Chile

• Thursday, February 17th 2022 - 10:09 UTC

  Last living Yagan language speaker dies aged 93; members of her ethnicity lived in the Falklands

  

  The last known living person who spoke Yagan, the language of the indigenous people who inhabited Tierra del Fuego, passed away this week in the Clinics Hospital from Punta Arenas, extreme south of Chile. She was 93, and had to be transported urgently from Puerto Williams to the Magallanes Region capital.

• Thursday, February 17th 2022 - 09:27 UTC

  Jones-Huala wanted back in Chilean jail following Supreme Court decision

  

  Argentine-born Mapuche leader Facundo Jones-Huala has been declared a fugitive by the Government of Chile after the Supreme Court overruled -albeit not unanimously- a decision from a Temuco court of appeals whereby he had been granted parole. Jones-Huala had already served the minimum time required to be granted an early release.

• Wednesday, February 16th 2022 - 09:44 UTC

  A former Chilean Socialist minister considers “delirious” the nationalization of mining industry

  

  A veteran Chilean politician who among other appointments was Minister of Mines under the deposed Socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973, and later held other ministerial responsibilities following the return of democracy in 1990, strongly criticized the initiative to again nationalize the mining companies which operate in Chile, as proposed in the Constitutional Convention drafting a new constitution.

• Wednesday, February 16th 2022 - 09:22 UTC

  Inflation remains strong in Chile; Central bank expected to take reference rate to 8% next May

  

  A survey of financial operators in Chile anticipates that the aggressive policy of the country's central bank to combat rising prices will continue to hike interest rates, anticipating the basic rate from the bank's Monetary Policy office will be reaching 8% by next May.

• Tuesday, February 15th 2022 - 08:52 UTC

  Chile starts path to full ban of single-use replaceable plastic items

  

  Chile's new law banning single-use straws, chopsticks, and plastic cutlery in food vending establishments, as well as plastic bottles in supermarkets, has entered into force since Sunday and will gradually increase its environmentally-friendly mandate in the coming years.

• Thursday, February 10th 2022 - 23:49 UTC

  Uruguay is the only full democracy in South America, The Economist says

  

  The Economist published on Thursday its Democracy Index for 2021, in which Uruguay was ranked 13th, within the spectrum of “full democracies”, being above the 8 points awarded by the ranking.

• Thursday, February 10th 2022 - 09:46 UTC

  Chilean Army members to stay in jail for homicide during 2019 uprising

  

  A Chilean court Wednesday upheld a decision to keep an Army captain and two other military officers under preventive detention measures for the death of Ecuadorian student Romario Veloz during the 2019 social uprisings.

• Tuesday, February 8th 2022 - 09:56 UTC

  Chile starts applying 4th dose of COVID-19 vaccine

  

  Chile Monday began applying the fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to its population after Jan. 10 additional boosters were injected to people with comorbidities, health care staff and those over 55 years of age as infections due to the Omicron variant was on the rise.

• Tuesday, February 8th 2022 - 09:54 UTC

  Punta Arenas cruise season: 27 vessels on tours of Antarctica

  

  The Punta Arenas port management company, in the extreme south of Chile, has offered a timetable of cruise vessel activities during the first two weeks of February. According to the program, eleven calls are scheduled in the two weeks to 15 February. Until Sunday 6 February six cruise vessels were effectively called.

• Tuesday, February 8th 2022 - 09:37 UTC

  2021 was a good year for foreign direct investment in Chile, the highest since 2015

  

  Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, in Chile during the twelve months of 2021 reached US$ 16,782 billion, the best amount since 2015, according to the Central bank which added it represented a 95% increase over 2020. Overall it was 62% higher than the average of the last five years, and 16% above the 2003/2021 average.