News stories by Ángel Páez, page 4

Centre-left candidate Susana Villarán has unexpectedly surged ahead of her centre-right rival Lourdes Flores in the polls to become the front-runner in the race for Sunday's elections for mayor in the Peruvian capital.

The nations of Latin America must ally themselves -- regardless of their roles as drug producers, consumers or transit routes -- in a full-force fight against drug trafficking, says Peru, which plans to lead the way.

Trials of members of the security forces for human rights violations in Peru, especially in cases of massacres of civilians, are moving very slowly, creating 'the perception of a climate of impunity,' said United Nations expert Martin Scheinin at the conclusion of a visit to the country.

Hilaria Supa has broken down many barriers in her life. Now she has overcome another one, in an unprecedented achievement: this Quechua indigenous woman who never went to school is today chair of the congressional education committee in Peru.

The Peruvian government will try to track down funds hidden away by former officials of the Alberto Fujimori regime (1990-2000) and others sentenced for corruption.

The campaign for the October municipal elections in Peru has brought new hope to the badly weakened left, in the form of Susana Villarán, who has shot up from the 'other candidates' category to third in the polls in the race for the mayor's office in Lima.

The families of 40 villagers murdered in Peru on Christmas Day in 1984 are camping out next to the eight graves in which their loved ones were buried, to keep watch over the slow, painful process of exhuming the bodies, a task that is being carried out by the public prosecutor's office.

In his Independence Day speech in the Peruvian Congress, which was broadcast nationwide, President Alan García admitted that corruption has tarnished his administration, although he lectured the judicial branch for delays in punishing those responsible.

The families of victims of the political violence in the impoverished southern highlands province of Ayacucho, the epicentre of Peru's 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war, complain that the government of Alan García has set new conditions for the start of the payment of reparations.

Human rights crimes committed in Peru in the 1990s -- initially amnestied but later tried in court -- will be presented in the trial of Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón as evidence that crimes against humanity cannot be legally pardoned.