Peruvian Catholic Cardinal Carlos Castillo today expressed his solidarity with the Generation Z youth protest movement and rejected the labeling of the group, which took to the streets again today, as terrorists.

“There are no terrorists here. Here there are people with rights, with dignity,” he said on the fifth day of protests organized by the group, which mobilizes its demonstrations via social media.

He added that Generation Z youth “have a lot to say to humanity; they are the last word that needs to be said, the last letter of the alphabet. Hope. Let's say hope with a Z.”

“That is what we need today, brothers and sisters: to be hope for others. And that hope obliges us all to assume our responsibility, our place, and do something that Pope Francis loved: to generate popular movements,” Castillo asserted.

From the pulpit of Lima Cathedral, the archbishop of the capital stated that “the young people who have taken to the streets and filled the center of Lima to demand order in the country, mercy, and justice.”

He added that they are also protesting “against so many injustices and unfair laws that have been passed, such as the one requiring people to contribute to insurance from the age of 18 and thus pay the Pension Fund Administrators,” one of the reasons for Generation Z's anti-government protests.

The church dignitary also expressed solidarity with the protests by urban transport workers who are demanding that the government provide effective protection against extortionists who murder drivers on an almost daily basis.

He added that the transport workers' demand is: “Those responsible for order, bring order to the city so that we can return alive to our homes to see our families.”

Among other national and international reflections and in a speech full of religious references, he pointed out that "Jesus Christ chose to always be with the poor and encourage them. He is the strength of his people, their great liberator," and he spoke out against social inequalities.

“Today, humanity cries out for true liberation, where love is at the center and solidarity radiates among all, so that we may stop wars,” he said.

The survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) indicates that the far-right Rafael Lopez-Aliaga remains in first place with 8.5 percent, mostly confined to Lima, followed by the neoliberal Keiko Fujimori with 5.9 percent.

In third place, with 3.3 percent, is former president Pedro Castillo, who has been in prison for nearly three years and whom the conservative Parliament is preparing to disqualify to prevent him from running.

Behind them are television comedian and far-right candidate Carlos Álvarez (2.4 percent) and center-left candidate Alfonso López Chau (0.9 percent). The others are below them and together account for 5.5 percent.

In both polls, more than 60 percent have not chosen any candidate, plan to spoil their ballot or vote blank, and only approximately 25 percent support any of the nearly 40 pre-candidates.

According to the IEP poll, 62.7 percent of the population does not have a candidate, and the Ipsos survey notes that 62 percent of those surveyed are in a similar situation.

Ipsos places López-Aliaga in first place with 10 percent, followed by neoliberal Keiko Fujimori and Mario Vizcarra (brother of disqualified center-right former president Martín Vizcarra), with 7 percent each.

Further down the list are the far-right Carlos Álvarez, with 4 percent, and the television commentator of similar political leanings, Phillip Butters (3).

Four potential candidates are tied at 2 percent: the leftist Guillermo Bermejo; the provincial conservative politician and businessman César Acuña; and the center-right Yonhy Lescano and Rafael Belaúnde.

In this context, analyst Juan Carlos Tafur, who claims to be a liberal right-winger, insisted on predicting an “anti-establishment electoral tsunami” in the April 2026 elections, due to widespread social discontent, for which he blames the government.

He considers it highly likely that the second round of the presidential election will feature two left-wing candidates, a message that explicitly aims to get the right-wing and far-right parties, divided into some twenty parties, to put aside their differences and unite in a single bloc to win the government.

According to Tafur, the fragmentation of the right is such that very few of its parties will even win seats in Parliament, due to changes in legislation that, had they been in force in the 2021 election, would have given Pedro Castillo an absolute majority in Congress.

The Pentagon, alarmed at the low weapons stockpiles the U.S. would have on hand for a potential future conflict with China, is urging its missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production rates on a breakneck schedule. The push to speed production of the critical weapons in the highest demand has played out through a series of high-level meetings between Pentagon leaders and senior representatives from several U.S. missile makers, according to people familiar with the matter. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is taking an unusually hands-on role in the effort, called the Munitions Acceleration Council, and calls some company executives weekly to discuss it, some of the people said. The department summoned top missile suppliers to a June roundtable at the Pentagon to kick off the industry effort. The meeting, attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew executives from several weapons makers, new market entrants like Anduril Industries, and a handful of suppliers of important parts like rocket propellant and batteries.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are exploring extraordinary avenues to expand our military might and accelerate the production of munitions,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, when asked about the efforts. “This effort has been a collaboration between defense industry leaders and senior Pentagon officials.” Some people involved in the effort both inside and outside of the government worry that the government’s targets aren’t realistic. Individual missiles can take two years to fully assemble. It can take several months and hundreds of millions of dollars to test and qualify weapons from new suppliers as safe and reliable enough for U.S. service members to use. There are also questions about the money needed to accelerate production. The Trump administration’s Big, Beautiful Bill, signed in July, provided an additional $25 billion in five-year munitions funding, but analysts say that hitting the Pentagon’s aggressive targets would cost tens of billions more.

