News stories by Daniela Estrada, page 9

The coverage of human rights violations cases by the powerful conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio during the country’s 17-year dictatorship was the focus of a meticulous study by five young reporters.

As Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold gets ready to start construction at the Pascua Lama mine, straddling the Argentine-Chilean border, activists in Chile are scrambling to block the ambitious mining project while calling for an investigation of supposed irregularities committed in the approval process.

Over the last few days, the Chilean capital has hosted two very different activities that, however, had a common objective: promoting global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

A new government policy on glaciers adopted by Chile 'is a step forward, but it doesn’t resolve all of the problems,' German geographer Alexander Brenning, who blames mining companies for threats to this South American country’s rock glaciers, told IPS.

The Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information came into force in Chile on Monday. Although experts say there is room for improvement, and they foresee some difficulties in its implementation, they do not hesitate to describe it as a useful step forward.

Painful images of the exile suffered by thousands of Chileans during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and of the expressions of solidarity from the countries that took them in are presented in a new book with a prologue by internationally renowned writer Ariel Dorfman.

Teachers and students marched in protest against a new education law passed by the Chilean parliament nearly three years after the so-called 'penguin revolution,' named for the uniforms of the secondary school students who led it.

Countries must put people first if they are to prevent the economic recession from becoming a social recession, concluded the two-day gathering of self-styled progressive world leaders that ended Saturday in this Chilean resort city.

With less than a month to go to the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, social organisations complain that governments have not fulfilled commitments assumed at earlier editions of the summit, on questions like access to information, freedom of expression, decentralisation and participation by civil society.

In 2008, Chile’s state coffers took in just over one billion dollars from the specific tax on fuels. But at the same time, the government injected 700 million dollars into a fund that year to shore up fuel prices and made another 500 million available in case the price of oil continued to rise.