International
Peru Congress to resume debate on bringing elections forward

January 31 | By AFP | Carlos Mandujano |
Peru’s Congress will resume debate Tuesday on a bill to bring forward elections, a move aimed at ending weeks of protests that have left dozens dead and brought parts of the country to a standstill.
On Monday, lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the bill after seven hours of discussions, and proceedings will resume at 11:00 am on Tuesday (1600 GMT), according to the legislature.
“We are sure that there will be a way out. All the democratic blocs are going to debate it taking into account the high sense of urgency,” said Prime Minister Alberto Otarola on Monday.
The South American country has been embroiled in a political crisis with near-daily street protests since December 7, when then-president Pedro Castillo was arrested after attempting to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.
In seven weeks of demonstrations, 48 people — including one police officer — have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.
The unrest is being propelled mainly by poor, rural Indigenous people from southern Peru who had identified Castillo as one of their own who would fight to end poverty, racism and inequality.
Dozens of roadblocks have been set up by protesters, causing a shortage of food and fuel in some southern areas as they demand that Castillo’s replacement, President Dina Boluarte, step down.
Trade unions and other bodies have called for another major demonstration against Boluarte in Lima on Tuesday.
Bringing elections forward
Last month, lawmakers moved elections due in 2026 to April 2024, but as protests showed no sign of abating, Boluarte has called to hold them this year, which Congress rejected late Friday.
“Vote for Peru, for the country, by moving the elections up to 2023,” the president said in an address to the nation on Sunday.
Lawmakers “have a chance to win the country’s trust,” she said.
In last week’s vote on moving elections to October, there were 65 votes against and just 45 in favor, with two abstentions.
If reconvened lawmakers again refuse to advance elections, Boluarte has said she will propose a constitutional reform allowing a first voting round to be held in October and a runoff in December.
Protesters are demanding immediate elections, the dissolution of Congress and a new constitution.
In the Lima suburb of Huaycan, hundreds of people marched on Monday chanting: “No more deaths, Dina quit now.”
Dozens of soldiers headed to Ica, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital, to support police in clearing roadblocks on the vital Panamericana Sur highway that connects major cities.
Weeks of roadblocks have caused shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies countrywide.
First death in Lima
According to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies, 73 percent of citizens want elections this year.
Monday’s congressional sitting coincided with a wake for Victor Santisteban, 55, a demonstrator who died Saturday after receiving blunt force trauma to the head, according to a medical report.
Santisteban’s death was the first recorded in Lima since the protests started.
According to the human rights ombudsman’s office, Saturday’s protest in the capital saw at least seven people hospitalized after police used tear gas on demonstrators hurling stones and cement pieces.
Geronimo Lopez, leader of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers, said protesters would “not cease their struggle” until Boluarte steps down, and called for a national march Tuesday.
Boluarte, who as Castillo’s vice president was constitutionally mandated to replace him, has insisted that “nobody has any interest in clinging to power.”
Apart from those who have died in protests, 10 civilians — including two babies — died when they were unable to get medical treatment or medicine due to roadblocks, according to the ombudsman’s office.
The protest movement has affected Peru’s vital tourism industry, forcing the closure of the world-renowned Machu Picchu Inca citadel ruins.
In the district of Poroy, about 15 kilometers from Cusco, about 300 people queued Monday to buy a gas bottle for domestic use.
“There are people here queuing since 3.00 am… I have not had any gas for two weeks,” 33-year-old housewife Gabriela Alvarez told AFP.
“We have had to go back in time to cook with firewood and charcoal which hurts the lungs,” she said.
Peru’s Las Bambas copper mine — responsible for about two percent of global metal supply — said Monday it would have to halt production starting Wednesday unless the roadblocks were lifted.
Chinese owner MMG said in a statement that “after transportation interruptions that affected both entry and exit traffic, (the company) has been forced to start a progressive slowdown of its Las Bambas operation due to a shortage of critical supplies.”
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”

The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants

The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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