12.08.2021

LIMA, Peru — At his swearing-in ceremony on the 200th anniversary of Peruvian independence last month, Peru’s first campesino president condemned the “racial regime” imposed by the conquistadors that continues to divide Latin American societies today. To hammer the point home, Pedro Castillo promised not to use the presidential residence, known as the “House of Pizarro” after its founder, Francisco Pizarro, who led the subjugation of .. Read more

21.04.2024

IÑAPARI, Peru — At the entrance to its sprawling tract of virgin Amazon rainforest, the Peruvian timber company Maderacre turns ancient hardwood trees into flooring on an industrial scale. Beside the vast, modern facility, a reddish dirt road leads into the jungle where workers harvest wood that takes centuries to mature. As it systematically removes the oldest trees from this stunning .. Read more

12.07.2016

From the air, the neat rows of cannabis plants in a clearing carved into the tropical dry forest along Paraguay’s lawless border with Brazil look like pine saplings. But once our Vietnam-era Huey helicopter carrying members of the country’s anti-narcotics special forces lands, it becomes clear why this small, conservative nation is one of the world’s biggest producers of marijuana. .. Read more

08.04.2016

LIMA, Peru — As Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori serves a 25-year jail term for kidnapping, directing death squads and other crimes, his family is poised for an improbable political comeback. His 40-year-old daughter, Keiko, is the clear front-runner going into tomorrow’s first-round presidential vote. Treading a delicate line between distancing herself from her father’s offenses and taking credit for .. Read more

04.08.2011

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 .. Read more

21.03.2013

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 .. Read more