Pedro Piscal pisco is latest Chilean brand to resemble a Hollywood name – and others have fought off the lawsuits
The actor Pedro Pascal is waging a legal battle against a Chilean pisco merchant who has chosen a cheeky name for his brand of the country’s national spirit: Pedro Piscal.
David Herrera registered the brand name with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023 and began selling his pisco in off-licences and restaurants.
Continue reading...New administration reverses expropriation of property founded by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer, leaving victims in limbo
With its Germanic crosses and colourful toy-town facades, the village square of the tiny Chilean settlement of Villa Baviera gives little indication of the horrors of its past.
Until 1991, this cattle town of a few hundred people was a compound known as Colonia Dignidad. Its leader, Paul Schäfer, a former Nazi and weapons smuggler, bought a swathe of land in the valley in 1961, eventually holding as many as 300 people in a fenced enclave with minimal contact with the outside world. He sexually abused and even tortured the children in the camp.
Continue reading...Discovery at Monte Verde puts north-to-south expansion theory back at centre of heated debate on continent’s human history
A groundbreaking new study may have once again upended our understanding of human prehistory in the Americas.
For years, the predominant theory of how humans arrived in the western hemisphere centred around the Clovis culture, which crossed the Beringia land bridge from Asia between 13,400 and 12,800 years ago, and spread south.
Continue reading...José Antonio Kast, who voted against legalising divorce in 2004, has pushed for return to total abortion ban
Women’s rights activists in Chile are bracing as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship prepares to take office on Wednesday.
José Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old ultra Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked progressive bids for women’s rights and equality across his three-decade career in politics.
Continue reading...In Miami, president calls for regional cooperation to counter Chinese economic and political interests
Donald Trump changed the channel from Iran to the western hemisphere on Saturday, convening a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club to discuss regional interests and establishing what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”.
“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate Isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told 12 regional leaders gathered at what the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit.
Continue reading...Tom Player speaks out about incident in which Victoria Bond died along with two Mexicans and two Germans
A survivor of the blizzard that killed a British woman and four others in Chilean Patagonia has said that tourists were concerned about adverse weather conditions ahead of the trek, but were told by staff it was “normal” and they could proceed.
Tom Player, a London-based composer, told the Guardian that during the brutal blizzard about 30 volunteers worked together in an attempt to try to rescue hikers.
Continue reading...The ultraconservative lawyer is in pole position going into the second round election, after running a campaign with a distinctly Trumpian feel
The ultraconservative lawyer, José Antonio Kast, is in pole position to become Chile’s next leader after advancing to the second round of the South American country’s presidential election where he will face the Communist party candidate Jeannette Jara.
With more than 70% of votes counted, Kast had secured about 24% of the vote in Sunday’s first round vote, having campaigned on hard-line promises to crack down on crime and immigration, while making a Donald Trump-style pledge to “put Chileans first”.
Continue reading...Voters face seemingly extreme choice between communist and rightwing frontrunners, who both promise to fight foreign gangs
Chileans began voting for a new president and parliament on Sunday, in a contest expected to favour the hard right as candidates play on popular fears over organised crime and immigration.
It is the first of an expected two rounds of presidential elections, as polls show none of the candidates clearing the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff scheduled for 14 December.
Continue reading...Punta Peuco – where military human rights offenders enjoy privileged conditions – set to join public prison network
Inmates at an infamous high-security military prison in Chile, which houses the perpetrators of dictatorship-era human rights crimes, are set to lose their privileged conditions under plans to incorporate the prison into the public prison network.
President Gabriel Boric announced on Monday that Punta Peuco is being transformed into a regular prison to help deal with overcrowding in the penitentiary system.
Continue reading...New York meeting of Hague Group warns of shared responsibility to prevent genocide and proposes steps to isolate Israel
The international community has a legal and moral duty to deny Israel “the tools of genocide”, the Malaysian foreign minister, Mohamad Hasan, said at a meeting in New York of the Hague Group, the growing alliance of countries dedicated to coordinating practical economic and legal steps to isolate Israel over the war in Gaza.
The group, co-chaired by South Africa and Columbia, has become a central exchange for practical steps to try to pressure Israel, including stepping up collective action at ports and airports to prevent the transfer of weapons and goods to Israel, including dual-use heavy machinery.
