Category Archives: Chile

Files reveal Nixon role in plot to block Allende from Chilean presidency

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President hosted rightwing mogul Agustín Edwards in September 1970 and discussed plans to foil socialist election-winner

Days before Salvador Allende’s confirmation as Chile’s president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed.

The documents, published in a new Spanish edition of the Pinochet files by archivist and writer Peter Kornbluh, include Nixon’s agenda for 15 September 1970, which shows a meeting in the Oval Office with Agustín Edwards, the owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group.

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Winter heatwave in Andes is sign of things to come, scientists warn

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Human-caused climate disruption and El Niño push temperature in mountains to 37C

Exceptional winter heat in the Andean mountains of South America has surged to 37C, prompting local scientists to warn the worst may be yet to come as human-caused climate disruption and El Niño cause havoc across the region.

The heatwave in the central Chilean Andes is melting the snow below 3,000 metres (9,840ft), which will have knock-on effects for people living in downstream valleys who depend on meltwater during the spring and summer.

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‘Winter is disappearing’: South America hit by ‘brutal’ unseasonal heatwave

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Buenos Aires records hottest start to August in 117 years, Chile sees highs towards 40C and Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil also bake

Now should be South America’s bleak midwinter, but several parts of the continent are experiencing an extraordinary unseasonal heatwave that scientists believe offers a disturbing glimpse of a future of extreme weather.

Argentina’s riverside capital, Buenos Aires, this week recorded its hottest 1 August in 117 years.

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‘There’s no water’: migrants stranded in Chilean desert as Peru closes border

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Hundreds, mostly Venezuelans, hope to cross into Peru to flee harsh immigration protocols and growing xenophobia in Chile

The wind sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean buffets makeshift tents made of blankets and scraps of fabric, as sheltering migrants peer out, squinting against the whipped-up sand and fierce sun overhead.

This desolate stretch of the Atacama desert has been home for days – and in some cases weeks – to hundreds of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, fleeing harsher immigration protocols and growing xenophobia in Chile and hoping to cross its northern border into Peru.

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Chile: major blow to president as far right triumphs in key constitution vote

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‘Earthquake in Chilean politics’ as ultra-conservative Republican party wins 22 of 50 seats on body to rewrite Pinochet-era document

Chile’s far right has won an emphatic victory in a vote to select the committee that will rewrite its dictatorship-era constitution, after José Antonio Kast’s Republican party secured 22 of its 50 seats in a major blow to the progressive president Gabriel Boric.

Boric beat Kast, an ultra-conservative lawyer often compared to Brazil’s former leader Jair Bolsonaro, in the 2021 presidential election.

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Chile’s government pledged to put feminism into practice – has it delivered?

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President Gabriel Boric promised a feminist movement but conservative values remain strong in the country

One tumultuous year has now passed since Latin America’s first self-declared feminist government installed itself in La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, vowing to bring progressive, gender-equal politics to a quiet corner of South America.

Standing beside the country’s youngest ever president Gabriel Boric at his inauguration was Izkia Siches, the first woman to be named Chile’s interior minister and one of 14 women in Boric’s 24-person cabinet – the highest proportion of female ministers in Latin America and one of the highest anywhere in the world.

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Chile airport authorities foil $32.5m heist amid ‘intense exchange of gunfire’

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A plane carrying money had arrived from Miami when 10 robbers entered the airport after tying a security guard

A foiled multimillion dollar heist at Chile’s largest airport has left two dead and highlighted concerns of rising crime in the Andean nation.

Footage widely shared on social media shows a shootout between robbers and officials from Chile’s DGAC aviation agency below a Latam Airlines plane at the Arturo Merino Benítez international airport in Santiago.

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New Easter Island moai statue discovered in volcano crater

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The 1.6-metre statue has been described as ‘full-bodied with recognisable features but no clear definition’

A new moai – one of Easter Island’s iconic monolithic statues – has been found in the bed of a dry lake in a volcano crater, the Indigenous community that administers the site on the Chilean island has said.

The statue was found on 21 February by a team of scientific volunteers from three Chilean universities who were collaborating on a project to restore the marshland in the crater inside the Rano Raraku volcano.

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Forensic study finds Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned

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The toxin clostridium botulinum was in his body when he died in 1973, days after Chile’s military coup

One of the most enduring mysteries in modern Chilean history may finally have been solved after forensic experts determined that the Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died after being poisoned with a powerful toxin, apparently confirming decades of suspicions that he was murdered.

According to the official version, Neruda – who made his name as a young poet with the collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair – died from prostate cancer and malnutrition on 23 September 1973, just 12 days after the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of his friend, President Salvador Allende.

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Chile firefighters battle blazes amid warning that wildfires could get worse

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Fires have burned 270,000 hectares and killed 24 in south-central region as mega drought fuels second worst fire year on record

Chilean firefighters are battling to hold back forest fires as authorities warned that persistent hot and dry weather could potentially exacerbate what are already the deadliest blazes in the country’s recent history.

