The Israel Corporation, with holdings in the energy sector across South and Central America, has especially targeted Peru for expansion. IC Power, a holding of the Israel Corp Group, already operates four hydro and gas plants in the Andean nation. South American subsidiary Inkia Energy owns 75% of Kallpa Generación, operator of the massive Kallpa Thermo-electric Center, south of Lima, which burns natural gas from the Camisea pipeline. Inkia Energy has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build the giant 510-megawatt Cerro del Águila Hydroelectric Center in Tayacaja province, Huancavelica region. IC Power's plants produce 11.34% of Peru's electricity, and the company hopes to greatly expand in coming years. While IC Power has operations in Bolivia, Chile, Panama and El Salvador, CEO Javier García sees the greatest potential in Peru. "The Peruvian market is developing and its consumption increases every year," García told Israel's YNet news service. In contrast, García said that Bolivia's economic climate attracts few investors, despite the fact that IC Power's holdings there have yielded "nice profits." (YNet, May 12; Green Prophet, Nov. 17, 2011)

Venezuela on May 16 demanded that the US extradite a former supreme court judge who has accused high-ranking figures of the Hugo Chávez government of links to drug-trafficking. The fugitive judge, Eladio Aponte Aponte, was removed from office in March over charges that he provided forged documents to accused trafficker Walid Makled. Aponte is co-operating with US authorities after his April 2 flight to Miami in a DEA-chartered plane. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the US must hand over Eliado Aponte, as there was a judicial process underway against him in Venezuela, and noted that an Interpol "red notice" has been issued for him. From the US, Aponte has publicly claimed that Chávez's office and top military officials including Defense Minister Henry Rangel Silva asked him to be lenient in the case against a lieutenant accused of trafficking drugs. Maduro counter-charges that the DEA is working to protect criminals and undermine the revolutionary process in Venezuela. He said if the US does not return Aponte, Washington would become "direct accomplices of these drug-trafficking mafias." (InSight Crime, FT, May 15; Radio Nacional de Venezuela, May 14; WSJ, April 19)

The Peruvian military held a ceremony at its Chorrillos base, near Lima, on April 20 to commemorate a commando operation 15 years earlier that freed 71 hostages who had been held by rebels from the leftist Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) for 126 days at the Japanese ambassador's residence in the capital. One hostage, two soldiers and all 14 rebels were killed in the operation, which took place on April 22, 1997. The raid, codenamed Operation Chavín de Huántar, was ordered by the government of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), then a US ally; Fujimori is now serving a 25-year prison term in Peru for corruption and for ordering killings and kidnappings.

National Police troops in the service of the Antamina company detained 16 local campesinos from San Marcos municipality, Huari province, in Peru's central Andean region of Áncash, in the pre-dawn hours of May 10. Eight were taken off a combi microbus, and eight detained at their homes in the hamlet of San Pedro de Pichiu by elite troops of the Special Operations Directorate (DINOES). Witnesses said they were beaten as they were detained, and then taken to a police post at Yanacancha, on land within the Antamina mining camp, where the are still being held. Pablo Salazar Solís, San Marcos municipal agent for the district, was able to visit the detainees, and told the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI) that they had been tortured during interrogations and forced to falsely confess that they had taken part in a recent protest against the company. San Pedro de Pichiu residents this week held a 24-hour civil strike (paro), blocking roads to protest the contamination of local waters in an Antamina petrol spill. In the May 4 truck accident, a tanker full of petrol was spilled into Laguna Huatucocha, a highland lake in the watershed of the Río Mosta, a tributary of the Marañón, the central river of Peru's Andes.

Colombia's National Police on May 7 announced the surrender of Javier Antonio Calle Serna AKA "Comba"—supreme leader of the country's most powerful drug gang, "Los Rastrojos." But Colombia’s deputy police director Gen. José Roberto León told the reporters that Calle Serna had turned himself in to US Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Aruba three days earlier, and was flown to New York City, where he faces a federal indictment. DEA chief Michele Leonhart told Bogotá's W Radio that Colombian police did not collaborate with US authorities in securing Calle's surrender. She made clear that Colombia played a role only by pledging to extradite Calle Serna if captured. "If the [Colombian] authorities continue to extradite criminals, they will continue to surrender," she told the broadcaster. Furthermore, she did not explicitly confirm that Calle Serna had turned himself in, and the US Attorney's Office for New York's Eastern District also declined to comment.

The Libertarian Book Club,* New York City's oldest continuously active anarchist institution (founded 1946), kicks off a new season of its Anarchist Forum series as World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru where he was on assignment for The Progressive, speaks about the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.

The Lima tabloid Perú21 April 25 airs claims that northern Peru's Cajamarca region—site of the civil struggle against the US-owned Conga gold mine project—is a "new center of cocaine production." Without giving his credentials, the newspaper cites "expert in themes of narcotrafficking" Jaime Antezana to the effect that Cajamarca's province of Celendín has emerged as a key coca leaf production zone, replete with labs for processing the leaf into paste. The neighboring province of Hualgayoc, and especially its capital Bambamarca, is identified as the trans-shipment point over the Andes towards the Pacific, and local center of money-laundering. The paper says this intelligence has been "confirmed" by National Police Anti-Drug Directorate (DIRANDRO) and the official coca eradication agency, the Special Project for Control and Reduction of Coca Cultivation (CORAH).

Thousands of miners affiliated with the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) marched and blocked streets in the cities of La Paz and Cochabamba in a two-day strike April 24-5, throwing dynamite at police who formed a cordon around the presidential palace. The miners are demanding a pay raise above the 7% offered by the government this year. Authorities said that at east 30 were injured, including both protesters and police. Meanwhile, public health workers occupied the historic San Agustín church in central La Paz, where several initiated a hunger strike to press their own demands for a pay raise. They are also demanding that the Health Ministry overturn Decree 1126, which returns employees' workday from six hours to eight starting next month.