Blog, Latin America: Week in Review
Peru’s Humala Replaces Cabinet Members; Prime Minister Resigns
December 12, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Peruvian President Ollanta Humala remade his cabinet over the weekend, replacing ten ministers Sunday after Prime Minister Salomón Lerner resigned on Saturday. Many speculate that the government shake-up signals a more hard-line approach toward social protests that have challenged Humala and his government in recent weeks. Only a week ago, former minister Lerner failed to come to an agreement after negotiating with protesters over the controversial $4.8 billion Conga mining project in northern Peru that opponents say would contaminate water supplies in the region. Humala subsequently declared a state of emergency in four northern provinces to control the unrest. Lerner’s replacement, the former interior minister Oscar Valdés Dancuart, taught Humala at a military academy in the 1980s and his background has raised concerns among some critics that civil liberties will be further curtailed. Culture Minister Susana Vaca, Peru’s first Afro-Peruvian government minister, was among the ten ministers to lose their jobs on Sunday.
Read more from the AP and the New York Times.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico on Sunday, killing at least 3 people. The quake was felt in nine states.
- The Mexican government has doubled the amount it spends on internal security to more than $46 billion since 2007, but reforms to the justice system are still in the initial stages as the country’s death toll from drug war violence approaches 45,000.
- Big Bend National Park in Texas is planning to implement unmanned, automated border crossing posts between the park and the Mexican city of Boquillas del Carmen.
- The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce Monday whether or not to hear Arizona’s appeal of the Obama Administration’s order to block certain provisions of Arizona’s immigration law.
Caribbean
- Jamaican authorities said that about 60 percent of police officers taking a voluntary lie detector test had failed.
- Alleged Puerto Rican criminal Miguel Diaz Rivera, wanted for murder and drug trafficking charges, was captured in the Dominican Republic on Friday.
- Cuban dissident group the Ladies in White gathered in the home of their late founder Laura Pollan on Saturday to observe International Human Rights Day while a crowd of pro-government supporters chanted outside.
- Jamaican record producer Philip Burrell died at age 57 in Kingston last week.
Central America
- El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Hugo Martínez apologized on behalf of the Salvadoran government on Saturday for the massacre of a thousand men, women and children in the village of El Mozote 30 years earlier.
- Honduras has outlawed motorcycle passengers after two high-profile drive-by motorcycle shootings in recent weeks killed a journalist, her driver, and a former security advisor.
- France turned former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega over to the Panamanian government on Sunday. Noriega flew back to Panama to face jail time for the murders of two political opponents.
Andes
- Heavy rains and mudslides in Venezuela have killed at least 8 people and forced thousands into temporary shelters, according to government officials.
- The overflowing Bogotá River in Colombia has flooded much of the Colombian capitol, leaving many people homeless.
- The Colombian Campaign Against Landmines says that more people fell victim to landmines in 2011 than 2010, and that most live in rural areas with little access to medical help.
Southern Cone
- Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner began her second term on Saturday, saying she would continue to fine-tune her economic policy.
- Brazilian authorities cited a study by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro arguing that the construction of the controversial $11 billion Belo Monte dam will have less environmental impact than its alternatives.
- Voters in Brazil’s Pará state rejected a measure on Sunday allowing the Amazonian state to be split into three smaller states.
- Thieves in Brazil managed to steal 50 metric tons of corn from a moving train by using a tow truck to remove corn-filled containers.
Image: Presidencia Perú @ Flickr.
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