Thursday 24 January 2013

European officials visit Peru for business

Peru's President Ollanta Humala Tasso received European delegations in Lima on 24 January including Spain's Prime Minister, presenting his increasingly prosperous country as a stable setting for more investments, El Peruano reported. The newspaper noted that Spain is the premier foreign investor in Peru with investments worth some USD five billion, but was also a market in 2011 that received over USD two billion's worth of Peruvian exports. Spain was currently in recession with just under six million Spaniards unemployed. At a press conference Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged Peruvian businessmen to "explore" Spain for business opportunities, Europa Press reported. El Peruano cited a study by the Andean Parliament indicating that currently 40 per cent of Peruvians living in Madrid wished to return home and 36 per cent were unemployed, without specifying how many they were. The study estimated 130,000 Peruvians lived in Spain. The European Commission's Vice-President for Industry and Enterprise Antonio Tajani was also in Lima that day, heading a delegation of representatives of some 40 EU firms visiting Peru and Chile on 22-26 January. The trip was to help EU firms expand their activities into emerging markets like Peru. After a meeting at the foreign ministry, Tajani said the EU considered Peru as "one of the most important" of countries for its lack of protectionism and the legal security of investments.

Venezuelan officials discern plotting by "Far Right"

The Venezuelan Interior Minister warned vaguely on 24 January that the country's "extreme Right" and foreign accomplices were plotting against senior state officials and that security agencies had been alerted; he was one of several officials who echoed allegations made the day before by the Vice-President Nicolás Maduro Moros that "infiltrators" were plotting possibly to kill him and the parliamentary Speaker Diosdado Cabello Rondón. The country's director of public prosecutions (Fiscal-general) warned that the state would take "necessary actions" against elements who would "destabilize" Venezuela in the absence of the President Hugo Chávez Frías. Chávez is said to be recovering from cancer surgery in Havana, although Liberal and conservative opponents have criticized his prolonged absence and the Maduro government's refusal to provide information on his state. The Interior Minister Néstor Reverol denounced the "plotters" for calling Maduro and Cabello "bus driver" and "little lieutenant," presumably in a bid to discredit them publicly or on the Internet. Cabello was in the army and Maduro a bus driver as a young man, though it was not clear if the nicknames were a part of the plots. "Yesterday it was necessary to report another destabilizing plan by the Venezuelan extreme Right in complicity with actors of the far Right abroad," El Universal cited Reverol as saying. He told the Governor of the state of Miranda, the former presidential aspirant Henrique Capriles, to stop talking about crime in the country seeing as "Miranda is the entity with most criminal incidents in all the country...homicides increased 65 per cent in your administration, robbery increased 35 per cent...kidnapping 480 per cent. And you are talking about security policies?" Capriles is the governor of Miranda since 2008. The higher-education minister Yadira Córdova suggested on state television that day that "destabilizing plans" may take the form of student protests. The head of the Public Ministry - the state prosecution service - Luisa Ortega Díaz in turn told radio that the Ministry had named a prosecutor to investigate the plot against the "physical integrity" of Maduro and Cabello by "sectors" she said "disrespect" officials and "seek to destabilize" Venezuela, the broadcaster Globovisión reported. Vice-President Maduro arrived in Havana on 24 January to visit the President and seek "decisions" on unspecified issues, Europa Press reported.

Army shoots gunmen, dozens killed around Mexico

Mexican troops shot dead five gunmen or gang suspects near Ciudad Victoria in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas on 22 or 23 January, Proceso reported on 23 January; these were among at least 28 fatalities related to crime and related incidents reported for 21-23 January. The shootout occurred in the district of Lleras or Llera de Canales south of Victoria where the suspects were said to have set fire to several houses. Early on 23 January five bodies were found "in 10 plastic bags" in the district of Toluca, capital of the central Estado de México, Proceso reported. Messages were left beside them for the state governor Eruviel Ávila and the police. Police also found the bodies of two women shot dead in the northern district of Coahuila on 23 January, with an unharmed baby next to them, and those of two women and a man in a flat in Sinaloa in the state of Sinaloa, Proceso reported on 23 January. The review reported six killings including of two policemen on 22 January. The two were a female member of the roads police shot dead in the northern district of Chihuahua, and a police detective shot dead in the southern state of Oaxaca, Proceso reported. Three men were also reported shot dead in the northern district of Torreón late on 21 January. Marines were meanwhile sent to the district of La Laguna in the northern state of Durango, to help police curb crime in several districts of that state and the neighbouring state of Coahuila where Torreón is located. Also, 91 of 158 policemen detained earlier and questioned in the state of Durango over suspected links to crime were released 72 hours later for lack of evidence against them, while 64 or 65 were to be questioned further, the chief prosecutor of Durango declared on 22 January. Milenio reported that the 91 later resigned their positions and were negotiating their severance pays with their respective municipalities. Four unspecified "public servants" were formally ordered arrested, the prosecutor's office stated, though it was not clear if these were among the 158, while a court prolonged the provisional detention of 64 or 65, Proceso reported.