Stories written by Ángel Páez
Ángel Páez has extensive experience working in Peru as an investigative journalist on stories about corruption, drug trade, political violence, arms trade and other forms of organised crime. He joined IPS as a correspondent from his country in 2005. Born in 1963, Páez studied journalism at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima and started working at the daily newspaper La República in 1985. In 1990 he founded the Unidad de Investigación, a collective of journalists that uncovered the corruption scandals surrounding the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). Páez was the first to publish a story on one of those cases, which later led the Chilean courts to hand in the perpetrator to the Peruvian authorities. A correspondent in Lima for the Argentinean newspaper Clarín and the Mexican magazine Proceso, Páez is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based organisation that promotes global investigations.

DRUGS-PERU: Mexican Cartels Dig in Their Heels

By Ángel Páez
Police in Peru have captured 25 Mexican drug traffickers in the last 18 months. According to the authorities, this unprecedented number of arrests of Mexican nationals is due to the fact that five of the main Mexican drug cartels have set up operations in this country to supply their customers in the United States.

PERU: Fresh Evidence of Construction Problems in Camisea Pipeline

By Ángel Páez
Techint, the Argentine company that built the Camisea pipeline which carries natural gas from Peru's Amazon jungle region to a port on the country's Pacific coast, used unqualified welders, in a clear violation of international norms, according to a new report by E-Tech, a California-based non-profit engineering and environmental consultancy firm.

PERU: Leaky Gas Pipeline Finds Foes in Washington

By Ángel Páez
Phase II of Peru's controversial Camisea gas project has once again run up against opposition from the U.S. government and Senate, which may vote against approving additional Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funding.

RIGHTS-PERU: Forcibly Sterilised Women Gain Voice in Congress

By Ángel Páez
Congressman-elect Alejandro Aguinaga, a former health minister during the Alberto Fujimori administration (1990-2000), as of Jul. 28 will have to share the legislative chamber with rural activist Hilaria Supa Huamán, who has denounced him for promoting the forced sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of Peruvian women.

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Poverty – Not a Pressing Issue for the Press

By Ángel Páez
The fight against poverty, which calls for a multipronged effort against hunger, inequality, and social marginalisation, is a pressing issue in Latin America. But it is apparently not for the press. In Colombia, where roughly half of the population lives in poverty, the only nationwide newspaper, El Tiempo, dedicates just 0.8 percent of its coverage to the issue.

POLITICS-PERU: Humala to Lead Opposition from the Hinterland

By Ángel Páez
While Alan García won Peru's presidential runoff election by a 5.2 percent margin, nationalist leader Ollanta Humala is feeling anything but defeatist as he prepares to lead the opposition from the country's poorest regions, where support for him runs high.

PERU: Garcia to Seek Neighbourly Relations with Chavez

By Ángel Páez
The government of Peruvian president-elect Alan García will not lead a current of opposition in Latin America to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, even though his victory was celebrated in Washington as creating a new counterweight in the region to the leftist leader of oil-rich Venezuela.

WOMEN-PERU: The Enemy at Home

By Ángel Páez
The plot of the film "Sleeping with the Enemy" is not fictional in essence. Close to 70 percent of all the women killed in one year in Peru died at the hands of their husbands, partners, lovers or boyfriends, and the murders were committed at home or in a place that was frequented by the couple.

PERU: Highlands Region Turns Its Back on Garcia’s Second Chance

By Ángel Páez
Social democratic former president Alan García won Sunday's runoff election in Peru with a 10.9 point lead. However, his rival, nationalist former army officer Ollanta Humala, clearly carried the day in the country's impoverished Andean region.

ELECTIONS-PERU: Voting for the Accused

By Ángel Páez
In a seeming paradox, ex-military commander Ollanta Humala - accused of kidnapping, torture and mass killings - was the first-round presidential election favourite in areas that suffered major human-rights violations during Peru's counterinsurgency struggle.

PERU: Fujimori Definitely a Flight Risk, Say Lawyers

By Ángel Páez
The likelihood is high that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori will leave Chile to escape possible extradition to Peru, warned prosecutor Antonio Maldonado, commenting on the Chilean Supreme Court's unappealable decision to release him on bail.

ELECTIONS-PERU: ‘The Lesser of Two Contradictions’

By Ángel Páez
Measured speeches and contradictions have marked the campaigns of Peru's former president Alan García and his opponent Ollanta Humala, as they head into the Jun. 4 presidential runoff elections.

SOUTH AMERICA: High-Level Efforts to Save Andean Trade Bloc

By Ángel Páez
The secretary-general of the Andean Community, Peruvian diplomat Allan Wagner, told IPS that he has "initiated actions at the highest level with all of the bloc's member countries" to keep Venezuela from withdrawing.

PERU: And on Palm Sunday, Alan Garcia Resuscitated

By Ángel Páez
Former Peruvian president Alan García is experiencing one of the most spectacular political resurrections in the history of Latin America, after heading a government from 1985 to 1990 that was severely criticised for hyperinflation and soaring unemployment and extreme poverty.

PERU: Fujimori Loyalists Seek to Resurrect Their Leader

By Ángel Páez
Human rights groups in Peru warned that the 14 recently elected legislators loyal to former president Alberto Fujimori will try to come up with a legal formula to recast their leader as a victim of political persecution.

ELECTIONS-PERU: Humala Wins, But Uncertainty Carries the Day

By Ángel Páez
Nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala won Peru's presidential elections Sunday, but came nowhere near the 50 percent of the vote needed to avoid a runoff, in which he will compete with either former president Alan García or centre-right candidate Lourdes Flores.

ELECTIONS-PERU: Humala Should Reach Runoff, but Against Whom?

By Ángel Páez
More than 16 million Peruvians are eligible to vote in Sunday's general elections, which will follow the hardest-fought campaign since the restoration of democracy in 1980. Nationalist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala is expected to win, although he would face off with his closest rival in a second round in May, according to the results of four opinion polls.

ELECTIONS-PERU: The Disturbing Past of Humala’s Men

By Ángel Páez
Unlike the other 20 candidates running for president in the Sunday elections in Peru, front-runner Ollanta Humala has not presented the members of his campaign team to the public.

ENVIRONMENT-PERU: Gas Pipeline Consortium to Pay for Its Own Audit

By Ángel Páez
The Peruvian government has changed its mind and decided it will not pay for an independent international investigation to assess the condition of the 750-km pipeline that transports natural gas from Camisea in the country's Amazon jungle region to the Pacific coast.

ELECTIONS-PERU: Rightwing and Anti-Establishment Candidates Neck and Neck

By Ángel Páez
Twenty candidates are contesting Peru's Apr. 9 elections, the largest number since democracy was restored in 1980. Quantity, however, does not guarantee quality, and it looks like voters plan to keep their preferences to themselves until the last minute.

PERU: Government Criticised as Overly Lax Towards Pipeline Leaks

By Ángel Páez
A fifth rupture of the Camisea pipeline that transports natural gas from Peru's Amazon jungle region to the Pacific coast has once again exposed the weakness of the state in forcing companies to comply with national laws and international standards.
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