, youthful, centrist former state governor) secretly plans to dismantle welfare programmes for the poor, a move Mr Chávez said would trigger a dangerous backlash. "Who could think that the people would remain with their…Read more …

Bullet to ballot: Today’s Latin American strongmen cling to power at the polls Analysis: Democracy is under attack — from Venezuela to Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia — this time by populist elected leaders who’ve proved unbeatable at the ballot box.

October 2, 2012
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The goose-stepping soldiers have long returned to their barracks and many of the generals who commanded them have died or been sentenced for crimes against humanity. Yet, some three decades after the fall of the military dictatorships that once terrorized Latin America, democracy in the region is once again under attack. This time, the strongmen are populist elected leaders, who — under a veneer of constitutionality — concentrate power in their own hands, marginalize opponents and use public resources to stack electoral races in their favor. The main proponents today, rights groups and…Read more …

Is Obama harboring a Bolivian rights abuser? President Evo Morales has accused the US of harboring a Bolivian former leader he claims has blood on his hands.

October 1, 2012
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Bolivia’s fraught relationship with the United States has nosedived again after Washington’s apparent refusal to extradite former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada back to the South American country. Sanchez de Lozada is wanted in his homeland over the slaying in October 2003 — 15 months into his second presidential term — of dozens of protesters against his plans to export Bolivia’s oil and gas reserves. The Bolivian police and army’s handling of the unrest was widely criticized at the time by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which issued a statement warning of…Read more …

Peru’s fantastic food revolution With its exotic ingredients, and chefs producing new twists on classics, Lima is becoming the gastronomic capital of South America

September 21, 2012
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Against expectations, the sweet chunks of banana perfectly complemented the raw fish marinated in lime juice, onions, coriander and Peruvian yellow chillies. I was tasting a new sort of ceviche, the seafood salad served across Latin America, in Amaz, a new Amazonian restaurant opened by Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, one of Lima's leading chefs. To a European palate, fruit with uncooked fish might seem outrageous but in Peru, it is logical. The banana replaces the steamed sweet potato commonly served with ceviche to soak up the tangy juices. The creative take on Peruvian and…Read more …

El mar contra el manglar El aumento del nivel del océano, debido aparentemente al cambio climático, se está comiendo parte del litoral de El Salvador, incluso un bosque de manglares

September 18, 2012
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Los árboles muertos sobresalen de la arena como esqueletos gigantes. Son la prueba concluyente que aquí hace poco, en lugar de esta playa azotada por el viento y las fuertes olas del Pacifico, hubo un bosque de manglares. En la región costera del Bajo Lempa en El Salvador, el cambio climático – en forma de mares crecientes – ha llegado temprano. Según los lugareños del pueblecito de La Tirana, el Océano Pacifico ha avanzado unos 300 metros desde 2005, empujando la playa delante de él y consumiendo así el frágil ecosistema del cual…Read more …

El Salvador in battle against tide of climate change Rising sea levels and deforestation have destroyed the mangrove crops that villagers depend on to survive

September 18, 2012
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The forest of towering, dead mangrove trees stretches along the beach as far as the eye can see. As the crashing waves rise and fall, short stumps emerge and vanish beneath the Pacific Ocean. Climate change has come early to the Bajo Lempa region of western El Salvador. A tiny rise in the sea level has, according to local people, seen about 1,000ft of the mangroves on which they depend vanish beneath the ocean since 2005. Another 1,500ft remains between the Pacific and their village, La Tirana. No one, it seems, knows how…Read more …

Crisis in the cloudforest for woolly wonders The yellow-tailed woolly monkey has long been hunted for its meat and fur, but now local attitudes are changing, as Simeon Tegel reports from Corosha, Peru

September 10, 2012
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Homero Francisco Lopéz grimaces as he recalls how his wife prepared the carcass of the monkey he had shot, serving him a bowl of thick stew, complete with chunks of cassava and a tiny hand for him to gnaw on. "It was normal here," he says. "Everyone did it. We didn't realise how few there were." Now Mr Lopéz, a 58-year-old subsistence farmer, has become one of the strongest voices in his village of Corosha, in the heart of the precipitous cloudforests of northern Peru, in defence of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, Oreonax…Read more …

