Peru jails ex-president over corruption scandal
Peru jailed a former president for accepting bribes from a Brazilian construction firm, the latest senior politician to be felled by a continent-wide corruption scandal.
Ollanta Humala, who led Peru from 2011 to 2016, was found guilty of accepting illicit campaign funds from Odebrecht, which has admitted to handing out bribes for years across Latin America.
Humala is the second former Peruvian leader to be jailed over the scandal, known as Operation Car Wash or Lava Jato, but the controversy centered on Brazil, upending the political careers of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his protege Dilma Rousseff, and helping drive anti-establishment anger that propelled the nationalist Jair Bolsonaro to office.
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28 minutes ago
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Slain UK journalist's book on saving the Amazon published
Three years after UK journalist Dom Phillips was murdered, his widow and colleagues have published the book he was working on to expose illegal destruction of the Amazon and seek solutions to save the rainforest. "I think of him every day," his widow, Alessandra Sampaio, told AFP of her husband, who was shot dead in the Amazon on June 5, 2022 along with Indigenous-rights activist Bruno Pereira. She was in London for the global launch of "How to Save the Amazon", which Phillips, a freelancer for The Guardian and the Washington Post, was researching when he was killed. The double murders triggered an international outcry and drew attention to the lawlessness fuelling the destruction of the world's biggest rainforest. Brazilian federal police have concluded the men were killed because of Pereira's monitoring of poaching and other illegal activities in a remote reach of the Amazon. Three years to the day after the murders, a prosecutor from Amazonas state indicted the suspected mastermind, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement Thursday. So far, several suspects have been charged in the killings. Phillips, who had taken a break from journalism to write his book, was seeking to raise the alarm about the environmental damage and illegal activities plaguing the region. "He died trying to show the world the importance of the Amazon," said Sampaio. Pereira was a former senior official with Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency, and disappeared along with Phillips as they travelled through a remote Indigenous reserve, close to the borders of Colombia and Peru. Their hacked-up bodies were found and identified days later, after an alleged accomplice confessed to burying them. Phillips, 57, was shot in the chest, while Pereira, 41, sustained three gunshot wounds, one of them to the head. They were killed in the northwestern Javari Valley, where drug traffickers, illegal fishermen and hunters, and gold miners operate. "It was his second-to-last trip. One more was left, and he would have finished the book," said Sampaio, adding Phillips had already written the first four chapters. - 'Dom's book' - After his death, his widow spent months collecting his extensive writings, journals and reams of notes. "He had two or three notebooks from each trip, with dates, places, explaining everything," she said. But she confessed that at times she had to stop as she got "too emotional". Each new chapter has been written by a group of six journalists and writers: Britons Jonathan Watts and Tom Phillips; Americans Andrew Fishman, Stuart Grudgings, and Jon Lee Anderson; and Brazilian Eliane Brum. The book is "dedicated to everyone fighting to protect the rainforest". They all travelled to the region, and interviewed new people following Phillips's trail in a bid to faithfully complete his manuscript. The afterword has been written by Beto Marubo, a leader of the Indigenous Marubo people, with Amazonian activist and writer Helena Palmquist. Sampaio, who lives in Brazil's northeastern Salvador da Bahia region, paid tribute to the "loyal friends" who helped complete the book, which she says is also a tribute to activist Pereira. "There's no way to separate Dom and Bruno. They're there together. It's a message for everyone to understand the importance of the Amazon and its people," she said. Watts, global environment writer with The Guardian, said: "It's more than a tribute to Dom, it is Dom's book." "In this process, I'm always imagining what would Dom think, but it's my imagination," he added. "I'm sad that Dom is not here to see it, but I'm very happy that we are here." The murders threw a spotlight on a long-threatened corner of the planet, and stoked criticism of the policies of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, accused of encouraging the plundering of the rainforest. The book, launched simultaneously in Britain, Brazil and the United States, ends with a plea from Marubo for more people like Phillips and Pereira, who he says wanted to "truly help" save the Amazon. "They were brave and they acted. If everyone did the same we might begin to see change," Marubo writes. psr/jkb/jwp/jhb
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an hour ago
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ICE detains Massachusetts student Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, sparking high school walkouts
