Peru

Political instability and corruption scandals characterized President Ollanta Humala's final full year in office. The opposition-dominated Congress forced Prime Minister Ana Jara to resign in March over allegations of spying on prominent private citizens and public officials, heightening perceptions of fractured leadership and intensifying political polarization.

[T]he Antamina Copper-Zinc mine in Peru was recently put into production by a consortium of companies at a cost of US$2.2 billion ... This money went towards construction costs as well as new infrastructure such as a port facility, 76 kilometers of new road, a new pipeline, 58 kilometers of new power line, and a switching station ... The new infrastructure benefits many Peruvians in immeasurable ways, whether it is increased access to electricity, healthcare, and education, much reduced costs to any new mineral deposits found in the area, or other business ventures ...

The Bush administration and federal agencies are still struggling with the backlash from the shootdown by Peruvian jet fighters of a Cessna airplane ... Everybody regrets the fact that a CIA surveillance plane notified Peruvian jets that a plane carrying Baptist missionaries might contain drug traffickers ... The U.S. government ... provides approximately $100 million in anti-drug aid to Peru each year ... Perhaps the U.S. embassy believes that since the U.S. ... plane did not specifically tell the Peruvian fighters to kill the mother and daughter, the United States is blameless.

[T]he likely president of Peru, Ollanta Humala, has promised to end the U.S.-financed program to destroy the coca crop in his country. Coca is used to make cocaine, but also tea and herbal medicines ... The Washington Post says the U.S. government has spent $5 billion since 2000 on crop eradication ... According [to] the Post, "... In Peru, U.S. government analysts detected a 23 percent increase in the traditional cultivation zones between 2004 and 2005; when including data from new zones of cultivation, Peru's annual increase was 38 percent."