14 mayo 2009

162,000 Mothers Under 20

11 May, 2009 [ 14:42 ]

Peru has 162,000 adolescent mothers


LivinginPeru.com
Israel Ruiz

According to Peru's National Statistics Institute, the country has 7,130,000 mothers over the age of 12, which is 64.5 percent of the female population in this age group.

It was reported that 162,000 of these moms are adolescents between the ages of twelve and nineteen.

Ninety percent of the girls between the ages of 12 and 14 got pregnant because they were raped or sexually abused, said INEI.

It was also reported that twenty percent of the country's miscarriages were among adolescent mothers-to-be.

INEI statistics also showed that twenty percent of female teenagers in Peru's rural regions had children. The maternity rate in urban areas among teen girls was registered at ten percent.

42.2 percent of the country's females with children are married while thirty-four percent has not gotten married, said INEI.

The national institute also reported that eight percent of the country's mothers are divorced while 7.1 percent are single moms.

From sea to shining sea

Travel and Tourism 5 May, 2009 [ 09:42 ]

Peru's new highway to give 60,000 Brazil tourists access to Cusco


LivinginPeru.com
Israel Ruiz

Thanks to the construction of the Inter-Oceanic Highway, which is to be inaugurated in 2010, approximately 60,000 Brazilian tourists will arrive to Cusco's Imperial City every year.



Furthermore, the construction of the highway will allow farmers to sell their products to markets in the neighboring country, said Jean Paul Benavente, head of Cusco's tourism and foreign trade directorate.

He explained that one of the government's first goals was to generate more tourism from Peru's rainforest regions to the highlands and then to the country's coastal areas.

Benavente explained that to do this it would be necessary to create areas where tourists could rest and even shop. Among these key areas were the communities of Quincemil and Marcapata.

Aside from building the new highway, construction companies and government agencies are working on fostering tourism in the areas near the new road, said Benavente, explaining that projects were already taking place in the regions of Puno, Cusco and Madre de Dios.

Driving along this highway will be a very interesting experience for tourists, said the head of Cusco's Chamber of Tourism, stating visitors would be able to go from the jungle which is 200 meters above sea level to the Andes, which are 4,700 meters above sea level.

Guerrillas, guns, and the VRAE

Guerrillas Have Doubled Their Firepower, Peru Army Says
(courtesy Latin American Tribune)

LIMA – The Shining Path guerrilla group has doubled its firepower, acquiring sophisticated arms and gaining the ability to shoot down helicopters, the La Republica newspaper reported over the weekend, citing military intelligence sources.

Guerrillas operating in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers, or VRAE region, a jungle area in southern and southeastern Peru that has a strong presence of the group’s remnants and drug traffickers, have two rocket launchers, a grenade launcher and several heavy machine guns, including one capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute.

The guerrillas also have as many as 99 assault rifles.

The vast majority of the arsenal belonging to the Shining Path, which is led in the VRAE by “Comrade Jose,” was taken from dead soldiers in combat.

The guerrillas have “two other ways of supplying themselves: the organized crime groups that steal arms from the army and drug traffickers,” military sources told the newspaper.

The story published Sunday in La Republica came out two days after the government relieved the police chief in the VRAE, Percy Rivera Paiva, of command for negligence.

Rivera Paiva sent about 100 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition to the VRAE in an unguarded bus, officials said.

The incident raised suspicions about possible arms trafficking, but the government said only negligence was involved in the Rivera Paiva case.

A military report on last Tuesday’s attack on the helicopter carrying armed forces chief Gen. Francisco Contreras concluded that Shining Path guerrillas fired RPG-7s at the aircraft.

Some experts, however, told La Republica that the guerrillas had not yet mastered the Russian-made weapon.

Shining Path members apparently “just started practicing with the RPG-7, trying to imitate the Afghan mujahideen, who shot down several helicopters with these grenade launchers,” military sources told La Republica.

Since August, the armed forces have been making an aggressive push in the VRAE region in an effort to gain control of Vizcatan, considered the last bastion of the Shining Path.

The Shining Path has responded by increasing its activities in Vizcatan in recent months.

Two weeks ago, the Shining Path claimed responsibility for two ambushes near the town of Sanabamba in which 14 soldiers died.

The ambushes staged on April 9 were some of the deadliest attacks launched in recent months by the Shining Path.

Last October, the guerrillas killed 15 people, including 13 soldiers, in a remote coca-growing region in the Andean province of Huancavelica.

The Shining Path and its role in drug trafficking have been blamed for a rise in violence in the interior of Peru.

The Maoist-inspired group launched its uprising on May 17, 1980, with an attack on Chuschi, a small town in Ayacucho province.

A truth commission appointed by former President Alejandro Toledo blamed the Shining Path for most of the nearly 70,000 deaths the panel ascribed to politically motivated violence during the two decades following the group’s 1980 uprising.

The guerrilla group also caused an estimated $25 billion in economic losses, according to commission estimates.

Founder and leader Abimael Guzman, known to his fanatic followers as “President Gonzalo,” was captured with his top lieutenants on Sept. 12, 1992, an event that signified the “defeat” of the insurgency.

Since then, isolated guerrilla bands have engaged in sporadic and largely ineffective activity in a few regions. EFE

Less poverty?

Poverty levels in Peru will drop, Prime Minister says


LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Peruvian Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, said that Peru would have reduced poverty rates in 4%, according to preliminary results based on recent international reports to be printed soon.

“Although the report has not been officially published yet, projections show Peru poverty rates will continue to fall,” he said

"I think that in the weeks to come, Peruvians will receive good news related to our fight to erradicate poverty. The official figures and other international reports will show that Peru has reduced poverty rates by two, three or even four percentage points,” he said.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), poverty in Peru fell from 44.5 percent to 39.3 percent between 2006 and 2007. Simon said that the government has commited to reduce rates to down to 36%.

The sol rises as the dollar drops


Economy 6 May, 2009 [ 08:05 ]

Peru's currency keeps on strenghtening


LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Yesterday, after almost five months, the pressures on the US dollar exchange rate were so marked that its price dropped to S/. 2.95, when Peru Central Bank (BCR) had to buy dollars to prevent the price from dropping too much.

The exchange rate closed at S/. 2.979.

“The market trends have completely changed. Now everyone wants to sell their dollars and buy soles” said a BCR Treasure manager, summarizing the economic operators' general feeling.

“These are the signs of a trade account more positive each time, and a are also due to some capital inflows higher than we had expected” he detailed.

“This tendency is expected to continue in the long term, because the US foresees high rates of inflation, exactly the opposite as Peru” added Luis Felipe Zegarra, Economist from the Piura University.