Chile

Hole believed to be about 200m deep appeared close to Tierra Amarilla town, Copiapo provinceChilean authorities are investigating a sinkhole about 25m (82ft) in diameter that appeared over the weekend in a mining area.Chilean media showed aerial images of the hole on land mined by Lundin Mining, a Canadian company, about 665km (413 miles) north of the […]

The US constitution used to be considered a model for democracies around the world – but its antiquated institutions and absence of rights have guaranteed its declining influence“Every constitution,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1789 letter to James Madison, “naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” Two centuries after its expiration date, […]

Developing countries’ delegates at UN conference seek recognition of small fisheries’ role in protecting oceans and fighting hungerSmall-scale fishermen and women from coastal nations in the frontline of the “ocean emergency” have accused world leaders and other decision-makers at the UN oceans conference of ignoring their voices in favour of […]

Draft shifts country away from Pinochet-era document, enshrining cultural rights and laying out path of autonomy for Indigenous peoplesThe process of drafting Chile’s new constitution has come to an abrupt, jubilant end as the final votes were held quickly by the 154-member, gender-equal constitutional convention.Huddling between the colonnades at the […]

From Montana’s prairies to Kazakhstan’s steppes, vast tracts of land are being enriched. Here’s how to witness those changesRead more in our Wild world seriesMozambique’s civil war (1977-1992) and the poaching connected to it decimated wildlife in Gorongosa national park. Since 2006, the Gorongosa restoration project has set out to bring back […]

Michelle Bachelet’s report on alleged rights abuses in China’s Uyghur region remains under wraps despite recent six-day tourPressure to release a long-awaited Xinjiang report is mounting on the UN’s rights head, as her recent six-day visit to China left activists, western governments and commentators unsatisfied.The report, which Michelle Bachelet […]

Unprecedented drought makes water a national security issue as more than half of Chile’s 19 million population lived in area with ‘severe water scarcity’ by end of 2021From the Atacama Desert to Patagonia, a 13-year megadrought is straining Chile’s freshwater resources to breaking point.By the end of 2021, the fourth driest year on record, more than […]

Doctors performed procedure in 2002 without consent while Francisca was under anesthesia because she was HIV positiveThe Chilean state has apologised to a woman who was forcibly sterilised by doctors because she was HIV positive.The woman, known only as Francisca and then 20, was diagnosed with HIV in March 2002 while pregnant with her first child. But […]

The tree, in Chile’s Alerce Costero national park, is known as the Great-Grandfather and could be more than 5,000 years oldScientists in Chile believe that a conifer with a four-metre-thick trunk known as the Great-Grandfather could be the world’s oldest living tree, beating the current record-holder by more than 600 years.A new study carried out by Dr […]

Only 1,500 huemul remain in the world, but a parks corridor is being created to save the deer that features on Chile’s coat of armsIt is twilight in Las Horquetas valley in Patagonia’s northern Aysén region. Several cars have pulled over beneath sandy cliffs on a wide paved road. Just metres away, three deer graze unperturbed in the glow of the car […]

Process spawned amid mass protests in 2019 will culminate in September plebiscite but polls show only 38% currently in favourAfter 10 months of fraught negotiations, Chile has finalised the draft of a new constitution that could replace the document drawn up during Gen Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.María Elisa Quinteros, the president of the […]

Journalists are increasingly being targeted and killings are only the most dramatic sign of a gloomy outlook for media freedomTen days before she was assassinated outside a Mexican convenience store, Yesenia Mollinedo noticed two mysterious stalkers following her on a motorbike.“We know where you live, bitch,” one of them warned the journalist, the […]

The proposal would have seen lithium and rare metal resources taken into state hands as part of the country’s wide-ranging political shakeup A constitutional assembly in Chile has rejected plans to nationalise parts of the crucial mining industry in a blow to progressive hopes of overhauling the neoliberal Pinochet-era political settlement.The proposal, […]

Francisca Sandoval, 29, is the first journalist to be killed in the line of duty in Chile since the Pinochet dictatorshipA Chilean journalist who was shot in the head by a street trader while covering Workers’ Day marches on 1 May has died of her injuries.Francisca Sandoval, 29, was reporting in Barrio Meiggs, a ramshackle market district in the centre of […]

A leaked supreme court draft ruling shows the US is set to end 50 years of a woman’s right to choose. Elsewhere, the battle still ragesIn 2022, abortion remains one of the most controversial and bitterly contested ethical and political battlegrounds. It is illegal for women to terminate their pregnancies in any circumstance in 24 countries, with a further […]