Peru

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A police officer on patrol was attacked and burned to death by protesters in the Peruvian region of Puno as the death toll from demonstrations in the wake of the ouster of former President Pedro Castillo rose to 47, authorities said Tuesday.

José Luis Soncco Quispe, 29, was on patrol with a fellow officer in Juliaca, a city near the border with Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, on Monday night when they were attacked by a mob that later set fire to their vehicle, according to police reports.

LIMA/JULIACA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - At least 17 people were killed in clashes with police in southern Peru, the country's human rights office said on Monday, the deadliest day so far of protests demanding early elections and the release of jailed former president Pedro Castillo.

The clashes occurred in Juliaca, a city near the banks of Lake Titicaca in southern Peru's Puno region, and left 68 people injured, Henry Rebaza, a Puno health ministry official, told the state-run television channel TV Peru. The dead included at least two teenagers, according to the ministry.

LIMA, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters attempted to take over an airport near Peru's border with Bolivia Friday as part of anti-government protests, prompting police to use tear gas to disperse them.

Protesters set fire to a police tank outside the Inca Manco Capac airport in Juliaca, in Peru's Puno region, according to images on social media and local television.

Protests against President Dina Boluarte resumed this week after a two-week pause, following violent clashes in December that left 22 dead after the removal and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo.

LIMA, Dec 27 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Six Peruvian generals have been arrested for their alleged involvement in a corruption ring involving former President Pedro Castillo Terrones, the country’s Attorney General’s Office announced Monday.

 The military officers are believed to have paid bribes in exchange for their promotion with Castillo’s knowledge and authorization.

After 26 raids carried out in different cities of the country, authorities are still looking for other high-ranking former or present police officers.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress tentatively endorsed a plan on Tuesday to hold early elections in an attempt to defuse a national political crisis marked by deadly unrest after lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo.

The proposal, approved by 91 of the legislature’s 130 members, would push up to April 2024 elections for president and congress originally scheduled for 2026. The plan — which seeks to add one article to Peru’s constitution — must be ratified by another two-thirds majority in the next annual legislative session for it to be adopted.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress is set Tuesday to consider holding early elections, beset by protesters who have blocked highways and clashed with security forces amid deadly nationwide unrest ever since the lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo.

It’s the second time in days that the lawmakers — easily the most reviled of a widely discredited political elite — are taking up the proposal to push forward to next year the elections for president and Congress originally planned for 2026.

LIMA, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Leopoldo Huamani, 60, a farmer from Chalhuanca in southern Peru, traveled for three days to reach the capital Lima and march in support of ousted and jailed leader Pedro Castillo, whose fall has sparked deadly protests around the country.

Huamani is one of Peru's "forgotten" people, marginalized, rural groups Castillo tried to represent - often falling short - whose anger has been fired up by his arrest, threatening to derail a fragile new government and a reviled Congress.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s caretaker president, Dina Boluarte, chastised lawmakers for not endorsing widespread calls for early elections as a way out of a deepening political crisis triggered when the ousted Pedro Castillo tried to shut down Congress.

In an early Saturday press conference, a defiant Boluarte pushed back against calls from some demonstrators that she resign, arguing that such a move wouldn’t resolve the urgent problems facing Peru’s countryside, such as the worst drought in a half-century, and only plunge the country deeper into chaos.

LIMA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Peruvian ex-President Pedro Castillo's pre-trial detention in prison was extended to 18 months on Thursday, amid a deepening diplomatic spat with left-leaning countries opposed to his removal and as deadly protests extended into a second week.

At least 15 people have been killed in the protests, according to statements from authorities.

A judicial panel within the Supreme Court ordered the extended period of pre-trial detention for Castillo as prosecutors continued an investigation into criminal charges against him.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was not invited to a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders in June. But by October, he traveled to Egypt for a conference where he joked with French President Emmanuel Macron and shook hands with John Kerry, the U.S. government’s climate envoy.

The encounters, with a towering Maduro graciously smiling throughout, were carefully captured on video, posted on social media and broadcast on Venezuela’s state television.