Peru Captures Rebel Leader

Ollanta Humala leads by roughly 5%; recount could loom

(NEWSER) - Peru went to the polls today in a heated presidential election that put a leftist former military officer in a slight lead over the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, reports Reuters. Early returns gave Ollanta Humala roughly a 52% lead over Keiko Fujimori's 47%, but overseas votes could factor and a lengthy recount is possible. More»

(NEWSER) - The Peruvian Army has imposed a curfew and set up checkpoints following deadly clashes with indigenous tribes protesting plans to drill for oil and gas in ancestral homelands in the Amazon region, reports the BBC. Dozens of people, both police and protesters, were killed in the clashes that mark the biggest outbreak of violence since the Shining Path insurgency in the 1990s. Indians armed with wooden spears continued to black roadways today. More»

Shining Path kinder, gentler and more ideologically muddled, but still deadly

(NEWSER) - All but forgotten, Peru's Shining Path guerrilla group has again become a force to be reckoned with, killing more people in October than it had in any month since the 1990s, the Washington Post reports in a look at its secretive ranks. Today’s drug-financed Path leans more liberal narcoterrorist than fire-breathing Maoist, having shed some of the brutal ways of founder Abimael Guzmán, who believed the path to power required killing 10% of the country's people. More»

Former Peruvian president guilty of abusing power

(NEWSER) - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was sentenced yesterday to six years in prison for abuse of power. He was convicted of ordering the theft of evidence of widespread political corruption collected by his former intelligence chief. Fujimori, 69, began a separate trial Monday on kidnapping and murder charges related to two death squad massacres of 25 people during a campaign against the left-wing Shining Path insurgency . More»