Can private cities save a nation with world’s worst murder rate? Fears of new ’banana republic’ as US firm signs Honduras deal

September 7, 2012
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Honduras has unveiled a radical free-market plan to establish three "charter cities" in the violence-racked Central American nation. The government this week signed an agreement with US developers MKG group to begin building the cities – complete with their own governments, laws, courts, police forces and tax systems – from scratch early next year. The plan's backers say it is the only way to kick start development in Honduras, which has the world's worst murder rate – 68 times higher than the UK's – and where 65 per cent of the 8 million-strong…Read more …

In Ecuador, a quiet war on whistleblowers The administration of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has fought to muzzle the free press, rights groups say. So why would it offer asylum to transparency crusader Julian Assange?

August 20, 2012
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QUITO, Ecuador — As Julian Assange spoke from a balcony in Ecuador’s London embassy Sunday, journalists here wondered whether to laugh or cry. The WikiLeaks founder claimed that “freedom of expression and the health of all our societies” was under threat and warned of a “dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution.” Yet, according to numerous international and Ecuadorean human rights and press freedom groups, that is exactly the scenario now unfolding in the tiny South American nation whose support the 41-year-old Australian was eulogizing. They…Read more …

In Peru, Machu Picchu holds monopoly on travelers The mountaintop citadel is a powerful tourist magnet — so much so that Peru desperately needs to draw travelers off it.

August 5, 2012
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Overrun by cloud forest, Kuelap’s imposing stone walls tower high above the mountaintop, a timeless reminder of the grandeur of a mysterious pre-Columbian civilization. Built between 900 AD and 1100 AD by the Chachapoyas people, the fortress remains an impressive feat of engineering, given its inaccessible location and that imposing outer perimeter, 60 feet high and some 2,000 feet long. Like its better-known cousin Machu Picchu, Kuelap is one of Peru’s largest and most breathtaking archaeological sites. Yet while the world-famous Inca citadel is overrun with tourists, receiving an average of more than…Read more …

Death in Peru: braving the Cordillera Blanca Easy access to the range poses serious risks to novice mountaineers.

August 2, 2012
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By all accounts, Ben Horne and Gil Weiss were experienced mountaineers. They understood perfectly the risks inherent in the sport they loved. The bodies of the two Americans, still roped together, were discovered over the weekend below Palcaraju West, a remote 20,000-foot summit in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca range. They are thought to have been descending after pioneering a new ascent. Ted Alexander, of guiding company Skyline Adventures, who coordinated the retrieval of their remains, believes a block of ice collapsed beneath one of the pair. “They were just unlucky,” he told GlobalPost. The…Read more …

Mexico City: A union dismantled, with gruesome results President Calderon’s seizure of a state-owned electric company has led to a surge of on-the-job deaths and injuries.

July 20, 2012
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Daniel Vazquez will never forget his last night at Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the state-owned electricity company where he had worked for 22 years. “You and your people are screwed,” the police officer told him as he thrust an AK-47 assault rifle into his chest. “You’re not coming in.” Vazquez, 59, was attempting to report for work as head of a night shift of 80 workers at one of the customer call centers run by Luz y Fuerza del Centro (known as LyFC), which ran the electricity grid for Mexico City and…Read more …

Climate Pain: Latin America’s Climate Conundrum From the Rio Grande to Patagonia, climate change has begun to grip Latin America. Some of the damage, such as melting glaciers and rising sea level, can already be seen — but scientists warn there’s worse to come. The toll could be devastating for countries struggling to lift their populations out of poverty. In this series, GlobalPost’s Simeon Tegel reports from the climate frontlines.

July 17, 2012
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This is the first dispatch of Climate Pains, an in-depth series on apparent impacts of Latin America's changing climate. From Tierra del Fuego to Tijuana, Latin America is highly vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to trigger a series of natural disasters that could even reverse local victories in the fight against poverty. Droughts will grip regions from the southern cone to northern Mexico. Extreme storms are increasingly battering Central America. Rising seas will swallow up vast coastal areas. And many Andean glaciers will disappear forever. Meanwhile, the greatest threat to the…Read more …

Assange and Ecuador: mutually toxic Analysis: Why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ecuador are so bad for each other.

