Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otarola on Tuesday resigned amid allegations of influence-peddling to help a young woman he is said to have addressed lovingly in recordings released by news media.
Otarola told reporters in Lima that “in conversation with the president of the republic I have announced my decision to present my resignation.”
Otarola is a seasoned politician and lawyer who acted as chief of staff to Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who ordered him home from an official trip to Canada after the scandal erupted.
Photo: AFP / Peruvian Presidency / Juan Pablo Azabache
Otarola, 57, is married and has five children.
Over the weekend, the television program Panorama released what it said were recordings of Otarola in conversation with a woman named Yazire Pinedo, 25, who landed two contracts this year worth a total of US$14,000 to do archive and administrative work for the government.
In one of the recordings, a man alleged to be Otarola says to her: “Tell me, then, my love, so we can talk. You know these things are annoying, they are a pain, but you also know that I love you,” apparently referring to the red tape involved in bidding for a government contract.
Otarola has denied any violation of Peruvian labor laws or other wrongdoing.
“I understand the gravity of the political circumstances, but I repeat that I did not do anything illegal,” he wrote on X on Monday.
The president’s office had said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that it would hear Otarola out before deciding what to do.
On Tuesday, Pinedo said the leaked conversations with Otarola were from 2021, before he was a Cabinet minister, but she acknowledged having had a brief, “perhaps sentimental relationship” with him.
Opposition parties on the right and left have demanded that Otarola resign. Prosecutors said they would investigate him for possible conflict of interest and “illegal sponsorship.”
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS