Adventures in Latin America: Studying and Living in the Southern Cone

2011-04-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

Why do people run marathons?
April 6, 2011
By Catherine Reyes-Housholder
Why do people run marathons? You don´t get anywhere: You end at the exact same point that you started. You endure anywhere from 2-6 hours of discomfort and finish physically exhausted. During the following days, you can barely walk. It doesn´t seem to make sense to run for health reasons because most experts agree that you can maintain a healthy body by doing far less exercise. Running two or three miles three times a week should be enough to get the full benefits of physical activity. Plus, some studies show that marathons have adverse effects on health – actually damaging your heart.
It therefore seems completely irrational to run 26.2 miles. I finished my first marathon in Santiago, Chile about three days ago in 3 hours and 59 minutes. I now believe that deep down – most marathoners conceive of running is a metaphor for life. I´m not the first to say this, but now I say it from experience. I dare say that running is even poetic in this sense. We run marathons as an expression of the human spirit – qualities of the human spirit such as tenacity, concentration… and my favorite: “true grit.“

That´s what I thought about during the last 10 miles of my marathon. I repeated in my head “true grit“ (temple de acero, in Spanish) and “only heart“ (puro corazón) over and over again. That was my test. I wanted to express my true grit through my body. To show it to the world.
In the sense that running a marathon for me was a matter of personal expression, I would dare to venture that marathons could be a way of artistic expression. A way to demonstrate in a very personal way the quality of courage. To finish my marathon, I had to psychologically convince myself that I was physically alright and that I would make it. I could not panic when the discomfort set in. I repeated in my head (especially during the last 10 miles) “Estoy bien. Vamos.“ (“I´m ok. Let´s go.“) If I had negative feelings or began to succumb to the discomfort (I prefer that word inside of “pain“), then I surely would have faced more difficulties in finishing and would have had a much slower time. Successful marathons demand positive thinking – insisting on the positive – even if it is a partial lie.
So the secret to running a successful marathoner is to trick your mind to enjoying the physical experience. You have to sincerely persuade yourself that you are having fun and that this moment is the one that you have been waiting for during the months of training. This is it! Your time! Savor your physical state. Marathons require therefore, contrarian thinking.
Again, running a marathon is metaphorical for another truth about life: It is often tempting to choose an “easier“ way to go about life. It is obviously tempting to walk, for example, during a marathon. However walking – while essential at some points in the race for some people – can be a deceiver. Sometimes people who begin to walk actually could develop cramps. I admit that I did take about 2-3 walk breaks during the last six miles of the race, but the breaks never exceeded 20 paces. I fortunately did not cramp up, and in the end I believe they helped me finish faster.
Quitting is another matter. Your body may deceivingly signal to you that you are better off stopping, but the truth is that quitting is failure and you are far worse wasting months of training just because you feel terrible physically. Nothing substitutes careful, assiduous training prior to the marathon, and a common truth about life is that a rash decision made under pression can ruin a long thought-out plan. Quitting a marathon is often a dramaticlly disappointing decision, and is often based on the illusion that you would be happier if you just stopped.
Running a marathon requires concentration for long periods of time. It took me about four hours to finish my marathon. According to the International Association of Athletics Association (www.iaaf.org), the average male time is about four hours and 30 minutes while the average female time is over five hours. Only the most elite runners make it in two hours.
Marathons are not like traditional competitions where the opponent is the other team or another individual. For most amateur runners like me, the metaphorical opponent is the discomfort which represents all of life´s difficulties, challenges and obstacles. The other runners are actually like your friends who at times in the race may even cheer you on. The storyline of most amateur marathoners is how they overcame the hidden obstacles (what was happening to their body during the race) and not a visible opponent (another runner).
The beauty of the marathon is that it allows ordinary people to achieve something extraordinary. I believe almost anyone can have the true grit demanded to finish a marathon. I don´t believe I have any unusual talent for running. As a high schooler at East Noble, I was a very average cross-country runner for just two years. That was 10 years ago. I believe my more recent life experiences – which have required me to demonstrate true grit in other ways – have allowed me to develop the psychology needed for complete my first marathon.
Marathons are not solo experiences. I ran with a partner during the first 25 kilometers – a girl who most people of my running club thought would not finish under 4 hours and 30 minutes – but who actually finished in 3 hours and 46 minutes. At kilometer 25 I began to feel stomach weasiness from the energy gels and water combination I had been intaking. We separated, and I was so happy for her that she continued ahead of me. I slowed a bit at that moment and spent the rest of the race trying to maintain my pace.
I became emotional at several points – once when a woman told me “Gracias. Gracias.“ I knew she was thanking me because I was a woman running the Santiago marathon. Less than 10% of the marathoners in Chile are women, and many experts believe Chilean women face serious discrimination – primarily in the work force. Her support made my running far more meaningful.
I will never forget the last 500 meters of the race. The coach of my running club caught up with me on his bike and cheered me on. Then Pedro, a running club team member who had finished his half-marathon two hours before, started running at my side. “Vamos, Cati. Vamos. ¡Excelente tu tiempo!“ (“Let´s go, Cati. Let´s go. Excellent time!“) “Gracias, Pedro,“ I told him. “Gracias. Gracias.“ I suddenly saw the biker with a sign for “4 horas.“ This biker – part of the event organization – was going at the exact pace of a 4-hour marathon. I gasped. My goal time had been 4 hours and 15-20 minutes, but members of my team had told me prior to the race that I should try to run it in 4 hours. Could I do it? I started to “sprint“ with all my might. I passed the 4-hour biker! “¡Vamos, Cati!“ Pedro, my coach and all my running club teammates cried. I passed more people and approached the finishing line. I pumped my fist and made the sign of the cross. 3 hours, 59 minutes and 33 seconds.
My female running partner, the crowd, my running club and my husband who ran 40 minutes ahead of me made the experience profoundly meaningful. My husband was waiting for me with water and gatorade in the marathon finisher tent. “Hice 4 horas.“ (“I did 4 hours.“) I sputtered out to him as I rested my hands on my knees and put my head down. My stomach still felt weasy.
“Cati, tú tienes temple de acero.“ “Cati, you have true grit,“ he told me. I now believe it because I had proven it.

