Au Pérou, les chauffeurs de bus risquent leur vie sous la menace des gangs

Marco Antonio Huaman, un chauffeur de bus de 49 ans, faisait le plein dans l’un des quartiers les plus pauvres de Lima lorsqu’il a failli être tué. Un homme est monté à bord et lui a tiré dessus.Après l’attaque, qui l’a blessé à la jambe, le tireur lui a lancé un message destiné à sa compagnie: “Vous nous contactez ou la prochaine fois je fais un mort”, raconte-t-il à l’AFP. Les compagnies de bus doivent verser chaque mois une somme d’argent aux bandes qui les rackettent. Celles qui refusent s’exposent à des représailles: les criminels envoient des tueurs à gages pour s’en prendre aux chauffeurs.Une crise de l’insécurité touche tout le pays et plus particulièrement la capitale de 10 millions d’habitants. Elle a précipité, le 10 octobre, la destitution de la présidente Dina Boluarte, sur fond de manifestations qui ont fait des dizaines de blessés parmi les policiers et les protestataires. Le gouvernement intérimaire de José Jeri a décrété l’état d’urgence depuis mercredi à Lima et dans sa périphérie, et déployé l’armée dans les rues.Dans la capitale Lima, au moins 102 homicides liés à l’extorsion ont été recensés en 2024. Les conducteurs de mototaxis et de bus en ont été les principales victimes, selon Indaga, un observatoire rattaché au ministère de la Justice.Selon le principal syndicat des transporteurs Anitra, près de 50 chauffeurs ont été assassinés depuis janvier à Lima et sa périphérie.La précarité et l’emploi informel, qui touche 70% des travailleurs au Pérou, sont exploitées par les groupes criminels, qui recrutent pour une bouchée de pain des jeunes issus des milieux les plus modestes.Chauffeur de bus “c’est le métier le plus risqué ici”, déplore Marco Antonio Huaman, en montrant une vidéo de l’attaque, survenue le 23 septembre, où on le voit allongé et ensanglanté sur le plancher du bus.L’homme reçoit dans sa maison du quartier de San Juan de Lurigancho, où il se remet de ses blessures.- “Peur” -Le silence règne dans les gares routières. Son entreprise, Santa Catalina, a refusé de s’exprimer.Les attaques ont lieu le plus souvent la nuit, sans avertissement, parfois même devant les passagers.”Tu vis dans la peur. Cela te provoque de l’anxiété, voire de la dépression”, confie le chauffeur, qui ne prévoit pas de reprendre son travail.Ces derniers mois, deux autres conducteurs de sa compagnie ont été pris pour cibles et blessés.Face à cette flambée de violence, nombreux sont ceux qui souhaitent abandonner la profession, mais les options sont limitées.”J’ai pensé démissionner”, confie David, 48 ans, qui préfère taire son nom par crainte de représailles. “Mais j’ai besoin de cet argent”, ajoute-t-il au volant de son bus.Il travaille environ 14 heures par jour pour un salaire d’environ 25 dollars, qui servent à subvenir aux besoins de sa compagne et de ses deux enfants.Les deux chauffeurs partagent la même crainte: ne pas rentrer vivants chez eux.Lorsqu’il a été pris pour cible, Marco Antonio Huaman a prié Dieu de veiller sur ses enfants s’il ne s’en sortait pas, raconte-t-il, les larmes aux yeux. Il confie être depuis en proie à la paranoïa et rêver de vivre dans un pays où le gouvernement mène une politique de grande fermeté contre le crime organisé.”Je préférerais vivre au Salvador, dans le pays de (Nayib) Bukele, parce que je crois que c’est aujourd’hui le pays le plus sûr”, affirme-t-il.Ici, “on te tue pour 20 soles (5 dollars)”, déplore-t-il, disant qu’il aimerait monter un petit commerce, mais craint les racketteurs qui ciblent aussi ce secteur.David, lui, raconte que sa fille de cinq ans pleure quand il part travailler. Il aimerait partir vivre dans un autre pays, mais son salaire ne le lui permet pas.Entre janvier et septembre, la police a enregistré 20.705 plaintes pour extorsion, soit une hausse de près de 29% en un an. 

Venezuela’s Maduro to US: ‘No crazy war, please!’

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded Thursday against a “crazy war” as an escalating US military campaign sent tensions soaring.Maduro’s comment came after US President Donald Trump said he had authorized covert action against the South American nation amid a military campaign targeting what Washington says are drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific.”Yes peace, yes peace forever, peace forever. No crazy war, please!” Maduro said in English in a meeting with unions aligned with the leftist leader.The United States has deployed stealth warplanes and navy ships as part of what it calls anti-narcotics efforts, but has yet to release evidence that its targets — eight boats and a semi-submersible — were smuggling drugs.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump again denied that he had sent B-1B bombers to Venezuela, but said “we’re not happy with them. They’ve emptied their prisons into our country.”The president said “we’re not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war” from Congress, which has the constitutional power to do so.”We’re just going to kill people who come into our country.”The US strikes, which began on September 2, have killed at least 37 people, according to an AFP tally based on US figures.Regional tensions have flared as a result of the campaign, with Maduro accusing Washington of seeking regime change.Late Thursday, the government in Trinidad and Tobago — located just off Venezuela’s coast — announced that a US warship would dock in its capital from October 26-30.The Trinidadian foreign ministry said a unit of US Marines would conduct joint exercises with its defense forces.Two of those killed in the US strikes were from Trinidad and Tobago.Last week, Trump said he had authorized covert CIA action against Venezuela and was considering strikes against alleged drug cartels on land.The Republican billionaire president accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel, a charge the Venezuelan leader denies.”We know the CIA is present” in Venezuela, the country’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino said Thursday. “They may deploy — I don’t know how many — CIA-affiliated units in covert operations… and any attempt will fail.”Padrino was overseeing military exercises along Venezuela’s coast in response to the US military deployment in the Caribbean. Experts have questioned the legality of using lethal force in foreign or international waters against suspects who have not been intercepted or questioned.