The fires, which have consumed 270,000 hectares (667,000 acres) of land, have killed 24 people so far in south-central Chile and already made 2023 the second worst year in terms of hectares burned after the so-called “fire storm” that hit the country in 2017.

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Weather tracker: extremes of heat and cold hit South and North America

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Conditions in parts of South America up to 10C above average as US records its coldest ever temperature

Unrelenting and record-breaking heat is expected to continue across parts of South America this week. Temperatures are forecast to reach the mid-to-high 30s celsius for Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay, with maximum temperatures possibly hitting 40C across northern Argentina.

These temperatures are at least 5-10C above the climatological average, with the extreme heat expected to continue at least until the middle part of February.

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Chile wildfires kill at least 23 people as 40C heat hampers effort to stop spread

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Sixty-six people hurt and 1,500 seeking refuge in shelters after 800 homes were destroyed

Record summer temperatures of more than 40C (104F) are hampering efforts to tackle dozens of wildfires across central Chile that have killed at least 23 people, destroyed 800 homes and prompted the declaration of a state of emergency in three regions.

Sixty-six people have been hurt in the fires, while almost 1,500 others are seeking refuge in shelters, according to an update on Sunday from the national forestry agency, Conaf. The state body said 87 fires were being still fought and 148 had been brought under control.

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Chile widens state of emergency as raging wildfires leave at least 13 dead

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President Gabriel Boric cuts short vacation as heatwave fuels nearly 40 blazes across southern and central regions

Chile’s government has declared a widened state of emergency amid wildfires that have killed at least 13 people and consumed about 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres), as the South American country endures a summer heatwave across southern and central swaths of the country.

The interior minister, Carolina Toha, said on Friday morning the government had declared a catastrophe in the region of Biobío, joining its neighbouring region Ñuble, which President Gabriel Boric announced on Thursday evening, allowing the deployment of soldiers and additional resources.

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Chile rejects $2.5bn iron and copper mine planned near penguin reserve

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Dominga project included insufficient efforts to mitigate impact on reserves for dolphins, whales and penguins, committee says

Chile’s government has rejected a controversial $2.5bn iron and copper mining project proposed in an important area for biodiversity and marine life.

The Dominga project, 70km north of the city of La Serena, would have seen an open-pit mine, processing and desalination plants, as well as a large port, installed just 30km from a famed Humboldt penguin reserve.

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Chile’s justice minister resigns in face of opposition to protester pardons

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Marcela Ríos stands down before expected congressional complaint over pardons of those involved in 2019 political violence

Chile’s justice minister, Marcela Ríos, has resigned her post, the country’s president, Gabriel Boric, said on Saturday, amid accusations of wrongdoing over pardons given to people connected to violent 2019 protests.

Lawyer Luis Cordero Vega will take up the job in the coming days, leftist Boric added in a video statement, thanking Ríos for her work during her 10 months in the role.

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Easter Island rebounds from wildfire that damaged famous statues

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October fire blackened with soot monolithic human figures, of which there are more than 900, carved centuries ago

The hillside of Rano Raraku volcano on Rapa Nui feels like a place that froze in time.

Embedded in grass and volcanic rock, almost 400 moai – the monolithic human figures carved centuries ago by this remote Pacific island’s Rapanui people – remained untouched until recently. Some are buried from the neck down, the heads seemingly observing their surroundings from the underground.

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Body found in Chilean desert after search for missing UK astronomer

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Prof Tom Marsh, 60, who had been missing since 16 September, described as ‘inspirational academic and mentor’

A body has been found in the Chilean desert after a search was launched for missing astronomer Prof Tom Marsh, Warwick University has said.

Marsh, 60, disappeared on 16 September while working at La Silla Observatory on the outskirts of the Atacama desert.

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Easter Island fire causes ‘irreparable’ damage to famous moai statues

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Forest fire that swept through more than 100 hectares of national park, with some moai ‘totally charred’

A forest fire that tore through part of Easter Island has charred some of its monumental carved stone figures, known as moai, authorities have said.

The blaze reportedly swept through the Rapa Nui national park, 3,500km (2,175 miles) off the west coast of Chile, causing “irreparable” damage to the archaeological site.

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Chile’s president reveals changes to senior team after constitution failure

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In a shattering blow to the leftist leader Gabriel Boric, 62% voted against the progressive new document on Sunday

Two days after Chileans emphatically rejected a new constitution, president Gabriel Boric has reshuffled his cabinet as he attempts to ride out a fresh period of uncertainty.

On Sunday, 62% of Chileans voted against a progressive new constitution which would have replaced the current document drafted under Gen Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in a historic plebiscite.

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Chile votes overwhelmingly to reject new, progressive constitution

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With 96% of the ballots counted, the rejection camp has 62% and the approve team accept defeat in bid to replace Pinochet-era settlement

Chileans have voted comprehensively against a new, progressive constitution that had been drafted to replace the 1980 document written under Gen Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

With 99.9% of the votes counted in Sunday’s plebiscite, the rejection camp had 61.9% support compared with 38.1% for approval amid what appeared to be a heavy turnout with long lines at polling states. Voting was mandatory.

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