Peruvian lawmaker and ex-interior minister Mercedes Cabanillas of the ruling Aprista Party, with the support of current Prime Minister Javier Velásquez, is proposing legislation that would authorize the National Police to use deadly force against civilians if they believe a violent confrontation is imminent. Opponents of the measure say it would give police broad discretion to fire on protesters—just as indigenous groups in the Amazon are preparing a new mobilization in defense of their land rights.

New aerial photos have revealed illegal loggers operating inside an Amazonian reserve set aside for uncontacted and highly vulnerable Indians. The photos show loggers' camps inside the Murunahua Reserve in Peru, created to protect uncontacted Murunahua Indians in 1997. Three further camps were also found inside the reserve.

The first cases of "swine flu" have just been reported among Amazonian Indians, raising experts' fears of a devastating contagion among peoples with no immunity to outside diseases. Seven members of the Matsigenka tribe living along the Urubamba River in the Peruvian Amazon have tested positive for the virus, according to the health department in Cusco.

Energy investments in Peru, which is working to become an exporter of oil and natural gas, are expected to hit $1.5 billion in both 2009 and 2010 despite the recent wave of protests, PeruPetro president Daniel Saba told Reuters. After an initial delay, PeruPetro plans to auction more than a dozen lots this year. Energy outlays last year totaled some $1.48 billion. "In spite of [oil] prices having fallen...no investor has left Peru," said Saba. "All of them continue working and what's more, there are new investors arriving, and wanting to participate in the market."

Ecuador signed a deal to export some 3 million barrels of crude oil to China through the Petrochina company, with the Andean country to receive $1 billion as an advance payment, the statal Petroecuador announced July 23. The first payment represents 28% of the total value of the oil that Ecuador has agreed to export. Ecuador produced over 485,000 barrels of crude oil per day in May. Quito is also negotiating a $1 billion loan with China, economic minister Diego Borja said earlier this week. (Reuters, July 23)

Peru has given the green light to an Anglo-French company to drill for oil in the Amazon—in the immediate wake of a wave of unrest over government develop plans in the region, in which at least 30 were killed. The Ministry of Energy and Mines announced late last month it has approved the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) submitted by Perenco for the construction of seven platforms and drilling of 14 wells in Block 67. Perenco estimates that Block 67 reserve potential is 300 million barrels of heavy crude—believed to be Peru's biggest oil discovery in 30 years. Block 67 covers the "vacated" community of Buena Vista, in the district of Napo, Maynas province, Loreto region. While protests against the company were taking place last month, Perenco's chairman, Francois Perrodo, met Peru's President Alan García in Lima and pledged to invest $2 billion in the project.

The UK-based advocacy group Survival International has published an eyewitness account of the killings in the Peruvian Amazon that caused shockwaves around the world. The report contains dramatic photos by two Belgians, Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quirynen, who were caught up in the June 5 police attack on the roadblock in Bagua province and were themselves shot at.

Indigenous groups in Peru have called off protests after two controversial laws, decreed by President Alan García to implement a free trade agreement with the US, were revoked by the country's Congress in an 82-12 vote late June 18. "This is an historic day for indigenous people because it shows that our demands and our battles were just," said Daysi Zapata, vice president of AIDESEP, the Amazonian indigenous alliance that led the protests.