US, Japanese firms unwittingly hired North Korean animators: report

Major US and Japanese animation studios including HBO Max and Amazon unknowingly hired North Korean IT workers, a joint government report has found.Pyongyang has ramped up cyber operations in recent years, turning hacking into a key source of foreign currency in the face of biting sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes.A report released Wednesday by the multi-government Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) found that North Korean IT workers had concealed their nationality “in order to fraudulently gain contracts to work on animation projects for many companies”.Those companies included “HBO Max, Amazon, and several Japanese animation studios”, the report found.AFP has reached out to HBO Max and Amazon for comment.Many of them worked for companies such as Pyongyang’s state-owned animation studio SEK studios — previously reported to have assisted in Western projects such as the 2007 “Simpsons Movie”.Almost 200 workers from the isolated country also “continued to perform animation work from China in 2024 and 2025”, the report said.Under UN sanctions, North Korean workers are prohibited from earning money abroad.The MSMT comprises Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK and the United States.They found that cryptocurrency thefts — along with arms sales to Russia — made up the bulk of North Korea’s foreign earnings in 2024.North Korea has secured crucial backing from Russia in recent years, after sending weapons and thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces against Ukraine.Pyongyang’s hackers looted at least $1.19 billion from companies worldwide — roughly 50 percent more than a year earlier, according to the report.Seoul’s intelligence agency last year said North Korean operatives had used LinkedIn to pose as recruiters and approach South Koreans working at defense firms to obtain information on their technologies.Although the overwhelming majority of North Korea’s overseas IT workers were based in China, the participating states of the report said they found Pyongyang “planned to dispatch a new deployment of 40,000 laborers to Russia, including several delegations of IT workers”.Between January and September this year, North Korean hackers have already taken at least $1.65 billion through large-scale crypto heists, “surpassing estimates of its 2024 total”, it added.And from January 2024 to September 2025, North Korea stole at least $2.8 billion in cryptocurrency, it said.

India trials Delhi cloud seeding to combat deadly smog

India trialled cloud seeding over its smog-filled capital for the first time, spraying a chemical from an aeroplane to encourage rain and wash deadly particles out of the air.      Cloud seeding is the practice of using aeroplanes to fire salt or other chemicals into clouds to induce rain.New Delhi city authorities, working with the government’s Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, launched a test run on Thursday afternoon using a Cessna light aeroplane over the city’s northern Burari area.”A trial seeding flight was done… in which cloud seeding flares were fired”, Delhi Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said in a statement late Thursday.”This flight was the proving flight for checking the capabilities for cloud seeding, the readiness and endurance of the aircraft, the capability assessment of the cloud seeding fitments and flares, and coordination among all involved agencies.”It comes ahead of a planned rollout of the scheme.Delhi’s Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that “if conditions remain favourable, Delhi will experience its first artificial rain on October 29.”It was not immediately clear what chemical was used in the test to encourage the rain.New Delhi and its sprawling metropolitan region of 30 million people are regularly ranked among the world’s most polluted capitals, with acrid smog blanketing the skyline each winter.Cooler air traps pollutants close to the ground, creating a deadly mix of emissions from crop burning, factories and heavy traffic.Levels of PM2.5 — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream — at times rise to as much as 60 times UN daily health limits.Pollution rose this week after days of fireworks launched to mark Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, shooting PM2.5 levels to more than 56 times the limit.That came after the Supreme Court this month eased a blanket ban on fireworks to allow the use of the less-polluting “green” crackers — developed to reduce particulate emission.At dawn on Thursday, PM 2.5 levels were 154 micrograms per cubic metre in parts of New Delhi, according to monitoring organisation IQAir, just more than 10 times World Health Organization limits.A study found in September that the noxious air is even turning Delhi’s iconic 17th-century Red Fort black.Scientists warned that the UNESCO World Heritage Site is being steadily disfigured by a black crust, according to a study published in the Heritage journal by a joint team of Indian and Italian researchers.Invented in the 1940s, countries have been seeding clouds for decades to alleviate drought, fight forest fires and even to disperse fog at airports.China used it in 2008 to try to stop rain from falling on Beijing’s Olympic stadium.But research on the effects of cloud seeding on neighbouring regions is mixed — and some evidence suggests it does not work very well even in the target area.

Alaska Airlines grounds entire fleet over IT outage

Alaska Airlines said Thursday it had temporarily suspended all flights due to a tech outage, three months after a similar incident.”Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage affecting operations. A temporary ground stop is in place. We apologize for the inconvenience,” the Seattle-based company said on X.”If you’re scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport.”The ground stop also affects its subsidiary Horizon Air, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.Three hours after the announcement was made, some passengers complained about a lack of information.”Everyone everywhere at SeaTac. No boarding no firm updates,” said one X user, Jeff Lawrence, posting a picture of a jam-packed airport waiting room.Alaska Airlines, the fifth-largest US carrier, experienced a similar outage on July 20, which lasted about three hours.Alaska Airlines attributed the July problem to the failure of “a critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers.”Alaska last year also experienced an IT outage that caused disruption and delayed flights.In January 2024, a door plug section of a new Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California.The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the FAA temporarily grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.