July 14, 2012
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Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, appears to be leaning toward granting asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Due to be extradited from the UK to Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual offenses, last month Assange breached his bail conditions to seek refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy. Since then he has refused to leave and has requested asylum and even Ecuadorean citizenship from Correa’s left-wing administration, which, like Assange, has an antagonistic relationship with Washington. This week, Ecuadorean newspaper Hoy quoted Correa as saying: “If Assange’s life is at risk, these things would be a…Read more …

Chihuahua: Where the rain doesn’t fall any more A record drought in northern Mexico has prompted warnings that the region’s climate may have changed for good

July 11, 2012
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Gorged to bursting point, the vulture watches impassively as the twister whips a column of dust past the sun-parched remains of cattle dotting the barren field. If there were such a thing as a textbook image of drought, then this could well be it. Wracked by a savage drug conflict that has claimed thousands of lives, the last thing northern Mexico needed was a "natural" disaster to compound its woes. But now the region's beef herds are being ravaged by the worst drought on record – one which scientists are linking to climate…Read more …

Nationalisation: Uruguay’s solution to its drug problem Law allowing state to sell cannabis could be adopted across Latin America in defiance of US

June 22, 2012
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Uruguay – in a bid to curb a narcotics-fuelled violent crimewave across the country – has unveiled plans to nationalise its cannabis market and become the first government in the world to sell the soft drug to consumers. The measure is aimed at both reducing the rising power of drug gangs and the growing number of users of crack and freebase cocaine in what has traditionally been one of Latin America's most peaceful nations. "We want to fight two different things: one is the consumption of drugs and the other is the trafficking…Read more …

Is Peru going authoritarian? Critics accuse President Ollanta Humala of having dictator tics after brutal crackdowns on anti-mine protesters.

June 14, 2012
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On the campaign trail, Ollanta Humala vowed that as president he would not sacrifice rural communities to mining and oil companies that wanted to dig and drill on their lands. The leftist candidate even pushed for a recall of then President Alan Garcia, blaming his refusal to listen to Andean and Amazonian villagers for triggering deadly clashes between police and protesters. But as president, some of Humala's onetime allies are accusing him of authoritarianism and betrayal as his government struggles to keep a lid on a wave of angry anti-mining protests. Police using…Read more …

The ghosts of Mexico’s past Exhausted by the war on drugs, the country is on the verge of electing the PRI, a party notorious for its autocratic, corruption-plagued rule. Simeon Tegel reports from Mexico City.

June 4, 2012
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For seven decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico by hook or by crook, stuffing ballot boxes, massacring democracy protesters and bribing journalists into providing sycophantic coverage. When it finally lost a presidential election for the first time, in 2000, the atmosphere was reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin wall. But now the party, universally known in Mexico as PRI, its Spanish initials, is on the brink of a triumphant comeback, with its youthful candidate for July's presidential polls, Enrique Peña Nieto, enjoying a consistent lead of around 20 points over his…Read more …

Can El Salvador’s gang truce hold? El Salvador’s vicious gangs have called a cease-fire, enticed in part by conjugal visits for incarcerated leaders. Salvadorans are skeptical it will last.

May 22, 2012
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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Carlos shows no emotion as he talks about the victims he shot and stabbed as he worked his way up the ladder of one of the world’s most vicious street gangs. “It’s how you gain status,” he says matter-of-factly. When asked how many people he hurt, he thinks for a split second before responding: “Enough.” One of six siblings whose single mother struggled to make ends meet, he was recruited to the Mara Salvatrucha — one of two Central American gangs, or “maras,” whose violent tentacles reach from…Read more …

Peru’s Amazon highway: integrator or decimator? A local missionary is a key backer of the route, which would traverse the remote, unspoiled Peruvian Amazon. Greens and rights groups disagree.

May 21, 2012
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The Peruvian congress is set to debate putting a road through a remote, protected part of the Amazon that is home to some of the last fully isolated indigenous tribes anywhere in the world. The highly controversial freeway would cut through an indigenous reserve and a national park in the jungle departments of Ucayali and Madre de Dios, on Peru’s southern border with Brazil. It would link the towns of Puerto Esperanza and Inapari. Environmental and indigenous groups fiercely oppose the road, fearing it will pave the way for illegal loggers, poachers and…Read more …

Peru: Warmer seas are blamed for bird carnage After widespread dolphin deaths, thousands of boobies and pelicans wash up on Peruvian beaches.

