Colombian police expel natives from army base

Colombian police expelled on 18 July natives who occupied on 17 July an army position outside Toribío, in the Cauca department, the scene of fighting between the state and communist guerrillas, which natives say is desecrating their ancestral lands, EFE reported. Police used tear gas to expel the occupants of the army telecomunications position on a hill named Cerro Berlín. Three natives were injured, one arrested and one reportedly disappeared, Carlos Andrés Alfonso a legal representative of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (Acín) told EFE, observing that the natives had been thrown off their own land. The Cauca's police chief Ricardo Alarcón said in the departmental capital Popayán that this was a "strategic position in operations against" the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Natives throw Colombian troops off base

About 1,000 indigenous residents of Toribío in the southern Cauca department, angered by gunfights around them between the state and communist guerrillas and implementing an earlier threat to take charge of local security, forced soldiers to abandon a nearby position on 16-17 July, in keeping with a deadline they had set, Europa Press reported on 18 July. Members of the Nasa nation climbed the Cerro Berlín, a hill overlooking Toribío, and urged 200 troops to leave a position defending a communication installation; refusing, the soldiers were disarmed and pushed out amid reported arguments and scuffles. The soldiers did not use their arms, but FARC guerrillas nearby were reported to have shot in that direction without causing injuries. Natives then sealed and occupied the site; a sergent expelled in the incident said he felt "humiliated," Reuters reported. President Juan Manuel Santos denounced the "unacceptable events" he qualified as liable to prosecution; "everything has a limit," he said, and the state would not permit attacks on "those who defend us." Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said in turn that "the public force cannot and must not leave" Cauca and leave natives "at the mercy of guerrillas and drug traffickers." He claimed the FARC had "infiltrated" certain native organizations, without specifying. "Autonomy and respect for native rights are one thing, starting to break the law is quite another," he said. The governor of the regional Indigenous Council Héctor Fabio Vircué was cited as saying on 17 July that natives were not demanding an evacuation of the Cauca "but of our territories. The place where they put the base was sacred." Separately the governor of Cauca Themístocles Ortega described the situation as the result of the state's "slow and belated" response to Cauca's situation. He said "the Cauca is living today the state's historical abandonment," and urged reconciliation between natives and the state, Europa Press reported.

Natives in Cauca ask troops, guerrillas to leave

The natives of the Cauca department in south-western Colombia sent letters on 15 July to the army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), asking them to leave the Cauca, which natives stated had become the scene of "indiscriminate" shellings by the FARC, Europa Press reported on 16 July, citing Colombian press reports. One letter was addressed to the FARC commander Rodrigo Echeverry Londoño, aka Timoshenko, and another to the army commander in the Cauca General Jorge Humberto Pérez; they were asked to evacuate the region within 24 and 72 hours respectively. State officials have ruled out any such evacuation. The FARC were accused of having no respect for civilians and of shelling towns in an "indiscriminate" manner, while the army was said to have failed in its mission to assure the security of locals. The letters were first read out in public outside the offices of the Indigenous Guard - a native militia - in the town of Miranda, in the presence of two personalities who were to mediate between natives and the government: the Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux representing the Church, and the former Spanish high-court judge Baltazar Garzón. These met earlier to consider the natives' proposal to demilitarize the zone and entrust security to the Indigenous Guard.

Mexican firms to reduce salt in bread

Mexico's bread-making firms have agreed to cut salt by 10 per cent in bread products, in a bid to prevent heart ailments or strokes, linked to excess salt consumption, CNN reported on 12 July, citing comments by President Felipe Calderón. He was reported as saying that bread, alongside processed foods, were the sources of the excess salt consumed by up to 80 per cent of Mexicans; Mexicans are thought to consume 10 grams of salt or sodium a day or twice the recommended amount. The president said preventing a range of illnesses would help ease the financial burden on the public health system. An agreement to cut salt in bread products was signed on 13 July by Bimbo, the National Chamber of the Baking Industry (Cámara Nacional de la Industria Panificadora) and a national association of convenience and department stores (Asociación Nacional de Tiendas de Autoservicio y Departamentales).

Peru opens Saudi embassy

Peru has opened an embassy in Saudi Arabia, with a view to boosting political and economic ties with the oil-producing kingdom; the mission's first official act was to receive on 3 July the visiting deputy-foreign minister of Peru José Beraún Araníbar. Eduardo Martinetti was to be Peru's first ambassador. Beraún was in the kingdom to extend an invitation for the third heads-of-state Summit of South American-Arab Countries, scheduled for 1-2 Octobre 2012, the foreign ministry stated.

PRI retains lead in Mexico's contested vote

Mexico's authorities confirmed on 5 July that Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the presidential elections of 1 July, even as the second candidate, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, threatened to challenge the entire election process, Reuters reported on 6 July. With 99.53 per cent of the votes counted on 5 July, Peña Nieto had won 38.21 per cent of the votes and López Obrador 31.57 per cent, Reuters reported. The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) reportedly completed by the afternoon of 5 July recounting more than half the votes as promised earlier. But López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) challenged the election on 6 July and a party spokesman said the PRD would formally ask the country's supreme electoral arbiter TEPJF (Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación) on 12 July to cancel it. The party would present evidence of violations, which it claims have nullified the polls' validity. The student movement Yo Soy 132 separately stated on 5 July that it had some 1,100 complaints about the electoral process compiled in 70 pages and 45 videos, and would present them to the IFE and the court dealing with electoral violations, EFE reported. The conservative candidate who came third with over 25 per cent of votes, Josefina Vázquez Mota, accepted the results on 5 July but said unfair conditions had influenced the outcome, EFE and Infolatam reported. She said in Mexico City that opinion polls before the elections that gave Peña Nieto a decisive lead had amounted to "propaganda" and conditions of "inequity" before and during campaigning shaped the results.

Mexico creates literary prize

Mexico is to give out a 250,000-USD prize every 11 November to a writer in Spanish, in memory of the country's late novelist Carlos Fuentes, the daily ABC reported on 4 July, citing EFE. The Carlos Fuentes Prize for Literary Creation in Spanish (Premio Internacional Carlos Fuentes a la Creación Literaria en Idioma Español) was to honour Fuentes who died on 15 May, but also part of a project to make Mexico an "intellectual platform for Spanish," the head of state arts council Conaculta (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) Consuelo Sáizar told the press in Mexico City on 3 July. The prize was envisaged for writers whose works have enriched "the literary heritage of humanity in Spanish," Conaculta's cultural and arts secretary Roberto Vázquez said. It would be determined by a jury of seven including four writers or academics and three members of the language academies of Spain, Mexico and a Latin American state. their decision would be made known on 16 October.

Left keeps Mexico City in elections

The candidate of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) to become mayor of Mexico City Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, was reported to have won elections by a large margin, maintaining the Left's power in the capital after general elections on 1 July, El Universal reported on 2 July. Authorities said that with 90 per cent of votes counted on 2 July, the PRD was leading in the capital's 16 districts, Notimex reported.

Mexico City to expand free HIV treatment

Mexicans without social security or health insurance may have free access to HIV treatment in Mexico City according to a new city decree, El Universal reported on 21 June. The move is part of the city's new policies on preventing the spread of HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - and other sexually transmitted diseases; these would include providing assistance to a range of infected patients in vulnerable situations. The city had 38,400 people known to carry HIV in 2010, the daily reported, citing figures from Clínica Especializada Condesa, or 17 per cent of all those diagnosed with HIV in Mexico that year. The clinic estimated that yearly 2,100 people in Mexico City were infected with HIV.