LATIN AMERICA

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Peru declared an environmental emergency on Thursday after announcing that 21 beaches on the Pacific coast were contaminated by an oil spill at a refinery run by Spain-based Repsol, following surging waves caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano near Tonga.

President Pedro Castillo said a committee will be formed to propose ways of dealing with the crisis, in keeping with national policies aimed at protecting the environment.

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Mexican health regulator COFEPRIS said on Friday, January 15, 2022, it had approved U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer's antiviral oral treatment against COVID-19 for emergency use in adults with light or moderate risk of complications.

Paxlovid, which combines nirmatrelvir and ritonavir in a tablet, will require a prescription, it said in a statement.

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Dozens of journalists and human rights defenders in El Salvador had their cellphones repeatedly hacked with sophisticated spyware over the past year and a half, an internet watchdog said Wednesday.

Reporting on its latest findings about use of the Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said it had identified a Pegasus operator working almost exclusively in El Salvador in early 2020.

While the researchers could not conclusively link the hacks to El Salvador’s government, the report said “the strong country-specific focus of the infections suggests that this is very likely.”

Sofía Medina, spokeswoman for President Nayib Bukele, said in a statement that “El Salvador is no way associated with Pegasus and nor is a client of NSO Group.” She said the government does not have licenses to use this type of software.

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As coronavirus cases spike in Mexico and tests become scarce, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told Mexicans Monday to just assume they had COVID-19 if they had symptoms.

The number of confirmed cases in Mexico spiked by 186% last week.

López Obrador claimed the Omicron variant is “a little COVID,” noting hospitalizations and deaths had not increased at the same rate. However, experts say those are both lagging indicators that may not show up for weeks after infections spike.

Reading advice posted on Twitter, the president said Mexicans with symptoms should just stay at home, take paracetamol and isolate, rather than going out and trying to find tests.

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The governor of Mexico’s Morelos state has denied any links to drug traffickers after a 3-year-old photo surfaced showing him posing with three men identified as local drug gang leaders.

Former Mexican national soccer team star Cuauhtemoc Blanco won the governorship of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, in 2018 after retiring from soccer. A photo from October of that same year shows him smiling and locking arms with three men, one of whom is under arrest and another who was killed in prison.

The third man is allegedly still alive and leading a gang called the “Tlahuica Commando” that may have been involved in the 2019 killing of a community activist.