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Wife-turned-critic of Peru ex-president dies

AFP

Peru’s former first lady Susana Higuchi — wife-turned-critic of ex-president Alberto Fujimori and mother of opposition leader Keiko Fujimori — died Wednesday of cancer, her family said on Twitter.

Higuchi, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, was 71 years old and had been hospitalized in Lima for a month.

“After a hard battle with cancer, our mother Susana Higuchi has departed to meet God,” tweeted daughter Keiko, who has run, and lost, three presidential races. 

An engineer by training, Higuchi had four children with Alberto Fujimori, whose campaign she financed in 1990 when he was an unknown and unable to raise money for his ultimately successful presidential run against the favored candidate, the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

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The pair divorced, and Higuchi accused her ex-husband of domestic violence and corruption, becoming a vocal critic of his regime from the opposition benches.

In 1994, while still first lady, Higuchi told reporters that she had been held hostage and tortured by her husband. They divorced that year, and Keiko Fujimori — then only 19 — became Peru’s first lady.

Higuchi said she was tortured after denouncing relatives of Alberto Fujimori for allegedly selling Japanese donations meant for poor people.

In 1994, she tried to challenge Fujimori for the presidency, but he passed a law preventing close relatives from succeeding him.

She had a five-year career until 2006 as a popular member of an anti-Fujimori party in congress, causing a deep rift in the family.

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Reconciled, she endorsed two of her daughter’s three presidential runs, in 2016 and 2021.

“She was surrounded by the love of us, her children, and her grandchildren until the last moment,” tweeted Keiko Fujimori, who had in the past dismissed her mother’s claims as “myths.”

Alberto Fujimori, 83, is in hospital under police protection for a heart condition.

He has been serving a 25-year prison sentence since 2007 for corruption and crimes against humanity during his 10-year term.

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International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

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International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”

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