May 15, 2012
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A lack of anchovies and other small fish triggered by unseasonably warm waters has left thousands of seabirds starving to death along Peru’s Pacific coast, experts say. This month, the corpses of 5,000 birds, principally pelicans and boobies, have been discovered on beaches up and down the country, according to official government reports. It is the second mass die-off this year in Peruvian waters, after hundreds of dolphin carcasses also mysteriously washed up on beaches in the northern regions of Piura, Lambayeque and Tumbes. Initially, it was thought the bird and dolphin deaths…Read more …

Peru prison: from pot smoke to pottery class There's nothing quite like Lurigancho, Peru’s largest prison, reputedly one of the toughest in South America. GlobalPost gets inside, and finds some surprises.

May 14, 2012
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Salsa blares from the cells and the pungent smell of cannabis smoke hangs in the air. In the crowded, dingy corridors, prisoners cook lunch on tiny electric stoves, play cards and shoot the breeze. Tattooed, shirtless men hurry by, barely stopping as they exchange greetings. One inmate pours me a shake from his blender. Made from a uniquely Peruvian mix of quinoa, oatmeal, banana, honey and cacao — it is delicious. I am inside Lurigancho, Peru’s largest prison, reputedly one of the toughest in South America. Built to house 2,500, its grimy, crumbling…Read more …

Damming Chile: Patagonia could see 5 hydro plants Environmentalists are outraged by HidroAysen's plans for dams in Chile’s stunning wilderness. Chile's billionaire president says, ‘People deserve more protection than trees.’

May 7, 2012
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Chilean Patagonia is home to spectacular fjords, raging rivers, vast pine forests and imposing granite peaks, not to mention mountain lions, condors and endangered huemul deer. Renowned as one of the last great wildernesses, it is now also the scene of a bitter fight over plans to build five hydroelectric dams that would satisfy a quarter of Chile’s rapidly growing hunger for electricity. The $3.2 billion HidroAysen project would build three power stations on the Pascua River and another two on the Baker River, in the southern region of Aysen. That would generate…Read more …

Peru’s massive dolphin die-off sparks concern over oil search Conservationists blame seismic testing for scaring dolphins to death, but Houston-based oil firm BPZ denies the claim.

April 20, 2012
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Dolphins have been dying along this South American country’s northern coast in unprecedented numbers. Conservationists say the die-off could be the result of seismic testing by a private oil company. The bodies of about 3,000 animals, principally short-beaked common dolphins, have washed up on beaches since early February, according to research conducted by veterinarian Carlos Yaipen-Llanos, founder and scientific director of Peruvian marine conservation group Orca. The animals have no outward signs of trauma and researchers are continuing to investigate possible causes. Nevertheless, some experts are pointing the finger at seismic testing used…Read more …

Shining Path sniper kills Peruvian policewoman Shining Path terrorists have killed a police captain as she took part in an attempt to rescue dozens of hostages seized by the rebels earlier this week.

April 14, 2012
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Shining Path terrorists have killed a police captain as she took part in an attempt to rescue dozens of hostages seized by the rebels earlier this week. Nancy Flores Paucar, 32, was hit by a sniper as a helicopter she was co-piloting attempted to land in the Peruvian Amazon to drop off a group of armed officers. Three other officers and their indigenous guide were also wounded in the ambush. In a statement, Peru's Ministry of the Interior described the killing as "a premeditated attack by terrorist criminals with long-range weapons". The incident…Read more …

Peru backs the US in the war on drugs As some Latin American leaders call for legalization of narcotics, Peru — a leading coca grower — remains opposed. A former anti-drug czar turned dissident explains why.

