Peru's Constitutional Tribunal on July 16 issued a decision ordering the government to honor debt owed for land confiscated under the agrarian reform that began in the 1960s. The ruling stated that the government must uphold a similar order issued by the nation's highest court in 2001, which has gone unenforced. The new ruling sets a timeline, saying the government must pay off the debt within 10 years, and that the Finance Ministry must issue a payment plan within six months. The issue sparked a public spat last week when President Ollanta Humala asked the court to refrain from issuing any rulings on "sensitive issues"—an obvious reference to the land compensation question—until the Congress votes on appointing six new members to the court. The court's president, Oscar Urviola, charged that Humala had overstepped his bounds by trying to order the court.

US intelligence agencies have carried out spying operations on telecommunications in at least 14 Latin American countries, according to a series of articles the Brazilian national daily O Globo began publishing on July 7. Based on classified documents leaked by former US intelligence technician Edward Snowden, the articles reported that the main targets were Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The US also spied "constantly, but with less intensity," on Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, the newspaper said. Brazil and Colombia, a major US ally, have both officially demanded explanations from the US.

In a bizarre and largely unexplained incident, on July 2 several Western European countries denied the use of their airspace to a Bolivian plane carrying the country's president, Evo Morales, home from a gas exporting countries forum in Moscow. The Bolivians made an unscheduled landing in Vienna, where Austrian authorities reportedly inspected the plane with President Morales' permission. After a 13-hour stopover in Vienna, the flight was cleared with the Western European countries and proceeded to La Paz, where it landed late July 3.

National Police troops in Peru's Cajamarca region opened fire July 6 on campesinos attempting to attend the public presentation of an environmental impact statement on the Chadín II hydro-electric project at the highland town of Celendín, witnesses said. According to a statement from the group Tierra y Libertad, nine were wounded when the troops fired on the opponents of the project who were trying to gain access to the public building where the meeting was being held. Marle Libaque Tasilla, a leader of the local ronda, or peasant self-defense patrol, and an organizer for Tierra y Libertad, said that among the injured is the noted Peruvian environmentalist Nicanor Alvarado Carrasco.

Two explosions shut down Colombia's 80,000 barrel-per-day Caño Limon-Covenas oil pipeline, state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol said July 5, with a military source describing them as attacks carried out by leftist rebels. The explosions on Colombia’s second largest pipeline, used by US oil producer Occidental and owned by Ecopetrol, had no immediate impact on production or exports in Latin America's fourth largest oil producer, according to an Ecopetrol official. No details on how much crude was spilt by the explosions or the environmental damage was immediately available, the Ecopetrol official said.

A former commander of Colombian neo-paramilitary group Los Paisas and four other alleged members of illegal armed groups escaped July 5 after armed men ambushed the van the suspects were transported in. At the time of his arrest in 2011, "La Pantera" was said to be the second in command of the Paisas, which later joined forces with the Rastrojos to combat the expanding rival Urabeños gang. According to prison authorities, the van taking the suspects from the city of Montería to Medellín for a court hearing was ambushed while traveling through the municipality of Taraza, the heartland of the Paisas. Two of the five prison guards transporting the suspected criminals were injured in the attack.

On June 30, a demolition crew with rock drills and a backhoe razed a pyramid at El Paraiso archaeological site in the working-class district of San Martin de Porres in Lima, Peru. The pyramid, 2,000 square meters in extension, was one of 12 at site, dating to the Late Pre-Ceramic Age (2000-3000 BCE). Archaeologist Marco Guillén Hugo, in charge of excavations at the site, said he had reason to believe two private construction companies, Compañía y Promotora Provelanz and Alisol SAC Ambas, were behind the destruction. “This isn't the first time they have tried to take over this land," Guillén told the daily El Comercio. "They say they are the owners, even though this land is untouchable." He charged that the companies "have committed irreparable damage to a page of Peruvian history."

World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg's presentation about Peru at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) on New York's Lower East Side last week is now on YouTube. The talk and slide show focused on struggles for urban space in Lima (community centers, squats, gardens); the movement for legalization of coca leaf, and against US-led eradication efforts; and peasant struggles for land and water against US mineral companies in the Andes. There was also a report on recent protests in Lima against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, with a representative from NY Metro Trade Justice.