Federal immigration agents detained a Massachusetts high school student on his way to volleyball practice, mistaking him when he drove his father's car. The May 31 arrest of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, has triggered protests and walkouts at Milford High School, where he is an 11th-grade student, according to the Milford Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Network. The school had its graduation a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Gomes Da Silva while he was heading with teammates to practice. The Brazilian teen was set to perform drums in the school's band at the June 1 graduation ceremony. Milford High School Principal Joshua Otlin said at the graduation ceremony that the community couldn't pretend all was well. 'There is fear and anxiety, where there should be hope and confidence,' he said on the school's turf field. 'There is wrenching despair and righteous anger, where there should be gratitude and joy.' Instead, graduation speakers admitted to making last-minute adjustments to address the arrest of their classmate. Class President Luke Benjamin Donis, a champion wrestler, urged his fellow graduates to 'give whatever time they can' to join a large rally at Milford Town Hall after the high school ceremony. Gomes Da Silva arrived in the United States legally in 2012 on a visitor's visa that later turned into a student visa, his lawyers said. It isn't clear when that visa expired. He has no criminal history. He was active in his high school marching band and church band, along with excelling in school and was involved in extracurricular and faith-based activities, his immigration lawyer Robin Nice said in a statement. Gomes Da Silva does not pose a danger to the community and isn't a flight risk, Nice said. He has an immigration court hearing scheduled for the afternoon of June 5, where Nice said they would request his release on bond. His lawyers planned to pursue an asylum claim for him in the United States. On June 1, federal Judge Richard Stearns of Massachusetts issued an emergency order banning ICE from transferring Gomes Da Silva out of the state for at least 72 hours. On June 2, Milford High students staged a walkout protesting Gomes' detention. Students left their campus wearing Brazilian flags, holding signs and a white banner reading 'Free Marcelo.' Others donned white shirts inscribed with his name. ICE has said its agents were targeting Gomes Da Silva's father, Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira, who is in the country illegally from Brazil. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said agents targeted Gomes-Pereira with information from local enforcement due to reckless driving, speeding that topped 100 mph. But when they stopped Gomes-Pereira's car, they arrested Gomes Da Silva. On June 2, Patricia Hyde, acting field director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations' in Boston, said they detained him because local agencies didn't cooperate with ICE. 'When we go into the community and find others who are unlawfully here, we're going to arrest them,' Hyde said. 'He's 18 years old and he's illegally in this country. We had to go to Milford looking for someone else and if we come across someone else who is here illegally, we're going to arrest them.' Officials said Gomes Da Silva was detained as officials announced the results of 'Operation Patriot,' which arrested 1,500 people across Massachusetts suspected of being in the country illegally. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Lyons said Gomes Da Silva's father hasn't turned himself in, although he knows he's the target of the operation. In a video posted to social media, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, said of the situation, 'This isn't about public safety. This is about cruelty and fear engendered by the Trump administration.' Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said the teenager's arrest left her 'outraged.' 'Yet again, local officials and law enforcement have been left in the dark with no heads-up and no answers to their questions,' she said in a statement. 'I'm demanding that ICE provide immediate information about why he was arrested, where he is and how his due process is being protected.' Nick Molinari, president of the Milford Teachers Association, said in a statement that ICE agents targeted a student in a 'deliberate act of cruelty, traumatizing his family, friends and peers.' 'This is immoral, unnecessary and should be universally condemned,' he said. 'We will not stand by while the rights and humanity of our students are violated.' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ICE detains Massachusetts student, sparking high school walkouts
5 hours ago
Peruvian migrant acquitted in the first trial over the new militarized zone at US-Mexico border
EL PASO, Texas -- A Peruvian woman who crossed the U.S. border illegally was acquitted Thursday of unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone in the first trial under the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute immigrants who cross in certain parts of New Mexico and western Texas. Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez, 21, was arrested last month near the West Texas town of Tornillo after she entered the U.S. from Mexico by walking across the riverbed of the Rio Grande, court documents show. In addition to being charged with entering the country illegally, she was charged with accessing a military zone. She is among several other immigrants who have been charged under the law since President Donald Trump's administration transferred oversight of a strip of land along the border to the military. It is as part of a new approach the Department of Justice is taking to crack down on illegal immigration. The Associated Press left messages Thursday with De La Cruz-Alvarez's attorney, Veronica Teresa Lerma. The lawyer told The Texas Tribune the acquittal is significant. 'Hopefully, this sets the tone for the federal government,' Lerma said, 'so they know what the El Paso community will do with these charges.' Even before the woman's case went to trial, federal magistrate judges in neighboring New Mexico had dismissed similar cases, finding little evidence that immigrants knew about the zones. Lerma was convicted of entering the country illegally and was already facing deportation, but could have faced up to 18 months in prison for entering the militarized zone. Despite the verdict, U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons of the Western District of Texas said his office will continue to aggressively prosecute National Defense Area violations. 'At the end of the day, another illegal alien has been found guilty of illegally entering the country in violation of the improper entry statute and will be removed from the United States,' Simmons said in a statement. "That's a win for America." The administration wants to sharply increase the removal of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as Trump seeks to make good on his pledge of mass deportations. The administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border, while arrests have plunged to the lowest levels since the mid-1960s.
