Peru held a nationwide earthquake drill this past week. Taking part were public sector and most private sector employees, as well as schools and hospitals. Tom Filipowicz describes the events in the northern city of Chiclayo.
Category: "Life"
Almost three years after the Ica earthquake, thousands still without homes
Some 40,000 families have yet to receive help in reconstructing their homes and are having to suffer an exceptionally cold winter with temperatures as low as 3.6°c. Many have been forced to re-occupy collapsing adobe homes to prevent illness.
Inti Raymi: Cultural Preservation or Capitalistic Exploitation? [Featured]
With tickets sold to tourists priced at $80 each, indigenous Cusqueños are effectively barred from the modern-day recreations of their ancestors’ most important religious event, Inti Raymi. Is there anything left in this “ritual” that reflects the Inca empire’s glorious past, or is it all a show put on to make money from tourists? Camden Luxford explains.
Cycling the Peruvian Coastal Desert
The Vogel Family only have a handful of months left of their journey from Alaska to Argentina. They crossed from Ecuador to Peru a few months ago, the passed through Peru’s astonishingly barren desert before heading up into the Andes and eventually into Bolivia. See the desert part of their journey in this video.
English priest stops Amazon logging giants in their tracks [Featured]
A mild-looking, bespectacled Catholic priest, born in Portsmouth, educated at Oxford and now working in the Peruvian rainforest, is behind an important victory for local people over the logging companies laying waste to large stretches of Amazonia.
Peru at the Movies: The Fall of Fujimori
Ali Ryder presents the forth in a new series of articles, Peru at the Movies. The Fall of Fujimori – award-winning documentary about the controversial ex-president of Peru.
Doe Run smelting criminals offer to pay taxes owed within 760 years
Doe Run continues to refuse to meet its obligations. The smelting operation owned by hell-bound child-murdering billionaire Ira Rennert, which has successfully managed to funnel profits from Doe Run Peru back to a separate entity in the United States while refusing to meet clean-up obligations, has now effectively refused to pay the back taxes owed for years of operation.
Peru’s minorities battle racism [Featured]
The BBC’s Dan Collyns, a British journalist based in Lima who brought significant attention to the racist TV character Negro Mama and helped create some of the pressure to get it banned, tells us more about the struggle of Peru’s minorities to get ahead.
Medical Tourism in Peru
Does the simplest procedure in your country cost thousands of dollars? Perhaps certain newer treatments are unavailable? Is your country’s idea of health insurance more maximizing profits than health care? Maybe there are huge waiting lists to suffer?
The “megaport” set to overshadow Ancón
The project to establish a port in the beautiful and traditional bay of Ancón has generated a lot of protest from locals who reject that private investment should take precedence over local wildlife, the visual aspect of the bay, their livelihoods, property prices and tourism.
Garcia’s Tren Eléctrico to finally get moving
A symbol for the abysmal failure of Alan Garcia’s first government, it was rubbed in the faces of those who suffered his incompetence and its affects day in and day out for years afterwards. Before being kicked out of office for the second time in 2011, Alan García and his second government are hoping to finally get this comically stalled project completed.
Colonial-era buildings in the historic center of Cusco risk collapse
Historic Cusco is at serious risk. Dozens of colonial buildings face collapse and authorities aren’t doing a thing to prevent it.
