Categories
USA World News

Ex-president returns to Peru after US extradition

Toledo’s extradition ends a six-year battle raised by Peruvian judicial authorities, which accused him of allegedly taking at least $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht…reports Asian Lite News

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has arrived in capital Lima, after being extradited from the US to face corruption charges of receiving millions of dollars in bribes.

Toledo’s extradition ends a six-year battle raised by Peruvian judicial authorities, which accused him of allegedly taking at least $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company, in exchange for a government contract to build the Interoceanic Highway linking Peru and Brazil, reports Xinhua news agency.

The prosecutor in Peru is pursuing a sentence of more than 20 years in prison for that crime.

The 77-year-old, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2006, landed in Lima on Sunday.

Wanted since 2017, Toledo, was taken to the Police Aviation Directorate of Peru for immigration processing and a medical exam.

He will serve 18 months of preventative detention while being investigated.

Toledo was first arrested in California in 2019. He was then granted bail in 2020 and ordered to live under house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor.

Last week, the former President’s lawyers unsuccessfully filed for an emergency stay to block his extradition.

They argued his life was at risk if he returned to Peru.

ALSO READ: US Senator Marco Rubio reintroduces Uyghur Policy Act

Categories
-Top News India News World News

Peru hails India’s efforts to empower Global South in G20

Both sides reviewed their traditionally friendly relations and discussed ways to take forward cooperation in areas of mutual interest, including trade and investments…reports Asian Lite News

Peru on Saturday complimented India for giving voice to the South in the G20 and inviting President Dina Boluarte to participate in the Voice of Global South Summit, held earlier this year, according to a Ministry of External Affairs press release.

On Saturday, the 2nd India-Peru Joint Commission Meeting was co-chaired by Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East) and Ignacio Higueras, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, in New Delhi.

Both sides reviewed their traditionally friendly relations and discussed ways to take forward cooperation in areas of mutual interest, including trade and investments, health and pharma, traditional medicines, mines & minerals, energy & renewables, science & technology, agriculture, defence, space, capacity building, education, culture and people to people exchanges, added the release.

They also discussed regional and multilateral issues of current relevance and took note of cooperation between the two countries in multilateral forums and international organizations.

Both sides agreed to exchange visits and organize a series of trade, cultural, educational, and other bilateral events as part of the celebrations to commemorate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations, read the release.

Notably, Peru has been in peril and gripped by protests and political intrigue since the ouster of its former president, Pedro Castillo on December 7.

Peru’s security forces imposed a 30-day state of emergency on December 14, banning demonstrations, curtailing freedom of movement and allowing police to search homes without a warrant.

Dina Boluarte, who served as Castillo’s vice-president, was sworn into office on Dec. 7, the same day Castillo was ousted.

She is the country’s first female president and was not a high-profile politician before gaining power.

She’s supported a plan to push up the 2024 elections for president and Congress initially scheduled for 2026. She’s also supported judicial investigations into whether security forces acted with excessive force.

Jaishankar’s African visit

India is making efforts to include concerns of the Global South in the G20 framework under its presidency, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Uganda’s Kampala.

Jaishankar, who visited Uganda and Mozambique last week, addressed members of the Parliamentary Forum on Indian Affairs in Uganda. “We (India) are doing it differently in the sense that no other chair of G-20 made an effort to consult all the countries of the Global South and ask it saying, look, you are not on the table. So what is your interest, what are the things you want? What are your concerns that we can put on the table on your behalf? We went through this very, very detailed, very exhaustive exercise in the month of January,” he said

The External Affairs Minister also stated that India would like to use its G-20 presidency to get the influential forum focused on its mandate of global growth and development issues.

“And of course, naturally, Uganda was participant as well. And today we would like to use the G-20 presidency really to get that forum to focus on what is its remedy, what was its mandate, which is global growth and global development issues, which are very important for you. Issues of green growth, issues of debt, issues of health, issues of SDG, developmental agenda, issues of digital delivery. I think all these are really the issues on which we would like the G-20 to focus,” Jaishankar said.

India assumed the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1 last year. The G20 Summit will be held in New Delhi on September 9-10 this year.

External Affairs Minister reiterated India’s full support to Uganda for a very successful chairship of the Non-Alignment Movement.

Uganda was endorsed to chair the Non-Aligned Movement on behalf of Africa for the period from 2022 to 2025.

The NAM chair position rotates every three years during summit conferences. The chair of the movement is assisted by both the former and incoming chairs. According to the movement, this structure represents its past, present and future. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Jaishankar rides ‘Made in India’ train in Mozambique

Categories
-Top News World News

Dina Boluarte seeks early polls amid protests in Peru

Boluarte ordered the national police “to not use any lethal weapons, including rubber bullets,” saying those who do will face “the weight of the law”…reports Asian Lite News

Peru’s new President Dina Boluarte said she plans to meet the Congressional Constitution Committee to “shorten the timeframe” for holding the early general elections as deadly protests have intensified across the country.

The protests are being staged by angry supporters of leftist former President Pedro Castillo against his impeachment and subsequent arrest on December 7.

