Chile Proposes Bills To Resolve Mapuche Hunger Strike

The body of a woman who disappeared during the 1973 military coup in Chile has been identified as Mónica Benaroyo Pencu, a Uruguayan professor of philosophy and translator.

The body was found in 2008 in army territory in Arica, a city in northern Chile, but was never identified until now. Legal Medical Service Director Patricio Bustos confirmed Monday that the mummified remains belonged to Benaroyo, who had been a victim of the repression after Chile’s 9/11/73 military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.  Pinochet, with help from U.S. President Richard Nixon and the CIA, overthrew democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende.

While defending cancelling of controversial coal plant

Chilean President Sebastian Piñera visited Punta de Choros on Saturday and held a press conference on the town pier to defend his cancelling of the construction of a thermoelectric power plant near the nature reserve. 

Though his intervention has been criticized, Piñera didn’t discuss the matter in the press conference. Instead, he repeated his promise to change the plant’s location through negotiation with the company, Suez Energy, and said he planned to offer a bill in Congress in the next weeks to establish clear environmental rules for power production.

Last year was the first time that a majority - 51 percent - of all higher education students in Chile were women, the Education Ministry reported last week.

“This is a global trend,” said Jaime Bellolio, an economist at the Jaime Guzmán Foundation. “In developed countries this has happened, and Chile is a little behind.”