Peru
Accused witch burned alive
A woman accused of being a witch was burned alive on a bonfire in an indigenous community in a remote part of the country’s Amazon rainforest, authorities said Tuesday. Prosecutor Hugo Mauricio said members of the Shiringamazu Alto community sentenced 73-year-old Rosa Villar Jarionca to death over claims she made people sick through witchcraft. The alleged burning took place Sept. 20, but the area is so remote that word of it did not reach authorities until recently. Mauricio said a cellphone video shot by a witness and given to prosecutors appeared to show Villar with her hands tied amid a pile of dry logs and branches. A man bathes the logs and the woman with gasoline and another man throws a lit match.
Greece
Control of utilities to shift
Amid street protests, Greece’s parliament voted Tuesday night to transfer control of public utilities to a new asset fund created by international creditors. Lawmakers approved the legislation in a 152-141 vote that Greece’s lenders had required to release the next round of bailout loans from eurozone partners. The new measure places the state-run power and water companies under the fund’s control for 99 years. It will be led by an official chosen by the creditors, while Greece’s Finance Ministry will retain overall control.
Egypt
Bodies pulled from boat
Rescue workers on Tuesday pulled dozens of bodies from the hold of an Egyptian fishing boat that sank in the Mediterranean Sea carrying hundreds of migrants trying to make it to Europe, bringing the toll from the disaster to more than 200 dead. As the dead were brought to a pier outside the coastal city of Rosetta, families of the missing went through the grisly task of searching through the body bags for their loved ones. Women broke into screams and some men collapsed whenever they recognized someone, some only by their clothes because of the bodies’ condition after nearly a week in the water.
Haiti
LGBT festival canceled
Organizers of a cultural festival in Haiti celebrating the Afro-Caribbean LGBT community said Tuesday that it has been called off due to numerous threats of violence and a subsequent prohibition by a government commissioner. The four-day Massimadi film, art and performance event was supposed to start Tuesday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, but organizers said it had to be postponed as a prominent Haitian cultural institution known as FOKAL and other co-hosts were threatened with arson and other attacks.
Compiled from wire reports