Archive September 4, 2025

Former president Alejandro Toledo’s second conviction in connection with widespread corruption led to his release from prison for 13 years and four months.

One of five former presidents imprisoned in Peru in recent years, including ex-President Martin Vizcarra, who was freed on Wednesday as he prepares to go on trial for allegedly accepting bribes more than ten years ago.

Toledo, 79, who served as president from 2001 to 2006, was found guilty of obtaining high-value real estate by using bribe money from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, now known as Novonor.

In addition to paying off mortgages on two other properties, Toledo and his wife allegedly used $5.1 million to pay off two other properties while using $5.1 million to purchase a house and an office in a fashionable Lima neighborhood. According to the prosecution, the funds were routed through a Costa Rican offshore company that Toledo established to launder the illicit funds.

Toledo was found guilty of accepting up to $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for awarding the company lucrative public works contracts in October of that year. His conviction was announced on Wednesday.

Toledo’s attorneys consistently refuted allegations of money laundering and collusion during his yearlong trial.

His two sentences will be concurrently served.

Toledo, an economist with degrees from the University of San Francisco and Stanford University, is awaiting release from prison on the Lima police base.

The special facility for former country leaders is currently housing two other ex-presidents, Ollanta Humala and Pedro Castillo.

While Martin Vizcarra was detained at the same facility, a top Peruvian court on Wednesday ordered his release while he was awaiting trial for allegedly accepting bribes while he was the Moquegua region governor 11 years ago.

Before his trial, Vizcarra was imprisoned last month and the prosecution requested a 15-year sentence. He has disputed the allegations against him, claiming that they represent political persecution.

In 2026, he had a plan to run for president again.

In this century’s “Car Wash” scandal, almost all of Peru’s presidents and governments have been implicated in the Odebrecht corruption cases.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president of the United States, has been accused of putting lives at risk by disobeying decades of life-saving science and reversing medical progress in a letter to him.

In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the organizations, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Public Health Association, and the American Association of Immunologists, said that Kennedy is pressuring Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts to “turn their back on decades of sound science” in order to advance his agenda.

The organizations also accused Kennedy of making repeated attempts to denigrate science and public health, leaving Americans “less safe” in a variety of ways.

Our nation requires “leadership that encourages open, honest dialogue,” promotes misinformation, reverses medical progress, and decimates programs that protect us, according to the statement.

We are “deeply concerned” that policies that reject sound interventions will cause Americans to suffer and perish without cause.

Following his firing of Susan Monarez, the agency’s director, less than a month after she was sworn in, several former CDC directors last week claimed Kennedy’s decisions are putting Americans’ health at risk.

Kush Desai, a deputy press secretary for the White House, claimed Monarez’s actions did not “align with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and that she had resigned.

According to Monarez’s attorneys, she had been targeted because she “refused to rubber-stamp unreliable, reckless directives and fire devoted health experts.”

In response to Kennedy’s influence over the organization, her departure occurred as well as the resignations of at least four other senior CDC officials.

Kennedy stated in a social media post on Wednesday that his goal is to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease” and to “rebuild trust through competence and transparency.”

Since being appointed by Trump, Kennedy, who has long been accused of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, has significantly altered US vaccine regulations, which has sparked conflict with health officials.

He withdrew federal advice in May for pregnant women and young children receiving COVID shots. Additionally, he removed all of the experts’ vaccine advisory panel from the CDC in June, replacing them with hand-picked advisers, including fellow anti-vaccine activists, in their place.

In a move that health experts said could increase the US’s vulnerability to upcoming outbreaks of respiratory viruses, he then abruptly ended nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research in August.

Kennedy stated that the US will support “safer” and “maintenance effective” mRNA development technologies for other vaccine development technologies.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s International Vaccine Access Center claims that the cutting-edge technology has the potential to treat diseases like cancer and HIV and that millions of people have died from COVID-19.

On August 20, hundreds of federal health employees wrote to Kennedy to demand that he stop “propagating false health information” and that he either resign or be fired.

Russia has unwavering opposition to any discussions about deploying foreign troops in Ukraine.

Moscow would not engage in discussions of an international post-conflict security force, according to Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Wednesday.

On the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Zakharova told reporters that Russia would not discuss the country’s fundamentally unacceptable and security-mining foreign intervention in Ukraine.

According to Zakharova, European leaders should be aware that when discussing this subject, they should have a pointer in the form of Russia’s position when developing plans for a multinational force in the event of an agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine.

The European Commission has “precisely outdone itself,” she said, “regarding the losses of Ukraine.”

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, earlier this week, stated in her comments that the EU had “pretty precise plans” for the deployment of a multinational force to Ukraine.

On Thursday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders are scheduled to meet in Paris to discuss post-conflict security arrangements for Kyiv.

The details of the security guarantees for Ukraine were worked out, according to French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, but they are still “extremely confidential.”

The day a peace [accord] is signed, Macron said, “We the Europeans are prepared to provide the security guarantees to Ukraine and Ukraine.”

Moscow and Kyiv are still far apart on the terms of any potential peace agreement, despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to put an end to the conflict as quickly as possible.

Ukraine’s agreement with Russia would need to include land in four of the regions it has annexed since 2022, whereas Kyiv has ruled out ceding any territory.