Chilean Navy Commander in Chief Edmundo Gonzalez announced this week that the institution will be spending around 10 million US dollars on new, state of the art communications equipment for its SHOA (Hydrographical and Oceanographic Service) office.
Chile’s most widely distributed newspaper, El Mercurio, has celebrated a birthday. On June 1, the daily celebrated 110 years. The paper’s staff met this week to celebrate the event.
Brazil leads Latinamerica in military spending having totalled 27.1 billion US dollars in 2009, followed by Colombia facing an armed guerrilla movement allied with drug cartels and Chile, rich in copper resources, according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.
Magallanes Region in the extreme south of Chile has seen unemployment in the February-April mobile increase 0.8 percentage points to 5.4%. Although still one of the lowest rates in Chile, this time Magallanes was the exception since in the rest of the country unemployment was down.
The OAS mission of electoral observers confirmed that none of its members found evidence of vote peddling in Colombia’s Sunday presidential election and underlined the quiet and non violent atmosphere during the whole process.
In February, Chris Spelius, owner of the adventure travel company Expediciones Chile, was standing out by the Futaleufu River in Southern Chile waiting for a client, when he looked into the normally clear water and noticed something unusual.
Colombia’s winning presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos called on Conservatives and Radicals to join in a national unity government to address the problems of poverty and terrorism.
Peruvian defence minister Rafael Rey recently paid his Chilean counterpart Jaime Ravinet and Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera a visit, a meeting which showed that although the two countries continue to squabble over maritime border issues, bilateral relations are still intact.
The Inter American Development Bank, IDB, is ready to disburse 10 billion US dollars in loans to Latinamerica during fiscal 2010, said the bank’s president Luis Moreno.
The United Nations Economic Committee for Latinamerica and the Caribbean, Cepal, anticipates that growth in the region will be less than in previous years because of the economic downturn in developed countries but the tendency should not influence Brazil, the region’s largest economy.