At last count (mid August), 514 Peruvians had died of pneumonia brought on by extreme cold this year, most of them children under five. Most reasonable people would call that an emergency. Not Peru’s Red Cross, however. In a bulletin issued August 4, 2009, the Peruvian Red Cross (PRC) issued a general statement about the cold deaths in Puno, noting the low temperatures, the rise in pneumonia cases and the deaths of “113” children (a number much lower than that cited by other news sources in early August). After low-balling the number of deaths, the bulletin explained that the PRC “has been assisting the affected people with medicines, blankets and food items. Additionally, the…