South African student pilots training in Cuba complain of slave-like conditions
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Ironically enough, a potent drive for reform of the capitalist system will come from the private sector
A Chilean judge ordered the remains of former president Salvador Allende exhumed for an investigation into whether he was murdered in a 1973 coup.
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/ 8 December 2010
A fire broke out at a prison in the Chilean capital early on Wednesday, killing 81 inmates and injuring many more.
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/ 28 February 2010
One of the world’s most powerful earthquakes in a century battered Chile on Saturday, killing at least 214 people.
A pole dancer who took her writhing spins where they had never been — on to a pole inside a subway car — perked up the morning commute in Santiago.
Chilean military vehicles were en route on Wednesday to rescue 53 people trapped in a wilderness park after one of the country’s largest volcanoes erupted, spewing ash and molten lava. There were no reports of injuries or damage, but dozens of tourists were evacuated from the base of the volcano.
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/ 29 November 2007
A Chilean sex worker has auctioned 27 hours of sex to raise money for the country’s largest charity during an annual fund-raising campaign. Maria Carolina became an overnight celebrity in the conservative Roman Catholic country, making news headlines since she made her unusual donation.
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/ 15 November 2007
A powerful earthquake hit mineral-rich northern Chile on Wednesday, killing at least two people, injuring more than 100 and halting output at some of the world’s largest copper mines. Two people were confirmed dead and 117 were injured in the magnitude 7,7 quake, which raised massive dust clouds in Chile’s mountainous north
A Chilean judge on Thursday ordered the arrest of the widow and five children of late dictator Augusto Pinochet as part of an investigation into allegations of corruption, judicial sources said. Judge Carlos Cerda also ordered the arrest of several retired military officers from the Pinochet era.
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/ 21 September 2007
Chile’s Supreme Court said on Friday it had ruled to extradite Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori to face charges of embezzlement and human rights abuses during the 1990s. Fujimori (69) has been in Chile since November 2005, when he was arrested on an international warrant.
A Chilean Supreme Court judge has ruled that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori should not be extradited to Peru to face human rights and corruption charges, a court spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”Judge Orlando Alvarez … rejected the extradition request presented by the Peruvian government against Alberto Fujimori.”
One of the cruellest enforcers of Chile’s former dictatorship, the self-confessed torturer Osvaldo Romo Mena, died in prison of heart failure at the age of 70, police sources said. He died on July 4 at the Santiago prison where he was serving sentences for kidnapping dissidents in the rule of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Last year, Chilean-born artist Marco Evaristti mixed fat removed from his body by liposuction with ground beef to make meatballs, which he fried in olive oil and displayed in a public gallery. This year, he plans to climb Western Europe’s highest mountain colour the summit pink and declare it an independent state, with himself as president.
A 5,3-magnitude quake was felt in the Chilean capital, Santiago, on Sunday but there were no immediate reports of damage. The quake followed a strong temblor in the country’s south on Saturday that caused power cuts, landslides and large waves off the nation’s Pacific coast.
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/ 13 December 2006
Augusto Pinochet, who died on December 10 after suffering a heart attack, came to symbolise Latin American military repression and was linked to thousands of cases of torture, abduction and death. He ruled Chile with an iron fist from 1973-1990. Pinochet (91) died without ever standing trial on any charge.
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/ 10 December 2006
Former dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday. He was 91. Pinochet, who was diabetic and had been in frail health for years, suffered a heart attack last week and underwent an angioplasty. His son then said the surgery had brought him back from the brink of death.
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/ 4 December 2006
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet fought to survive on Monday after a heart attack put him in a Santiago military hospital, while teary-eyed supporters of all ages held vigil outside. Pinochet (91) who ran Chile with brutal discipline for 17 years, was in stable but serious condition after an angioplasty on Sunday to unblock clogged arteries.
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/ 27 November 2006
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest on Monday in connection with the kidnap of two of his political opponents in 1974, a judicial source said. Pinochet, who ruled Chile with absolute power from 1973 to 1990, is accused of dozens of human rights violations but has never been brought to trial in connection with any of them.
Socialist Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as Chile’s first female president on Saturday and appealed for national unity to heal the divisions left by a military dictatorship that had imprisoned and tortured her and her parents. Bachelet’s election in January marked a sharp political shift in traditionally conservative, male-dominated Chile.
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/ 16 January 2006
Socialist president-elect Michelle Bachelet was praised on Monday as a symbol of reconciliation who can help Chile come to terms with its traumatic political past. Bachelet, who was imprisoned and tortured under the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, decisively beat her conservative challenger.
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/ 23 November 2005
A Chilean judge on Wednesday ordered the arrest of former dictator Augusto Pinochet for fraud and other alleged crimes related to millions of dollars in secret overseas bank accounts. The judge ordered that Pinochet, who will be 90 on Friday, remain confined in his home in Santiago’s elegant La Dehesa neighbourhood.
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/ 7 November 2005
Fugitive former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, wanted in Peru on corruption and human rights charges, was arrested early on Monday just hours after his surprise arrival in Chile, police said. Fujimori, who is 67, arrived on Sunday unannounced in Chile to press on defiantly in a fresh bid for the Peruvian presidency.
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/ 28 September 2005
The claimed discovery of a -billion 18th century treasure trove on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe island has touched off an epidemic of gold fever among treasure hunters. The modern-day gold rush began on Monday when Chilean security firm Wagner announced that its ground-scanning robot had located a legendary pirate hideaway containing a lost bounty of jewels and gold coins.
Chile sent cargo planes with medicine and tents to a northern Andean region rocked by an earthquake that killed at least 11 people, including a family of six buried by a landslide. The quake measured 7,9 on the Richter scale — the world’s third-strongest since the quake that set off the Asian tsunami in December.
A Santiago appeals court on Tuesday lifted the immunity from prosecution of former dictator Augusto Pinochet (89), opening the way for him to be tried for financial fraud after the discovery that he had secret accounts in the United States, court sources said. Pinochet’s defence still can appeal the ruling to Chile’s Supreme Court.
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/ 21 December 2004
Augusto Pinochet will stand trial for atrocities from his 17-year regime in Chile, a Santiago court ruled unanimously on Monday, as the 89-year-old former dictator recovered in a hospital from a stroke. Pinochet has never stood trial for any of the approximately 3 000 political opponents killed during the dictatorship.
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/ 19 November 2004
A year-long investigation into state-sponsored torture in Chile has documented that about 35 000 people were abused during the 1973 to 1990 military regime. The three volume-long report includes hundreds of new claims about torture tactics, ranging from sexual abuse using dogs, to forcing suspects to watch as family members were sodomised or slowly electrocuted.
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/ 5 September 2003
On the eve of the 30th anniversary, Chile is engaged in a new debate on how to resolve the human consequences of the coup. New proposals offer a chance to clean the slate of the Pinochet era.
Chile somberly marked the memory of those killed 29 years ago in and after General Augusto Pinochet’s military coup that toppled socialist president Salvador Allende and drove him to suicide.
A joint venture of mining giants Codelco and BHP-Billiton have said they will build an experimental copper treatment plant using bacterial leaching.
Three days of torrential rains have caused flooding in central and southern Chile, killing at least nine people and forcing 50 000 people from their homes.