International

As Peru unrest ebbs, stranded tourists make way to safety

Photo: MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP

| By AFP | Carlos Mandujano and Moisés Ávila |

Protests dwindled in intensity in Peru on Saturday and thousands of tourists trapped in the interior boarded planes to escape unrest as President Dina Boluarte again vowed that she would not step down.

Some 4,500 tourists, many of them European and North American, rushed to the international airport in Cusco to catch flights after being stranded much of the week by simmering political unrest.

“By Sunday at the latest, all the stranded tourists will leave,” Tourism and Commerce Minister Luis Fernando Helguero told the Andina state news agency.

The state human rights ombudsman reported 70 roadblocks around the South American nation, and the toll from the unrest rose to 19 dead and 569 injured.

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But the minister of defense and the head of the armed forces both said protests were diminishing in intensity.

“We have gradually been recovering normality along the roads, at the airports, in the cities. Normality is returning but it is not yet achieved,” said General Manuel Gomez de la Torre, head of the military joint chiefs of staff.

Defense Minister Alberto Otarola cautioned that “organized violent acts” were aimed at damaging airports, highways, natural gas pipelines and hydroelectric installations.

“The trend is downward. But we remain on alert. The situation of violence hasn’t passed and the crisis goes on,” Otarola said.

‘What is solved by my resignation?’

Boluarte, the lawyer who assumed the reins of the country December 7 after leftist President Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, only to be ousted and thrown in jail, again insisted that she would not bend to protesters and step down.

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“What is solved by my resignation? We will be here, firmly, until Congress determines to bring forward the elections,” Boluarte told Peruvians.

On Friday, House speaker Jose Williams said the vote on the election schedule could be revisited during a forthcoming session of Congress.

In her televised address, Boluarte expressed regret for the protests that swelled across the country and the deaths, most of which came in clashes with security forces including the military, under a state of emergency.

If armed troops were on the streets, “it has been to take care of and protect” Peru’s citizens, Boluarte said, adding that the protests were “overflowing” with violent elements that were coordinated and not spontaneous.

“These groups did not emerge overnight. They had tactically organized to block roads,” she said.

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Protesters are calling for the release of Castillo, the resignation of Boluarte and closure of Congress, and immediate general elections.

Initially detained for seven days, Castillo was on Thursday ordered to spend 18 months in pretrial detention.

The leftist former schoolteacher stands accused of rebellion and conspiracy, and could be jailed for up to 10 years if found guilty, according to public prosecutor Alcides Diaz.

Boluarte declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency and said she wanted to bring forward elections as a way to calm the uproar, but Friday’s measure fell short of passage in Congress.

Tourists in limbo

Several airports have been closed, but the international terminal in Cusco, the gateway city to the jewel of Peruvian tourism, the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, managed to reopen on Friday, allowing for some 4,500 stranded tourists to begin boarding outbound flights.

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Cusco’s airport is the third largest in Peru, and armed soldiers were seen Saturday standing guard outside.

Protesters tried to storm the terminal on Monday, and the airport remained closed for nearly four days.

Good news also came Saturday to some 200 tourists stranded in a town in the deep valley below Machu Picchu. They were able to board a train and travel as far as Piscacucho, where a boulder blocked the railway.

The tourists, many from Europe and North America, then walked two kilometers (a little more than a mile) to where waiting vehicles took them on to Cusco, AFP learned.

Rail service to Machu Picchu had been suspended since Tuesday.

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‘Criminal investigation’ needed

Some of the greatest bloodshed of the week occurred Thursday at the airport in Ayacucho, where soldiers protecting the terminal shot at protesters.

Soldiers “found themselves surrounded with the masses closing in,” rights ombudsman Eliana Revollar told AFP.

The army says its soldiers would have first raised their weapons and then fired into the air, but Revollar said shots were fired at protesters and an investigation is warranted.

International

Winter Storm Fern Leaves 30 Dead and Over One Million Without Power Across the U.S.

The massive winter storm Fern, bringing polar temperatures, battered large portions of the United States for a third consecutive day on Monday, leaving at least 30 people dead, more than one million households without electricity, and thousands of flights grounded.

In the Great Lakes region, residents awoke to extreme cold, with temperatures dropping below -20°C. Forecasts indicate that conditions are expected to worsen in the coming days as an Arctic air mass moves south, particularly across the northern Great Plains and other central regions, where wind chills could plunge to -45°C, temperatures capable of causing frostbite within minutes.

Across the country, heavy snowfall exceeding 30 centimeters in roughly 20 states triggered widespread power outages. According to PowerOutage.com, nearly 800,000 customers remained without electricity on Monday morning, most of them in the southern United States.

In Tennessee, where ice brought down power lines, approximately 250,000 customers were still without power. Outages also affected more than 150,000 customers in Mississippi and over 100,000 in Louisiana, as utility crews struggled to restore service amid dangerous conditions.

International

Spain approves plan to regularize up to 500,000 migrants in Historic Shift

In November 2024, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a reform of the country’s immigration regulations aimed at regularizing 300,000 migrants per year over a three-year period, in an effort to counter population aging in a country where births have fallen by 25.6% since 2014, according to official data.

Going against the trend in much of Europe, Spain’s left-wing government has now approved an exceptional migrant regularization plan that could benefit up to 500,000 people, most of them from Latin America.

The measure will allow the regularization of around “half a million people” who have been living in Spain for at least five months, arrived before December 31, 2025, and have no criminal record, Migration Minister Elma Saiz explained on public television.

The plan, approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, establishes that applications will be processed between April and June 30, enabling beneficiaries to work in any sector and anywhere in the country, Saiz said.

“Today is a historic day for our country. We are strengthening a migration model based on human rights, integration, and one that is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion,” the minister later stated at a press conference.

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The socialist government of Pedro Sánchez stands out within the European Union for its migration policy, contrasting with the tightening of immigration measures across much of the bloc amid pressure from far-right movements.

Central America

Honduras swears in conservative president Asfura after disputed election

Conservative politician Nasry Asfura assumed the presidency of Honduras on Tuesday with an agenda closely aligned with the United States, a shift that could strain the country’s relationship with China as he seeks to confront the economic and security challenges facing the poorest and most violent nation in Central America.

Asfura’s rise to power, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, marks the end of four years of left-wing rule and secures Trump another regional ally amid the advance of conservative governments in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina.

The 67-year-old former mayor and construction businessman was sworn in during an austere ceremony at the National Congress, following a tightly contested election marred by opposition allegations of fraud and Trump’s threat to cut U.S. aid if his preferred candidate did not prevail.

Grateful for Washington’s support, Asfura—who is of Palestinian descent—traveled to the United States to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, before visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We need to strengthen relations with our most important trading partner,” Asfura said after being declared the winner of the November 30 election by a narrow margin, following a tense vote count that lasted just over three weeks.