The government of Peru declared a state of emergency across 17 of the country's 25 regions as winter temperatures plunged to record lows over the weekend. At least 200 people have died in the worst cold spell in 46 years, with temperatures falling at night to well below freezing in highland areas. The most affected regions include Áncash, Apurímac, Arequipa, Cusco, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Huánuco, Junín and Lima. (TeleSUR, BBC News, DPA, July 24) Extreme weather has resulted in social unrest over the past year in Peru, amid growing concerns about climate change in the Andes.

The Colombian government is denying reports of a mass grave found in the Meta department on the eastern plains, charging that the allegation is a strategy to derail the Andean nation's free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU). A group of NGOs and activists headed by Sen. Piedad Córdoba reported last week that a grave containing 2,000 bodies had been found in the Meta municipality La Macarena, next to an army installation. The finding was corroborated by an international human rights commission led by six members of the European Parliament.

Hugo Rodas Morales, author of Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, socialismo vivido, a new biography of the Bolivian socialist leader who "disappeared" in the military coup d'etat of July 1980, says that the martyred activist's remains are buried under the central flagpole at the headquarters of the armed forces high command in the Miraflores district of La Paz. Rodas cites a confession by School of the Americas graduate Col. Édgar Franco Montenegro that Quiroga Santa Cruz was buried below the high command flagpole after the coup. "We know that the remains are hostage of the armed forces," said Rodas. "The recognition of this reality is documented, there is no doubt that the remains are there."

On July 21, over 80 indigenous Yukpa people arrived in Caracas for the third time from the Sierra de Perijá and began a protest vigil in front of the Venezuelan Supreme Court. The protesters are demanding a ruling on an appeal introduced in February to determine that three arrested Yukpas can be judged under indigenous law rather than the national legal system.

Some 5,000 indigenous campesinos from across Colombia marched in downtown Bogotá July 21 to protest a pact that gives US forces greater access to Colombian military bases. The "Patriotic March" on Plaza Bolívar came the same day as 30,000-strong celebrations in the capital city's central square marking the nation's bicentennial. President Alvaro Uribe presided over the official rally. The campesinos marched on the plaza from the National University campus, which has served as a staging ground for the protest, and where classes are suspended.

Colombia asked the Organization of American States July 16 to convene a meeting of its permanent council to address Bogotá's accusation that guerillas are operating out of Venezuelan territory. The request came a day after President Alvaro Uribe's office announced it had "clear evidence" that four leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and one leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN) are "sheltering" in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government on July 13 handed over three accused Colombian drug traffickers to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said that handing over the suspects was further evidence of the "undeniable results" in the war on drugs achieved by the government of President Hugo Chávez—efforts Washington labels insufficient. "In accordance with international agreements, we are deporting three Colombian citizens wanted by Interpol for drug trafficking and other crimes," El Aissami said at Caracas' Maiquetia International Airport.

Former FARC guerilla hostage Ingrid Betancourt has asked for compensation from the Colombian government, alleging that her 2002 kidnapping resulted from state negligence. On July 9, the Colombian government announced that Betancourt had initiated legal action seeking $7 million in damages. "The state gravely failed in its duty in allowing a presidential candidate to travel in this part of the country without proper protection," the court documents say, according to media reports.