“Companies don’t build these things on spec,” said Tom Karako, a munitions expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You wait for the government to put them on contract. There needs to be an expression of support with money. It can’t just be words.” Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon say they have responded by adding workers, widening factory floors and growing spare-parts inventories to prepare for a potential demand surge. But some suppliers have struggled to hit the new targets and are wary of splurging on orders that the government has yet to fund. Christopher Calio, the chairman and chief executive officer of Raytheon parent RTX, one of the military’s largest munitions producers, said in a July 3 letter to the Pentagon that it was ready to work with the Defense Department to increase production, but cautioned that the company would need additional money and commitments from the Pentagon to buy more munitions.

“Signaling the demand strength of these critical munitions to the supply base with Program of Record extensions…and funding to support is required,” he wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Military officials have fretted about the U.S. ability to ramp up weapons production since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration launched an effort to raise munitions production rates and smooth out supply-chain kinks in 2023. “The current conflict in Ukraine has been a wake-up call,” then-Undersecretary of Defense Bill LaPlante said at the time. “We’ve allowed production lines to go cold, watched as parts became obsolete and seen sub-tier suppliers consolidate or go out of business entirely.” New missile orders have since failed to keep up with the soaring use of expensive interceptors, including the Patriot, to defend Ukraine against intensifying Russian bombardment. U.S. officials want more of those interceptor missiles on hand to protect bases and allies around the Pacific region.

By June, the Trump administration had set even more aggressive production goals. Then the U.S. fired hundreds of high-end missiles during the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, further depleting its missile arsenal. The new acceleration council is focused on 12 weapons that the Pentagon wants on hand for a potential conflict with China, some of the people said. The list includes Patriot interceptors, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, the Standard Missile-6, Precision Strike Missiles and Joint Air-Surface Standoff Missiles. Patriot is a particular priority because Lockheed has struggled to keep pace with surging global demand. An early request for information asked weapons makers at the June roundtable to detail how they could increase production to 2.5 times current volumes through steps taken over the following six, 18 and 24 months, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The military also asked suppliers to describe how they might attract new private capital and potentially license their technology to third-party manufacturers.

The Army in September awarded Lockheed almost $10 billion to make nearly 2,000 PAC-3 missiles from fiscal year 2024 to 2026. The Pentagon wants suppliers to eventually pump out that same number of Patriots each year—nearly four times the current production rate, according to some of the people familiar with the matter. A Lockheed spokeswoman said the company is exploring more investments in Patriot missile production and expects to deliver above its stated capacity for the next several years. An RTX spokesman declined to comment. The effort is also mapping supply chains down multiple tiers to find areas for potential improvement and looking for second sources where single suppliers create bottlenecks. For example, the Pentagon is calling for more production of a Boeing-made seeker nested in the missile’s nose, which has become a chokepoint for Patriot production. Boeing rushed this summer to calculate how big an order of the seekers it could fulfill and recently finished a 35,000-square-foot expansion project at its factory, which is still being outfitted with new assembly equipment. A Boeing spokeswoman said that monthly seeker deliveries have hit new records and that the company plans to further boost production.

Some suppliers say they are willing to put capital at risk before contracts are in hand. A Northrop Grumman spokeswoman said the missile supplier “invested ahead of the need with more than $1 billion across solid rocket motor production facilities,” with plans to nearly double output over the next four years. The Pentagon will soon be taking more steps to increase production, said Daniel Driscoll, the Army secretary, earlier this month. The department, he said, is planning “massively substantive changes to how we buy our stuff.”

Doha September 29, 2025

The Foreign Ministers of the State of Qatar, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of Türkiye, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Arab Republic of Egypt welcome President Donald Trump's leadership and his sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza, and assert their confidence in his ability to find a path to peace. They emphasize the importance of the partnership with the United States in securing peace in the region. Along these lines, the ministers welcome the announcement by President Trump regarding his proposal to end the war, rebuild Gaza, prevent the displacement of the Palestinian people and advance a comprehensive peace, as well as his announcement that he will not allow the annexation of the West Bank.

