News stories by Daniela Estrada, page 6

Chile, touted as Latin America's great economic success story, has gone a long way towards reducing poverty and eliminating the country's slums. But a new study shows that disadvantages are still faced by 50,000 children living in shantytowns.

Among the thousands of people who have flocked to the Danish capital this week for the climate change summit and dozens of parallel activities are activists of all ages and stripes and representatives of the business community. TerraViva caught up to some of them to find out why they are here and what they hope to achieve.

Latin America has come to Copenhagen with the goal that the wealthy nations of the North pay their climate debt by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing resources to developing nations. But facing the risk that this strategy could fail, the Latin American representatives are also willing to accept some compromises.

Chile is a classic example of the concentration of media ownership in too few hands, says Chilean journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg in her latest book 'Los magnates de la prensa' (The Press Magnates). If the state does not exercise stricter regulation, democracy itself may be undermined, she warns.

'This lie has got to end,' said a sobbing Luisa Marilef, a 55-year-old Mapuche woman who says her son's arrest and prosecution under Chile's anti-terrorism law was part of a set-up by the police and prosecutors.

'If the government says let's sit down and try to reach a solution, we'll be there,' Héctor Llaitul, a leader of the radical Mapuche organisation Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), who is in prison in the southern Chilean region of Bío-Bío, told a group of foreign correspondents.

The second 'Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals' Journalism Prize, sponsored by the UNDP and IPS, was awarded Thursday in the Chilean capital in a ceremony addressed by the head of the U.N. agency, Helen Clark.

The official version of Chilean history renders women’s political participation 'invisible' and relegates them to a secondary or anecdotal role, says journalist Cherie Zalaquett, author of a new book, 'Chilenas en armas' (Chilean Women in Arms).

Chile currently stands out for its spectacular progress in a number of health indicators, including maternal and child mortality and chronic malnutrition. But these successes obscure an acute social problem that refuses to yield: the steady rise in the number of teenage mothers.

Reports of police violence against Mapuche children in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía prompted the country's UNICEF representative, Gary Stahl, to express the agency's deep concern at a meeting with three government ministers.