April 14, 2012
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This weekend, heads of state at the Summit of the Americas are expected to discuss the emerging Latin American consensus for an alternative to the “war on drugs.” Many leaders are fed up with the violence, and highlight how it has even failed to stop rising demand in the US and their own countries for cocaine and other illegal highs. Yet one key country continues to back Washington’s prohibitionist approach to narcotics: Peru. According to the most recent United Nations statistics, this Andean nation is on the point of overtaking Colombia as the…Read more …

Return of the Shining Path Terrorist group kidnaps 40 workers less than a week after Peru's President said it had been 'totally defeated'

April 13, 2012
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Less than a week after President Ollanta Humala declared Peru's Shining Path rebel group "totally defeated", the terrorist group has reportedly demanded a $10m (£6.3m) ransom for the return of around 40 gas workers kidnapped in the Amazon. A heavily-armed group burst into a hotel housing the workers in the remote town of Kepashiato in the early hours of Monday morning. They used two stolen pickup trucks to flee with theirvictims.The government has sent around 1,500 soldiers to the area and declared a state of emergency in the vast rainforest district of Echarate.…Read more …

Climate Change in Latin America: A Four-Part Series From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, climate change is gripping Latin America. Simeon Tegel reports on the human consequences of drought, hurricanes, and melting glaciers.

April 10, 2012
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As climate change tightens its grip on Latin America, it is the poorest, often in remote rural communities, who are hardest hit. Simeon Tegel's on-the-ground reporting from four of the region’s climate frontlines documents the human consequences of anthropogenic global warming’s early impacts. In Ecuador, he takes a close-up look at the rapidly-melting Antisana glacier, 17,000 feet above sea level. Like the Arctic, the high Andes is one of the regions where the early effects of the climate crisis are already most noticeable. Antisana, among the best studied in the Andes, helps provide…Read more …

Peru’s president wins awkward sibling contest Ollanta Humala’s unruly, jailed brother appears destined to ruin him.

April 1, 2012
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As politicians’ awkward siblings go, few top Antauro Humala, brother of Peru President Ollanta Humala. The former major is serving a 19-year jail term for leading a failed 2005 army revolt to overthrow democratically elected President Alejandro Toledo. Four police officers died in the uprising, which was also supposedly intended to stop Chilean economic interests from taking over Peru. Ever since, Antauro’s hard-left views, and his ability to turn an outrageous quote at the click of a journalist’s microphone, have simultaneously enthralled and appalled the entire country. Yet, this month Antauro appears to…Read more …

Ecuador’s green president pushes massive Chinese mine Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa says: “We cannot be beggars sitting on a bag of gold.”

March 30, 2012
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President Rafael Correa was once the toast of environmentalists around the world after his government adopted a groundbreaking new constitution that recognized “the rights of nature.” The 2008 constitution even used the words “Pacha Mama” — the indigenous Quechua language’s term for the “Earth Mother.” It stipulated that the state “will incentivize” citizens to respect and protect her ecological cycles. But now, Correa finds himself accused of hypocrisy as his bid to push through a huge $1.77 billion open-pit copper mine in the Amazon has aroused the wrath of the country’s powerful indigenous…Read more …

Sex and drugs and private cells: Behind bars in South America A deadly riot in Mexico and an inferno in Honduras have turned the searchlight on conditions in Latin America's overcrowded and anarchic prisons. Simeon Tegel spends a day behind bars in Peru

March 28, 2012
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The cluster of shirtless, tattooed inmates in the prison courtyard make no effort to hide the joint as a policeman wanders by. Instead, one turns up the volume on the salsa booming out of a portable stereo. Unconcerned by the clouds of cannabis smoke billowing from the group, the officer does not miss a beat as he carries on patrolling the grimy maze of corridors and patios that make up Lurigancho, Peru's largest jail. Built for 2,500 inmates, Lurigancho's crumbling walls are currently home to some 7,000 prisoners. Of Peru's 66 desperately overcrowded…Read more …

Argentina’s ‘Disappeared’, the mothers and the money Parents leading a campaign for Argentina's 'Disappeared' have been hit by a huge corruption scandal. Simeon Tegel reports

January 30, 2012
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Few opposed Argentina's military dictatorship as effectively as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with their lonely, dignified vigils in Buenos Aires' main square for their children "disappeared" by the junta. But now the group, whose moral authority in the country was previously akin to that of Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama, has become embroiled in a huge corruption scandal that threatens to tarnish its reputation and put an end to the Mothers' political activism for good. More than 60 people are facing charges, including the daughter of the Mothers' main…Read more …

Ayahuasca, an Amazonian trip Ayahuasca's a hallucinogen in a cup. Bring good karma, and drink at your own risk.

