News stories by Daniela Estrada, page 7

The tense relations between the Chilean government of Michelle Bachelet and the country's large indigenous minority are far from easing up.

The Council for the Defense of the State (CDE), the Chilean government's legal watchdog, is considering bringing a suit for environmental damages against an Italian-Chilean consortium carrying out geothermal studies a few kilometres away from the El Tatio geyser field, a tourist attraction in the northern region of Antofagasta.

Sound files containing recordings of spoken Kaweshkar - a nearly extinct indigenous language of southern Chile — have been put together thanks to the work of ethnolinguist Óscar Aguilera and anthropologist José Tonko, and donated to national and foreign institutions with the aim of preserving the culture of one of Chile’s nine native groups.

Chilean women’s organisations are not at all willing to lose what they have gained during the present government of President Michelle Bachelet. Aware of the importance of the female vote in the December presidential elections, they are seeking commitments from candidates to further progress for women.

The Chilean government has embarked on major works of infrastructure, national programmes and 28 competitions, in preparation for the 2010 celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the country's independence. But the bicentennial projects, which began this month, have drawn their share of criticism.

Environmental organisations, organic farmers and indigenous people in Chile are opposed to a draft law that would expands the rights of the developers of new varieties of plants, while the government and seed companies argue that there will be no negative impacts on small farmers and biodiversity.

Thirteen retired military officers facing prosecution for human rights crimes and corruption as well as one who has been convicted are still on the Chilean army's payroll.

Two Chilean women living in the United States were so moved by the plight of people who were detained and disappeared during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that they overcame the problems of distance, and wrote a book reconstructing the personal lives of eight victims through the accounts given by their closest relatives.

The lack of opportunities for dialogue and participation and the struggle for control over land and natural resources in Chile are hurdles to a solution to the Mapuche Indians' century-long conflict, which claimed a new victim this week: a 24-year-old activist shot by the police while taking part in an occupation of land claimed as indigenous territory.

Five social activists and community leaders opposed to the construction of coal-fired thermoelectric plants near fishing villages in northern Chile filed a complaint with the prosecution service denouncing that they had received anonymous death threats warning them to stop their struggle.