PrairiePundit

Daily Mail: Inca children were left on top of volcanoes to be struck by lightning in brutal sacrifices after they were snatched from their families in far-flung corners of the vast empire  Corpses of children from all over the Inca Empire were placed on special platforms atop Peruvian mountains to get struck by lightning, scientists have revealed. They evidently thought that being struck by lightning would "elevate" the child.  The early migrants to America were not nearly as noble as some now making them out to be.

Fox News: The centuries-old remains of more than 200 children have been discovered in Peru, according to reports. Experts say that the macabre discovery is likely the world’s largest child sacrifice site. Peruvian press agency Andina reports that archaeologists found the skeletal remains of 250 children and 40 warriors at Huanchaco, 346 miles north of Lima. “This is the biggest site where the remains of sacrificed children have been found,” the excavation’s chief archaeologist, Feren Castillo, told AFP . REMAINS OF 140 CHILDREN FOUND AT SITE OF WHAT MAY BE HISTORY'S LARGEST MASS SACRIFICE: REPORT The children, who were aged between four and 14, were reportedly sacrificed to honor the gods of the pre-Columbian Chimu culture. Killed during wet weather and buried facing the sea, experts think that the children were sacrificed in relation to an “ El Nino ” event. ... Andina reports that the remains at Huanchaco have been dated to the 13th to 15th centuries. The Chimu civilization w...

i24News: Peruvian authorities reportedly foil terrorist attack against Israelis, Jews Hezbollah member arrested after police discover in his apartment explosives, weapon The suspect had allegedly selected several targets popular with Jews in Peru.  You would think that Hezballah would have enough on its plate with war in Syria, but their ethnic hatred of Jews is apparently never satiated.

Laguna Larga: Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile Agree to Remove All Trade Tariffs – Market Pulse Fx The Obama administration could learn some things from these countries.  It has been too wed to the labor thugs to openly embrace free trade in many areas.

Guardian: Leader of Peru's leftist insurgency shot and captured in jungle The jungles are not as good a hiding place as they used to be.

Independent: As television pictures showed the Russian and American jets park beside one another on the tarmac in Vienna , there weren't many in the US feeling sorry for the 10 heading east – except, perhaps, for one of their number: the Peruvian journalist Vicky Pelaez. As recounted by her lawyers in New York – with some sympathetic spin, no doubt – Ms Pelaez was not entirely in the know when it came to the clandestine doings of the man who had fathered her 17-year-old son, and whom she had loved for more than 30 years, the Uruguayan Juan Lazaro. Except that wasn't his name, nor his nationality. Armed with the shocking truth, as her lawyer John Rodriguez tells it, Ms Pelaez confronted her mysterious husband, after 11 days of their being held in separate cells and just moments before Thursday's court hearing in Manhattan that cleared the last obstacles to the spy exchange. "What's your name? What's your real name?" she demanded of Mr ...

Washington Post: For two years, Colombian officials have accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez of providing arms and sanctuary to Marxist rebels intent on toppling Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, Washington's closest ally in a turbulent region. Now, based on documents and witness testimony, Chávez is facing fresh accusations that his government has gone well beyond assisting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Documents seized from two subversive groups, along with information provided by former Colombian guerrillas, suggest that Venezuela facilitated training sessions here between the FARC and ETA, a separatist group in Spain that uses assassinations and bombings in its effort to win independence for the northern Basque region. The evidence led Judge Eloy Velasco of the National Court in Madrid to level charges of terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder in March against a Chávez government official, Arturo Cubillas, and a dozen members of ...

Sara Carter: Mexican drug cartels are strengthening alliances with a Colombian terrorist group that has engaged in a decades-long war to topple the U.S.-supported government in Bogota, intelligence officials said. The cartels are aggressively negotiating with the Marxist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC for the purchase of "multiton quantities of cocaine directly from South America," said Michael Braun, former administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The strengthened ties between Mexican cartels and the FARC, which for years offered security for Colombian drug organizations in return for cash for weapons, is a bad sign for already tenuous U.S. border security, Braun said. "An unholy alliances between the FARC and the Mexican cartels will undoubtedly strengthen these groups, and could land FARC operatives in Mexico," he said. "That could extend the FARC's ope...

