News stories by Daniela Estrada, page 3

A bicentennial celebration for ordinary people, envisioned as the start of a process of social reflection, is being prepared by over 100 organisations and public personalities in Chile as a response to the official commemoration of the 200th anniversary of independence from Spain.

The families of 32 Mapuche prisoners on a hunger strike for a month in different prisons in southern Chile have come to the capital to denounce irregularities in their trials and push for dialogue with the authorities.

The controversial proposal to pardon some convicts in Chile for humanitarian reasons, which was put forward by the Catholic Church and partially taken up by President Sebastián Piñera, has revived the debate on the country's human rights situation, both past and present.

Concentrated mainly in the arid northern region of Arica y Parinacota, Chile's small black population is seeking formal recognition as an ethnic group and inclusion on the 2012 census form, to put an end to what they describe as 'structural discrimination.'

More fixed capital investment to improve competition, greater added value to exported goods and services, and tax reforms to finance social policies are some of the challenges Latin America and the Caribbean face in the uncertain global economic panorama.

The time has come for Latin American countries to put an economic value on the work that women do as they take care of households, children and the elderly, says ECLAC, the United Nations regional economic agency.

The majority of people surveyed in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua are in favour of legalising therapeutic abortion, but not all forms of elective abortion, according to a study by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).

He describes himself as centre-right, but several of his policies have been classified as 'progressive'. As he completes his first 100 days in office, telegenic Chilean President Sebastián Piñera is surprising both allies and opponents, while social organisations are keeping a careful watch.

Fifty pairs of women -- maids and their employers -- from Argentina, Chile and Colombia abandoned their daily routines to pose for photographs for a project about the hierarchical relationship that unites them.

'In Chile, women carry the entire burden of maternity,' says teacher Fabiola Quiñones, who applauds the government's proposal to extend pre- and post- natal leave to six months -- but only if all new mothers who work can have that option.