Peru

Foreign, interior and defense ministers of Andean countries will hold an urgent meeting this weekend to discuss the problem of cross-border drug crime that has plunged Ecuador into a security crisis, Peru's government said on Jan. 15.

Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otarola told reporters the meeting in Lima on Jan. 21 will focus on ways to confront transnational crime.

Peru on March 9 returned a collection of 73 Roman coins, some from the second and fourth centuries, to the Italian embassy in Lima, the Foreign Ministry said.

The coins were seized from a Peruvian woman in 2021 at the international airport in Cusco, a tourist hub and gateway to the world renown Machu Picchu Inca citadel.

Peru indefinitely shut the famed ancient ruins of Machu Picchu on Saturday in the latest sign that anti-government protests that began last month are increasingly engulfing the South American country.

Describing the current situation in Peru as "precarious" due to violent demonstrations in the South American country, the Greek Foreign Ministry is advising Greek citizens to avoid traveling there.

It also recommends that Greeks who are already there avoid unnecessary travel and observe security measures.

The suspension of ticket sales to Machu Picchu sparked protests among angry tourists and merchants from the town closest to the Inca citadel.

Peru's president on Tuesday lifted a curfew he had decreed less than a day earlier in the country's capital and its main port in a bid to quell sometimes violent protests over rising fuel and food prices.

A Lima zoo is racing to save dozens of seabirds, including protected penguins, left covered in oil after 6,000 barrels of crude spilled off Peru's coast in the aftermath of the Tonga tsunami.

At daybreak on a freezing cold day high in the Andes, dozens of Peruvian peasants clamber up a mountainside to carry out a centuries-old tradition of shearing the highly-prized wool off vicunas, which are relatives of the llama.

class='cf'>

The incident happened in Peru

The main cause of this situation is poverty, CNN reports.
Peru was one of the first countries in South America to take strict measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus, such as a ban on leaving homes, curfew and border closings.