December 31, 2011
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MADRE DE DIOS, Peru — Without a word, the shaman hands me a plastic cup of ayahuasca, one of the Amazon rainforest’s most powerful hallucinogens. I down the pungent black liquid in one gulp, barely managing to repress the gagging reflex that its bitter, foul taste instantly triggers. And the wait begins. Around us, in a moonless blanket of darkness, the rainforest throbs with life. A chorus of insects, frogs and other unidentified creatures crescendos into a wall of pulsating whirrs, clicks, and screeches. By the light of a single candle, I can barely…Read more …

Amazon rainforest imperiled in gold rush Record prices for gold this year have pushed new speculators into the mining business

December 30, 2011
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Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru’s most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region’s rich, sandy soils, sparkling…Read more …

Sterilisation: Peru’s darkest secret An investigation into whether Alberto Fujimori's government carried out mass forced sterilisations in the 1990s has been reopened

December 8, 2011
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Victoria Vigo shows no flicker of emotion as she recounts how she discovered – by chance – that she had been surgically sterilised against her will. Heavily pregnant, she was admitted to a public hospital in the city of Piura, on Peru's northern coast, in April 1996 to undergo a Caesarian section. Within hours of the procedure, her ailing new-born child had died and Ms Vigo, 32 at the time, was being consoled by two doctors. "I was exhausted and just wanted to go home," Ms Vigo says. "The doctors were trying to…Read more …

Peru: Proposed gold mine riles locals The government must choose between locals' water source or major gold profits.

December 6, 2011
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Editor's note: This article is part of "Scramble for El Dorado," an ongoing series about the scramble for Latin American gold, which has only intensified amid the global turmoil. President Ollanta Humala’s tightrope act was never going to be easy: keeping Peru’s economy booming while cracking down on the mining industry’s environmental excesses. Now, just four months after taking office, the president is struggling to regain his balance after violent protests in the Andes forced the suspension of the proposed Conga gold and copper mine, a $4.8 billion project heralded as Peru’s largest-ever…Read more …

The nature reserve dream of a ‘gringo imperialist’ North Face millionaire environmentalist fights to set up vast wetlands park in Argentina

November 18, 2011
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A cayman in Laguna Ibera, Esteros del Ibera, Corrientes province, home to the maned wolf and the giant jabiru stork ( Alamy ) Douglas Tompkins, the US environmentalist and co-founder of the North Face outdoor clothing brand, has been nothing if not persistent in pursuit of his dream of creating a vast nature reserve in the province of Corrientes, in Argentina's sub-tropical far north. Just three years ago Mr Tompkins had to put up with the country's land minister, Luis Delía, calling him a "gringo imperialist" and promising to expropriate the huge land holdings…Read more …

After death, Peru targets soccer hooligans Critics say the sporting establishment pays thugs to get rough for ratings.

October 26, 2011
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The death of a young man in Lima’s Monumental soccer stadium has sparked a crackdown on the thugs who mar the game in this country — and the sporting establishment that has allegedly allowed them to flourish. Walter Oyarce, 23, had been attempting to protect two youngsters from rampaging fans of home team Universitario, widely known as the U, as they clambered from box to box ripping away signs of support for visiting club Alianza Lima, including a large banner hanging from Oyarce’s box. During the confrontation last month, Oyarce fell 15 feet,…Read more …

Left vs. indigenous of Latin America Once allies, the two have clashed over environmental concerns.

October 25, 2011
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Editor's note: The idea for this article was suggested by a GlobalPost member. What do you think we should cover? Become a member today to suggest and vote on story ideas. Aymara Indian, former coca grower, avowed socialist and Bolivian president, Evo Morales was a living embodiment of the alliance between the Latin American left and the region's indigenous peoples. Now, with Morales battling to save his legacy after his administration brutally attempted to suppress a peaceful protest by native Amazonian communities, that alliance appears on the brink of cracking up. The pressure…Read more …

La desglaciación de la cordillera andina Como el Ártico, los Andes son uno de los ambientes naturales donde más se sienten los primeros impactos del cambio climático. La nieve y el hielo están desapareciendo, con graves consecuencias para la región. Visitamos las alturas de la sierra peruana para constatar los cambios