Continue reading...Julia Chuñil is one of 146 land defenders who were killed or went missing last year, a third of them from Indigenous communities
One day last November, Julia Chuñil called for her dog, Cholito, and they set off into the woods around her home to search for lost livestock. The animals returned but Chuñil, who was 72 at the time, and Cholito did not.
More than 100 people joined her family in a search lasting weeks in the steep, wet and densely overgrown terrain of Chile’s ancient Valdivian forest. After a month, they even kept an eye on vultures for any grim signs. But they found no trace of Chuñil.
Continue reading...The International IDEA’s survey of democratic markers finds US is offering ‘encouragement’ to populist leaders
Press freedom around the world has suffered its sharpest fall in 50 years as global democracy weakens dramatically, a landmark report has found.
According to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), democracy has declined in 94 countries over the last five years and only a third have made progress.
Continue reading...Cheap ultra-processed food behind rise in overweight children, with one in 10 now obese globally, says Unicef
More children around the world are obese than underweight for the first time, according to a UN report that warns ultra-processed junk food is overwhelming childhood diets.
There are 188 million teenagers and school-age children with obesity – one in 10 – Unicef said, affecting health and development and bringing a risk of life-threatening diseases.
Continue reading...At least 100 people involved in rescue operation at El Teniente copper mine, which partially collapsed after ‘seismic event’
One of five miners trapped after a partial collapse at the world’s largest underground copper mine has been found dead, Chile’s state-owned Codelco group announced on Saturday, as rescuers continued their search for survivors.
The collapse took place on Thursday at the El Teniente mine in Rancagua, 100km south of Santiago, after a “seismic event.”
Continue reading...Costa Rica-based inter-American court of human rights says states have obligation to respond to climate change
There is a human right to a stable climate and states have a duty to protect it, a top court has ruled.
Announcing the publication of a crucial advisory opinion on climate change on Thursday, Nancy Hernández López, president of the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR), said climate change carries “extraordinary risks” that are felt particularly keenly by people who are already vulnerable.
Continue reading...Former labor minister, 61, won primary for leftwing parties with over 60% of vote ahead of November election
The Chilean communist Jeannette Jara, the country’s former labor minister, has won the primary election for leftwing parties with surprising ease, beating out a more moderate rival to clinch over 60% of the vote.
The decisive upset makes Jara, 51, the candidate representing Chile’s beleaguered incumbent government in November elections, set to face off against center-right and far-right contenders who have surged in the polls.
Continue reading...No trace has ever been found of Michael Woodward, but almost two years since Chile assumed responsibility for finding victims, cautious progress is being made
In the weak winter sunshine forensic investigators in white suits cast long shadows as they stepped between gravestones at Playa Ancha cemetery in the Chilean coastal city of Valparaíso.
But as the rhythmic click of spades and the throb of an excavator faded, a third search for the remains of Michael Woodward reached a frustrating conclusion.
Continue reading...Astronomers deeply concerned that darkest, clearest skies in world will be compromised by proposed facility nearby
In the Atacama desert, the driest non-polar region on Earth, the sky shines when the sun sets.
Up in the arid hills 130km south of the Chilean city of Antofagasta, comets burn brightly and flawless trails of stars and nebulae streak the night sky.
Continue reading...Electricity restored to almost all affected regions as investigation under way into how outage occurred
Power has been restored to most of Chile’s 19 million people after the country’s most disruptive blackout in 15 years, the government said, as authorities lifted a strict curfew imposed when the outage left 98% of the population without electricity.
Chilean interior minister Carolina Tohá said on Wednesday that electricity had largely returned to Chile’s 14 afflicted regions, although 220,000 residents remained without power.
Continue reading...State of emergency and overnight curfew declared after blackout strands commuters and knocks out traffic lights
Authorities in Chile have declared a state of emergency and overnight curfew after a sweeping blackout stranded commuters, knocked out traffic lights, paralyzed countless businesses and left millions of people in the South American country without electricity.
The National Electrical Coordinator, Chile’s grid operator, said a disruption had occurred in a high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the Atacama Desert of northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the country’s central valley.
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