
Chile officially recognized 9,800 more victims of its dictatorship on Thursday, increasing the total number of people killed, tortured or imprisoned for political reasons to 40,018.

Wikileaks cables last week revealed that the U.S. Embassy in Santiago pressured Chilean government officials in 2009 to change environmental rules so that a controversial thermoelectric plant could be built.

Under the heading of: “Chile, the convent of the Americas? A country between the Opus Dei and Liberalism” the German journalist Maurice Weibel analyzes Chilean politics, where the followers of Escriva de Balaguer have a dominating presence in politics and over the agenda to update values in a country on the move to join the developed world.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Tuesday the appointment of Chilean former president Michelle Bachelet as the Under-Secretary-General for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

Former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet has joined the Inter-American Dialogue’s Board of Directors to serve as its Latin American Co-Chair.

The numbers are startling: two and a half million Chileans are currently living below the poverty line, according to a new study by the Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional (CASEN) 2009.

The Shanghai Expo in China officially opened its doors to the public on Saturday and Chile is one of more than 200 countries and companies showing their wares during the six-month event.

The Peruvian government’s claim that Chile is undergoing a tremendous arms build-up has once again come to the forefront of Latin American international relations.

A new proposal announced last week by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) would allow the killing of a number of whales in the Antarctic Ocean off the coast of Chile and has Chilean environmental groups upset.