September 29, 2011
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Desde el glaciar Yanapaccha, de 5.460 metros y situado en el corazón de la Cordillera Blanca, en los Andes peruanos, la vista no podría ser más imponente. Empinadas cumbres nevadas llegan hasta el horizonte mientras que abajo, a través de las nubes, quebradas escarpadas desembocan en lagunas de una turquesa perfecta. Pero, mientras los crampones crujen en el hielo duro de la mañana, queda claro que no todo va bien en este espectacular paisaje. "El glaciar parece un paciente muriendo de un virus," dice Richard Hidalgo, uno de los más destacados montañistas peruanos.…Read more …

Cocaine’s becoming king in Peru Peru's new government changes its drug-fighting tactics

September 24, 2011
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For years, Peru had a simple policy to fight cocaine: destroy the coca plants that were the key ingredient in the drug. It did not go so well. As the government burned coca harvests, it offered no support for impoverished farmers to grow alternative cash crops such as coffee or cacao. Predictably perhaps, many kept planting coca, simply moving their plots further from the reaches of law enforcement to more remote corners of the eastern Andes. That has nearly propelled Peru to the top of the cocaine-production ladder. According to U.N. figures, Colombia…Read more …

The changing face of Andean glaciers

September 2, 2011
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To the untrained eye, the view from the Yanapaqcha glacier, some 17,000ft above sea level in the heart of the Peruvian Andes, represents nature at her most sublime. Sheer, snowcapped peaks stretch to the horizon while, through the clouds below, fertile ravines drain into perfect turquoise lakes. But as our crampons crunch into the hard ice, it quickly becomes apparent that not all is well in this spectacular wilderness. “The glacier looks like a patient dying of a virus,” says Richard Hidalgo, arguably Peru’s foremost mountaineer. “The disease is eating it away from…Read more …

Peru may be turning a corner on its treatment of indigenous people Peru's divisions only deepened under the previous administration. A new law gives grounds for cautious optimism

August 31, 2011
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The symbolism could hardly have been more striking as indigenous Awajún member Eduardo Nayap – in suit, tie and colourful Amazonian feather crown – addressed Peru's new congress last week. Nayap, a member of President Ollanta Humala's Nationalist party, was welcoming the chamber's unanimous approval of a bill requiring prior consultation with indigenous peoples about legislation or infrastructure projects that would affect them or their territories. Humala is expected to sign it into law this week. The measure, repeatedly blocked by Peru's previous president, Alan García, is being hailed as a major advance…Read more …

Lucha de gigantes Yawar Fiesta, emblemática tradición de los Andes peruanos que enfrenta a un toro bravo con un cóndor, está en auge. Pero el ave majestuosa del que depende está cada vez más amenazada.

August 23, 2011
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Mientras que el toro se retuerce y corcovea, el atemorizado cóndor amarrado a su lomo bate sus gigantescas alas, casi eclipsando al enfurecido animal. Con un coro de cuernos aballados, un comunero con una capa arrugada entra a la plaza. Son las dos de la tarde, en Cotabambas, un pueblo a cuatro horas de Cuzco, la antigua capital del imperio inca, en Perú. Han estado fluyendo la cerveza y chicha -el jugo de maíz fermentado que tanto gusta a los andinos- desde hace horas, y la fiesta Yawar está llegando a su irresistible…Read more …

Morales, his moral maze and a road into Amazon wilderness Bolivia's President hopes a highway through virgin land will lead to prosperity – but indigenous groups are furious

August 19, 2011
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The Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Reserve and National Park might strike many as paradise on earth. Located in the verdant head waters of the Amazon basin, the protected area is home to a stunning array of species, from howler monkeys and spectacled bears to myriad birds and insects, not to mention 64 native communities and billions of tons of forest carbon. It is the last place where the credentials of Evo Morales as a globally renowned defender of indigenous rights and the Pachamama, or Earth Mother, seem likely to be called into question. But…Read more …

Why the day of the condor could be drawing to a close A decline in the numbers of the giant Andean bird casts doubt on the survival of a spectacular Peruvian tradition