Washington Times: For more than a month, Indian groups drawn mostly from the vast Peruvian Amazon have come out against a package of laws that would open their region to oil and gas drilling, hydroelectric projects and biofuels farming. Wielding bows, spears and shotguns, activists have overtaken jungle oil facilities, blocked tourist destinations and cut off thoroughfares. The effort is intended to press Peruvian President Alan Garcia to repeal decrees that are designed to bring the country's economic framework in line with a U.S.-Peru free-trade accord. At one point, Peru's state oil company was forced to shut down a key pipeline after Indians overran a pumping station. Although weeks of protests have been largely peaceful, a clash between police and protesters on Friday left 155 people wounded and at least 30 dead, including 22 police officers, according to the Peruvian government. Mr. Garcia and many Peruvians argue that Amazon resources are part of the national patrimon...

Washington Post: After years in relative obscurity, the Shining Path, one of Latin America's most notorious guerrilla groups, is fighting the Peruvian military with renewed vigor, feeding on the profits of the cocaine trade and trying to win support from the Andean villagers it once terrorized, according to residents and Peruvian officials. The Shining Path's reemergence has stirred chilling memories of its blood-soaked forays of decades past. In October, Shining Path guerrillas killed more people -- 17 soldiers and five civilians -- than they have in any month since the 1990s. This rising death toll is largely attributed to a fresh offensive by the Peruvian military, launched under the same president who battled them in the 1980s, to try to destroy the remnants of the once almost forgotten communist rebel group. But those who live among them, as well as those who study the secretive group, also describe other reasons for their resurgence. The Shining Path, which has its base...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The Europeans' decision is maddening. But it is also instructive, in that it shows how terrorists can advance their cause with the help of nongovernmental organizations. Under such headings as "human-rights" advocacy, NGOs that share the ideology of the far left toil away daily in Peru, trying to legitimize their buddies who, behind the scenes, continue their "armed struggle." The kicker is that these NGOs are often funded by foreign governments and philan...

LA Times: It seemed a sweet deal: A free vacation to South America. All expenses paid, and a hefty cash bonus. Just bring a parcel back home to Europe. "I thought I had no worries," said Vera Scheerstra, recalling when her boyfriend in the Netherlands suggested the trip. "I was stupid -- and in love, I guess." For the Dutchwoman, it has turned into a life-transforming experience -- but not in any constructive sense. Scheerstra is among scores of Europeans now in Peruvian jails on charges of attempting to smuggle cocaine out of Lima's airport. They are known as burriers , a fusion of "courier" and "burro." Many, such as Scheerstra, languish in jail for years awaiting trial as their cases proceed tortuously through Peru's courts. Scheerstra and her boyfriend were caught in October 2005 with 16 kilos, about 35 pounds, of cocaine in suitcases. She, like others interviewed in jail here, say they have acknowledged respon...

Miami Herald: Tipped by the Colombian military, Costa Rican authorities found almost $500,000 believed to belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in an old safe in a house near the Costa Rican capital of San José. A Colombian judiciary source told El Nuevo Herald that information found in a FARC computer seized by the military in a raid to a jungle camp led to the discovery of the money in a house occupied since 1985 by a retired teacher and his wife. The source said the discovery indicates that Costa Rica is still a strategic country for the rebels, who in 2001 tried to open a regional office in San José after their Mexico City base was shut down by the government. In a computer belonging to late FARC leader Raúl Reyes, Colombian police investigators found the name of Costa Rican teacher Francisco Gutiérrez Pérez, the amount of money -- $480,000 -- he was supposed to be holding for the FARC and the address of the house. Costa Rican authorities raided the house on Friday a...