Chile
Etcetera, and Such
The last few months have been a bit crazy, which would be an excellent excuse to account for my lack of blogging, but the truth lies somewhere between inertia, laziness and malaise, though I’m only about 2/3 confident about the definitions of 2/3 of those words, so who really knows?
School is long over, though I haven’t the slightest idea how I fared, considering the generally disorganized nature of the University of Chile. I legitimately really enjoyed each of my classes in their own way, and learned a lot, but I find myself complaining about the dysfunctional nature of its administration and habits of its faculty more than lauding the classes, which is too bad, but it’s interesting that that’s really what stuck with me. I’ll do my best in the future to acknowledge the good with the bad the next time an anecdotal discussion of the comparative merits of Latin American public higher education comes up which, knowing the crowd I tend to run with, will probably be pretty soon.
Congress Set to Repeal Chile’s Copper Reserve Law
President Michelle Bachelet gave her support Tuesday to a bill that would repeal the Copper Reserve Law. The Copper Reserve Law, a relic of the Pinochet dictatorship, guaranteed that 10 percent of all sales made by the state-owned CODELCO copper company will be given to Chile’s Armed Services.
Bachelet was flanked by Finance Minister Andrés Velasco and Defense Minister Francisco Vidal at the ceremony and the bill is expected to pass in Congress this week.
The law, initially imposed in 1958 as a 15 percent tax on mining profits, changed to a 10 percent tax on total sales from the state-run copper exporter CODELCO during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
Abolishing this law would “free CODELCO of the burden that… has affected the valuation of the company and its risk rating,” Bachelet said. “This, combined with the reform of the corporate governance of CODELCO, will reinvigorate it as an actor in the international mining industry.”
The law also overhauls the military finance system, and has won support from military leaders. The armed forces would receive its funding from the state general fund, rather than the current mix of general fund and copper revenues, and would be built around a 12-year plan broken into four-year segments.
“We are quite satisfied with the replacement of this law, and we believe it can give us a peace of mind in the medium and long-term,” said NavyAdmiral Edmundo Gonzalez.
Army Commander in Chief Óscar Izurieta agreed, adding, “Defense cannot be funded or planned on a year-to-year basis.”
CODELCO, which was nationalized under President Salvador Allende in 1971, is the largest copper exporting company in the world. CODELCO earned more than US$23.3 billion between 2006 and the first half of 2009, US$4.2 billion of which went to the military.
Spending by the Chilean military has at times heightened tensions with Peru, who, along with Bolivia, fought a war with Chile in the 1870s.
Peruvian President Alan García expressed pleasure with the change, according to Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, although he remains doubtful that it will provide the transparency of military spending that Bachelet promises (ST, Sept 9 ).
SOURCES: LA NACIÓN, EL MERCURIO, EL COMERCIO, CODELCO
By Daniel Zarchy ( editor@santiagotimes.cl)
CHILEANS TO CASH-IN ON THEIR OLD TRUCKS
Monday, 31 August 2009
The Chilean government will subsidize the purchase of more fuel-efficient trucks for citizens through a program set to start later this year.
The program, called “Cambia tu Camión,” or “Change your Truck,” will offer a bonus of 4, 8 or 12 million pesos (US$7,200, US$14,500 or US$21,700, respectively), toward the purchase of a new, more fuel efficient car, with the trade-in of a truck over 25 years old.
I Fought the Law and the Law… has Tear Gas and Fire Hoses
So yesterday, in between bites of homemade Mexican food, I learned that there was going to be a protest that night, the latest in a series of public action sparked by the killing of a young Mapuche man by a police officer. The Mapuche are the biggest indigenous group in the country, and have been at odds with the government over mistreatment and a lack of legal protection, among other things.
Awesome, I thought. A protest! I’ve covered protests, because after all, I did go to school at UC Santa Cruz, right?
Santiago de Chile: A Brief Travel Guide
Aka, things I wish it hadn’t taken me 7 weeks to figure out. Hopefully, should you ever travel down this-a-way, a few of these tips might help you get a handle on things quickly. Here goes:
Chile is really really big!
As a westerner traveling abroad, I feel like we’re told time and time again to be wary of tourist traps. Things like live music on the bus, people selling things on the street, etc. all at first seem like things to avoid and overlook, but many of them end up being quite interesting, and often fairly good deals. People come to Chile from time to time, either to ski, or to visit the beautiful Patagonia region to the south, but it’s not nearly the same as the major cities elsewhere. However, this also means that they assume a level of knowledge of the area, and there’s less infrastructure for people who don’t really know it. One of the top things is that…
STEVE FORBES VISITS, PRAISES CHILE’S GOVERNMENT
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Steve Forbes, the editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine and two-time candidate for the Republican presidential primary election in the United States, spoke to an audience Monday in Santiago. On Tuesday he met with Chilean presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera and Finance Minister Andrés Velasco.
The speaking event, organized by Capital Magazine and Universidad de Desarrollo, was titled “How the World Will Change After the Crisis; The World that Reemerges: The Rule of Freedom or the Rule of Regulation?”
CHILE IN THE TIME OF SYPHILIS
| Tuesday, 11 August 2009 |
Life Expectancy Way Up Since Two Centuries Ago
Smallpox and syphilis were the leading causes of death in Chile in 1810 and 1910, respectively, according to a recent study comparing living and health conditions in the country throughout the centuries.
The study, conducted by Universidad Catolica’s Department of Public Health, aims to show the changing ailments present in the lives of Chileans since the founding of the republic nearly 200 years ago.
AWARD-WINNING SWISS WINEMAKER TO MOVE TO CHILE FULL-TIME
| Tuesday, 11 August 2009 |
Famed winemaker Mauro von Siebenthal, a Swiss lawyer who fell in love with Chile and opened a winery in the late 1990s, will move to Chile full-time in October.
For more than a decade, von Siebenthal, whose winery Viña von Siebenthal is responsible of producing Chile’s most expensive wine, has juggled working in Switzerland while producing wine in Panquehue, in Chile’s Aconcagua Valley. During that time has had to commute to Chile four or five times a year.
CHILE PREPS FOR CONTINUED SWINE FLU, AGREEES TO DONATE VACCINES TO COSTA RICA
| Monday, 3 August 2009 | |
Swine flu (AH1N1) continues to plague Latin America despite early hopes that the crisis had already peaked, the Ministry of Health (MINSAL) said last Tuesday. There are 11,860 confirmed cases of AH1N1 in Chile, including 1,022 deemed serious. The virus has already claimed the lives of 96 people in Chile.
In mid July Health Undersecretary Jeanette Vega predicted a drop in the incidence of swine flu. At the time there were 40 deaths out of 10,900 confirmed cases.
One Month Reflections: On Power, Journalism and Pool
“Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.”
Boy, ain’t that the truth. And as I’m pretty sure the great thinker Kareem Abdul-Jabar was trying to say, in our time, when your power cord dies for your computer, you’re pretty much screwed.
And so I found myself yesterday, sitting in the Santiago Times office working when suddenly my power cord stopped feeding my computer. Shit. But no time to worry about that, as I had to rush off to our first orientation at the University of Chile orientation, in which they did presentation after presentation, including several videos, showing us all about campus, its history and its significance through the years.
I never really realized what a great school it was in the greater Chilean scheme of things, because obviously it’s not really something that we talk about in the states. La Chile and La Católica are the two best universities in the country, so to tell Chileans that we’re going there is a big deal. The best way I can imagine it is if somebody came to do an exchange program to Harvard, or Yale, or one of those schools, and didn’t understand all of the baggage that goes with those names for the average American.
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