August 4, 2011
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As the bull twists and bucks, the frightened condor strapped to its back helplessly flaps its huge wings, almost dwarfing the enraged animal. To a chorus of battered horns, a villager with a tattered cape steps into the dusty square. Chicha, the fermented maize juice that is the preferred tipple of many Andeans, has been flowing for hours and the man appears unsteady on his feet. The bull snags the cape on its horns as the man barely manages to sidestep the charging beast before leaping over the barrier, back into the safety of…Read more …

Mr García’s acts of corruption Independent Blogs: The Foreign Desk

July 27, 2011
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On Thursday, in front of Peru’s parliament, Alan García is due to hand the presidential sash to Ollanta Humala. But in a major breach of protocol – not to mention a serious fit of pique – Peru’s outgoing president has said he will not attend the event. Mr García’s lack of appetite for mixing with his leftwing successor is understandable. Mr Humala, a former army lieutenant colonel, owes his rise to power at least in part to his tough-talking on corruption, with some of his supporters now calling for criminal investigations of Mr…Read more …

Fujimori campaign raises fears for democracy in Peru Jailed autocrat's daughter is on course to take the presidency

May 26, 2011
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For someone who has not been seen or heard in public for more than a year, incarcerated former president Alberto Fujimori is casting a long shadow over the campaign to choose Peru's next leader. The disgraced autocrat is believed by many Peruvians to be orchestrating the campaign of his daughter, Keiko, from the jail where he is serving a 25-year sentence for embezzlement and directing paramilitary death squads. Running on a hard-right law and order agenda, Ms Fujimori is the favourite to win a run-off election on 5 June. The 35-year-old congresswoman has…Read more …

From lost city of the Incas to tourist trap in 100 years The huge number of people who visit Machu Picchu every year are threatening the site's very survival. Simeon Tegel reports

May 9, 2011
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As Hiram Bingham hacked his way through remote Andean cloudforests in search of a lost Inca citadel in 1911, little could the American adventurer have known of the tourism juggernaut that his archaeological expedition would unleash – or how it might threaten his breathtaking find. Now, Peru is gearing up to mark the centenary of Bingham's rediscovery of Machu Picchu with a series of glitzy events on 6 and 7 July. Sponsored by Coca Cola, the festivities will include international broadcasts of a son-et-lumière show and a concert expected to feature the Spanish…Read more …

After the fall: ex-leader’s daughter bids for power Keiko Fujimori is among the frontrunners in Peru's presidential campaign, overcoming allegations of corruption and her father's tainted legacy. Simeon Tegel reports from Lima

April 5, 2011
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A decade after the disgraced president Alberto Fujimori fled Peru amid an election-rigging and corruption storm, his 35-year-old daughter, Keiko, may be on the brink of a remarkable family comeback. With an engaging smile and an ability to stay on message that defies her relative political inexperience, Ms Fujimori is now among the frontrunners in Peru's closely fought presidential elections, with the first round of voting to take place on Sunday. The young congresswoman's slick campaign – orchestrated, some claim, by her aging father from the prison cell where he is serving a…Read more …

The desert city in serious danger of running dry Peru's arid capital faces a crisis as glaciers and rainfall dwindle. Simeon Tegel reports

March 22, 2011
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"Running water would change everything," says Luz Caballero wearily as she stirs a huge pot of beans in the Santa Maria People's Restaurant in Villa El Salvador, a sprawling, dusty shantytown on Lima's southern outskirts. "Living without it is just too hard." Ms Caballero and the other locals take it in turns to staff the co-operative restaurant, serving up 100 cheap but filling lunches every day. If cooking on this scale seems complicated, then doing so without tapwater takes on an epic quality, with a continuous time-consuming, energy-sapping shuttling of buckets from the plastic barrels…Read more …

A new life for Peru’s American enemy After 15 years in jail on terrorism charges, Lori Berenson tells Simeon Tegel how she and her baby son will pick up the pieces

February 9, 2011
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Lori Berenson's 20-month-old son, Salvador, lies sprawled out for his afternoon nap in the bedroom. Despite being born in a women's jail, Salvador's start in life was anything but blighted, Ms Berenson is keen to make clear. The youngster was a hit with the inmates and "got lots of love", she says. A long stretch in one of South America's toughest prison systems would have broken many. But Ms Berenson, who served 15 years for collaborating with an armed Marxist group during Peru's brutal guerrilla war, comes across as phlegmatic and even chatty…Read more …

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