Monthly Archives: May 2012

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …