In the last week, Chile’s conservative government has made two surprisingly liberal announcements, explained in part by the latest public opinion polls. First, President Sebastián Piñera announced Sunday that he was open to making quality education a constitutional right, just two weeks after he called education a “consumer good”.
After two months of school takeovers and strikes, marches and more, there may be some light at the end of the Chilean student protests. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera announced on Sunday his willingness and commitment to exploring constitutional change for national education reform—something long demanded by the students.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez appeared before cameras on Monday sporting a shaved head, as the effects of chemotherapy begin to take a toll on his body. Chavez, though, looked energetic and even joked about his “new look” which he had anticipated last week as the “Yul Brynner” look.
Cuba will broaden private retail service beyond beauty parlours and barbers in October to include everything from coffee shops to locksmiths, and may even rent space on busy streets, an official told parliament.
Close to his first year in office Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has an approval rating of 71%, according to the findings of a public opinion poll released Sunday in the Bogotá media.
Exports from Magallanes region in the extreme south of Chile totalled 148 million dollars during the first quarter of the year which is 10.5% higher than a year ago (134 million dollars), according to Chile’s national Statistics Office.
Journalists in Latin America are suffering through their most tragic year in two decades, with 19 reporters murdered in nine nations so far in 2011, the Inter-American Press Association said in its latest release.
South America’s top economic and monetary authorities will be meeting in Lima and later in Buenos Aires to agree on “joint and specific actions” to address the flush of global liquidity distorting regional currencies and of unsold manufactured goods threatening jobs and industry.
Air travel between the United States and Cuba will become easier with the opening of charter flights to the island from an additional nine US cities announced by Cuba authorities on Friday.
The Venezuelan-Colombian Chamber for Economic Integration (Cavecol) has formally requested national authorities that Venezuela re-joins the Andean Community of Nations, CAN, from which it pulled out three months ago following the original decision dating back to 2006.