2010-10-12T19:42:00.002-05:00

2010 could be a turning point for Chile

To be published in The News-Sun on Wednesday, October 13.

SANTIAGO DE CHILE — Chile is having quite a year.

In January, the nation elected its first right-of-center president in over 50 years.

In February an 8.8 earthquake jolted the nation. A time of national sorrow.

In June, Chile defeated Honduras 2-1, its first World Cup victory in several decades. A time of national joy.

In August, the 33 miners of San José were trapped underground. As the days passed, the story grew grimmer, and most in Chile were convinced that there were no survivors. Then the miners were found to all be alive. A time of tremendous national joy.

Now finally the miners will be lifted out of the ground. Chileans have been waiting and praying for this day. Chileans feel a mix of pride and embarrassment: Pride for the enormous courage and strength the miners have demonstrated and embarrassment for the unsafe working conditions.

The question of who is to blame remains unanswered. Many Chileans blame the owners of the mine who allowed the mine to continue working in sub-par standards. Other Chileans — to my surprise — actually feel sorry for the owners, and some say the owners will declared bankruptcy, wait a few years and then find a way to get back into the mining business.

I don´t know if they will. But many experts believe Chile is one of the most economically unequal nations in the world. There is great inequality, as well, in the mining industry. Chile's multinational mining companies, for example BHP Biliton and Anglo American, where my husband works, apply high safety standards in accordance with international regulations. Many smaller mining companies do not have the resources to invest in high safety standards. Should the national government raise the standards? If they do, many of these smaller Chilean companies will find it difficult to keep their costs low enough to stay in business. But sub-standard conditions are clearly unacceptable and dangerous.

Chile wants to be a developed nation, and it is on its way. Chileans feel proud of the effective rescue effort that was led by Codelco, the national mining company. The Chilean rescue team, assisted by a few Americans and NASA workers, seemed almost flawless. Sure the drilling had to stop from time to time, but that was expected. President Piñera promised the miners
they would be out by Christmas. And now they are expected to be out two weeks before Halloween, a holiday that has become more and more popular in Chile during the last few years.

Chile can one day become a “first-world“ country. To get there, it will have to figure out how to “raise the floor“ in terms of standardized working conditions for all of its workers. Who is responsible and how to prevent these kinds of disasters must be addressed. Chileans must pressure government officials — particularly the president who has more legislative power than the Congress — to act. Unfortunately, I fear that Chileans might keep the joy, relief and pride of watching the miners be pulled out of the mine by a highly qualified rescue team, and not focus on the embarrassment and anger that would help prevent a future tragedy.

Chilean journalists and citizens must demand better working conditions and re-think Chile's plan to become a first-world nation.