The ministers affirm their readiness to engage positively and constructively with the United States and the parties toward finalizing the agreement and ensuring its implementation, in a manner that ensures peace, security, and stability for the peoples of the region.

They reaffirm their joint commitment to work with the United States to end the war in Gaza through a comprehensive deal that ensures unrestricted delivery of sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza, no displacement of the Palestinians, the release of hostages, a security mechanism that guarantees the security of all sides, full Israeli withdrawal, rebuilds Gaza and creates a path for a just peace on the basis of the two state solution, under which Gaza is fully integrated with the West Bank in a Palestinian state in accordance with international law as key to achieving regional stability and security.

Protests in Peru leave 19 people injured as outrage spreads over corruption, pensions, and rising organised crime.

At least 19 people, including a police officer, have been injured during protests against the government of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte and Congress, according to authorities and human rights advocates.

Hundreds of people marched over the weekend towards the seats of government in central Lima, under a heavy police presence. Groups of young people threw stones, petrol bombs and fireworks at law enforcement, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH), a human rights coalition, reported on Sunday that 18 people were injured in the clashes, including a journalist.

“A police officer suffered first-degree burns from a Molotov cocktail during the march organised by various groups,” the National Police reported on Saturday, sharing images of the clashes on social media.

The CNDDHH blamed the police for the violence.

“We call on the police to respect the right to protest. There was no justification for firing large amounts of tear gas, let alone for attacking people,” said Mar Perez, a lawyer for the CNDDHH.

A new march by hundreds of transport workers and the Generation Z youth collective, protesting against alleged corruption and extortion, was dispersed by dozens of police officers using tear gas on Sunday night.

“We are marching against corruption, for life, and against the crime that is killing us every day,” Adriana Flores, a 28-year-old engineer, told the AFP news agency on Sunday.

Social unrest has increased since the Boluarte government passed a law on September 5 requiring young people to contribute to private pension funds, despite job insecurity and an unofficial employment rate of over 70 percent.

Boluarte’s approval ratings have plunged in the final stretch of her term, which is set to end on July 28, 2026.

The conservative-majority Congress faces a similar situation due to perceptions of corruption, according to several opinion polls. Protests have also escalated in Peru over the past six months, following a wave of extortion and murders by organised crime groups.

The social crisis in Ecuador escalated dramatically this Sunday with the confirmation of the death of an Indigenous protester from a gunshot wound in the province of Imbabura, amid week-long anti-government protests.

The Regional Foundation for Human Rights Advice (Inredh) denounced the death of Efraín Fueres, an Indigenous community member who died in a hospital after being injured in Cotacachi. The organization categorically rejected the lethal and unlawful use of force and demanded an immediate investigation to determine responsibility for the crime.

The Foundation’s complaint comes amid reports of intense military and police repression in rural areas. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which is maintaining the call for a national strike, reported that during the night and early morning, a security convoy entered communities such as Ilumán and Cotacachi, using tear gas and live ammunition. Additionally, one more person remains in serious condition due to the violence, according to INREDH.

The serious violence generated a wave of international warnings against the government of Daniel Noboa. Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, expressed her deep concern. She denounced that the Ecuadorian government “seems to have launched a persecution against civil society,” warning of the excessive use of force and arbitrary arrests of protesters.

The UN’s condemnation extended to the demobilization tactics employed by the government. Romero described the freezing of bank accounts of Indigenous leaders as “harassment not aligned with international standards.” Joining the condemnation, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues also urged Noboa to guarantee freedom of expression, the right to peaceful assembly, and due process for the 100 detainees who, according to official figures, remain in custody.

For his part, President Noboa maintains an unwavering stance, reiterating in an interview with Ecuavisa that “the police and the army will be responsible for restoring order.” The president justified the repression by asserting that the protest had ceased to be a social protest, arguing that intelligence reports link the demonstrators to illegal mining, organized crime, and even the presence of members of the transnational criminal group “Tren de Aragua.”

As the humanitarian crisis deepens with the first death of the conflict, the National Association of Flower Producers and Exporters (Expoflores) reported economic losses amounting to nearly $1 million a day due to roadblocks and attacks on farms in Imbabura. The death of Indigenous community member Efraín Fueres intensifies the need for a transparent investigation and puts more international pressure on the Noboa government, whose refusal to repeal the diesel subsidy remains the central driver of the mobilization.

This Sunday, the National Labor Organization (CONAIE) reaffirmed the continuation of the national strike, which has now lasted seven days, firmly demanding that President Daniel Noboa repeal Decree 126, which eliminated the diesel subsidy.