At least seven people have died in clashes between protesters and security forces in the southern departments of Apurimac and Arequipa.

On Monday, Boluarte, Castillo’s successor and former deputy, proposed bringing general elections forward by two years to April 2024 as protests intensified in several parts of the country, with Castillo’s supporters demanding his release, Boluarte’s resignation, early polls and the shutdown of the Congress.

In a statement on Tuesday, the President said she is heading a “transition” government that aims to “call for calm and dialogue” and “solve unresolved problems” in various regions, reports Xinhua news agency.

Boluarte ordered the national police “to not use any lethal weapons, including rubber bullets,” saying those who do will face “the weight of the law”.

Defence Minister Luis Otarola on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in Arequipa.

Meanwhile, Castillo called Boluarte’s plans of early elections a “dirty game” and called her an “usurper”, reports the BBC.

The former President claimed he had been “kidnapped” and humiliated.

On Monday, protesters blocked roads and set fire to vehicles, and an estimated 2,000 stormed the airport in Arequipa, blocking the runway and forcing flights to be suspended for several hours.

Police finally dispersed them with tear gas.

ALSO READ-Dina Boluarte sworn in as Peru’s new president

Categories
-Top News Politics World News

Dina Boluarte sworn in as Peru’s new president

Angulo was an anti-corruption prosecutor, who once served as dean of the Lima Bar Association and ran for president in 2020…reports Asian Lite News

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte swore in her cabinet, asking the members to perform their duties “without committing acts of corruption.”

Boluarte on Saturday appointed nine men and eight women for 17 ministerial positions in her first Council of Ministers headed by Pedro Angulo Arana as prime minister. The appointment of the heads of the Labor and Employment Promotion, Transport, and Communications ministries is still pending, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Angulo was an anti-corruption prosecutor, who once served as dean of the Lima Bar Association and ran for president in 2020.

Boluarte assumed Peru’s presidency on Wednesday after her predecessor Pedro Castillo was removed in an impeachment vote by Congress for alleged “permanent moral incapacity.”

Boluarte called on legislators to give her a “political truce” to advance her government, promising that she would undertake a fight against corruption, a “cancer that must be rooted out.” Currently, she is engaging in dialogue with various political groups in Congress.

Although Boluarte took office to complete Castillo’s mandate extending through July 2026, she said Friday that if the situation warrants it, she would call new general elections.

Boluarte’s remarks came as protests broke out along parts of the Pan-American Highway in Peru’s Arequipa, Ica and Tacna regions, where residents have put up roadblocks with stones and sticks to express opposition to Castillo’s arrest and demand his release.

ALSO READ-Marxist, right-wing populist tied in Peru polls

Categories
Politics World World News

Marxist, right-wing populist tied in Peru polls

The two candidates were essentially tied, with polls giving Fujimori the narrowest of leads with 50.3 per cent to Castillo’s 49.7 per cent…reports Asian Lite News

Marxist village schoolteacher Pedro Castillo and right-wing populist Keiko Fujimori were neck-and-neck in second round of Peru’s presidential election, according to exit polls.

The two candidates were essentially tied, with polls giving Fujimori the narrowest of leads with 50.3 per cent to Castillo’s 49.7 per cent, the newspaper El Comercio reported, highlighting that the exit polls by Ipsos had a 3 per-cent margin of error.

After casting her vote on Sunday , Fujimori tweeted that she had “a lot of hope and belief that we can make it”, reports dpa news agency

More than 25 million Peruvians were called on to vote in the election.

Castillo wants to build a socialist state, tighten control of the media and abolish the constitutional court if he wins.

Fujimori, who in case of victory plans to pardon her father, former authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, stands for a neo-liberal economic policy and a hard-line security strategy.

In recent years, she has been remanded in custody several times and could face a long prison sentence in an ongoing corruption trial.

Alberto Fujimori is serving a 25-year prison sentence for serious human rights violations.

During his 10 years in office, he had security forces take rigorous action against leftist and allegedly subversive forces, and Parliament was stripped of its power.

Tens of thousands of indigenous women were also forcibly sterilised.

Although Castillo and Fujimori represent opposite extremes on the political scale, they are not far apart in their socio-political views.

Both represent a conservative image of the family and are against same-sex marriage and abortion, as well as focus on the exploitation of natural resources and do not attach great importance to the protection of the environment and human rights.

Whoever wins will face enormous challenges.

Peru is suffering particularly badly from the coronavirus pandemic. It is one of the countries with the highest mortality rate in the world, and its economy also collapsed by 12.9 per cent last year.

In addition, splinter groups of the guerrilla organization Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) are still active in the country’s interior.

Two weeks ago, rebels killed 16 people and called for a boycott of the election. However, according to the electoral office, things initially remained quiet on Sunday.

Political turmoil has also marked the past year, as the Congress was locked in a bitter conflict with the government.

Parliamentarians first forced president Martin Vizcarra out of office, and then his successor, Manuel Merino, threw in the towel after fierce protests.

Interim President Francisco Sagasti has been in charge meanwhile.

ALSO READ: Peru prepares for general elections in April