Chilean consumer prices barely budged amid unrest in November, the government said on Friday, with inflationary pressure from a downward spiraling peso offset by one-time cuts in electricity rates and public transportation fares.
Chilean lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday to fast-track reforms to beef up security, warning that a resurgence in violence and vandalism was threatening to derail the country’s 30-year-old democracy.
In 2014, Michelle Bachelet a Socialist swept into Chile’s presidency for a second time on a program of radical reform of tax, education and pensions. She also aspired to enact a new constitution that would guarantee “more balance between the state, the private sector and society”, as she told your columnist over tea at the Moneda presidential palace. She argued that her “struggle against inequality” was the last chance to deal with discontents that, if neglected, could push Chile towards populism.
Walmart has sought court orders for police protection in protest-wracked Chile after more than 120 of its supermarkets were looted or burned. The Chilean subsidiary of the US-headquartered retailer lodged orders with courts in six Chilean cities, saying the attacks on its stores had put its staff's safety and jobs at risk, gravely affected its ability to operate in the country and caused it enormous economic damage.
Embattled Chilean President Sebastian Piñera announced on Sunday that a state of emergency that has lasted more than a week amid mass protests would be lifted at midnight.
The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, has said that at the time of the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in 1973, Chilean democracy was sick and that the crisis of the country was unsustainable.