2010-06-16T06:49:00.003-05:00

CHILE DEFEATS HONDURAS IN WORLD CUP FIRST ROUND
By Catherine Reyes-Housholder
Santiago de Chile – Chile won its first World Cup match in 48 years Wednesday against Honduras in South Africa.
Almost four months after the worst earthquake in Chile´s history violently woke up the country at 3:35 a.m., millions of Chileans enthusiastically set their alarms hours before sunrise to watch their World Cup team play in its first round.
I have never seen anything like it. American passion for football, basketball or baseball pales in comparison for the Latin American passion for soccer.
Chile has a particularly severe case of World Cup fever which has raised spirits months after the natural disaster. Restaurants offered special “World Cup Breakfasts“ for the 7:30 game. Bars filled with fans, and as early as 6 a.m. many families – ready to eat meat for breakfast – fired up barbecuques in their back yards while the temperature hovered around 40 degrees.
Thousands congregated in public spaces in Santiago, for example Estación Central and La Vega, to watch the game on a huge public screen. Most – if not all – universities cancelled their classes this morning, including the one where I work. Elementary and high schools allowed their students to watch the game at school.
The majority of businesses are permitting their workers to watch the two-hour game. Practically all employees in the copper mine where my husband works halted their tasks – but let production continue.
President Piñera watched the game in Dichato, a tiny coastal town that was hit particularly hard by the natural catastrophe in February. In order to appear closer to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, he spent Tuesday night with his wife in emergency housing which featured a cot and sleeping bad. Former President Michelle Bachelet – the most popular executive during the last 20 years – flew to South Africa to cheer on the team. Chilean media reports that about 5,000 Chileans attended the match.
In Chile, the World Cup spirit is not only contagious – it is unescapable. I have had this year´s World Cup official song – Shakira´s Spanish rendition of “Waka Waka“ – in my head constantly since the inauguration last Friday. The World Cup dominates national news. Due to the 7-hour time difference, Chilean television journalists have to report live at 4 a.m. in South Africa to make the 9 p.m. national news here. Much of the news coverage from South Africa has focused on the Chilean fans – many of whom are camping in Nelspruit where Chile played its first game against Honduras. Every time I mention the World Cup to a Chilean, he or she breaks out a grin and asks me if I am following the U.S. team.
I had never watched an entire World Cup match in my life. Nevertheless, on Saturday I was glued to the television and did a special “victory“ dance when the U.S. managed to squeeze out a tie vs. the very formindable England.
Chile has not participated in the World Cup since 1998, and this year´s team looks promising. Released last month, a funny, popular Chilean movie “Ojos Rojos“ (“Red Eyes“) documented the team´s journey toward classifying for the World Cup. (Chile´s colors are red and blue.) The odds are good that Chile will qualify along with Spain to make it to the second round, where it would then face daunting Brazil.
But Wednesday morning, Chileans were literally dancing in the streets at 6 a.m. before the match. Due to the national excitement, I opened my eyes at 5:15 a.m., jumped out of bed at 5:30. and switched on the national news.
In February of this year, Chileans woke up terrified as an 8.8-magnitude earthquake jolted their nation. On June 16, Chile arose happily excited, a bit anxious and entirely impassioned. They have been waiting for this match for 48 years. Long live ¡“fútbol“!

2010-03-29T16:32:00.006-05:00

SECOND INTERVIEW WITH AUSTRIAN NATIONAL RADIO AIRED ON FRIDAY

Here is my interview with Steve Crilley of Austrian National Radio´s noon-time show “Reality Check.“ Crilley asked about the military and how Chileans have reacted to its increased presence after the earthquake.

2010-03-23T13:54:00.002-05:00

Link to Radio Interview with Austrian Public Radio

http://fm4.orf.at/radio/stories/1640403/

2010-03-13T15:29:00.005-05:00

US TOURISTS CONTINUE TO ARRIVE IN SANTIAGO DESPITE EARTHQUAKE AFTERSHOCKS

Saturday March 13, 2010
SANTIAGO DE CHILE -- Joyce and Chris Hobbins braved their way to Santiago this weekend in order to take a cruise that heads north all the way to the Panama Canal.

The Hobbins reported that the Santiago airport was easy to pass through -- despite the major damage it suffered from the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked much of the country on February 27. Chris said he felt aftershocks during the day on Friday -- the Chilean media reported that those were about 5.0 on the Ritcher scale.

My husband and I had dinner with them and their friends last night in Vitacura at the restaurant Cuerovaca. We enjoyed Chilean-cut meat.

Here we are! We hope the Hobbins have a fantastic time on their cruise!

2010-03-08T09:46:00.001-05:00

CHILEANS RAISE OVER $60 MILLION IN NATIONAL-FUNDRAISER “CHILE HELPS CHILE“

From Latercera.cl

En las jornadas de la Teletón las caras suelen ser de preocupación. Pero ayer no. Ya por la mañana había optimismo de que la meta de $ 15 mil millones de Chile Ayuda a Chile sería superada. Los organizadores, al inicio del maratón televisivo, tenían una larga lista de empresas dispuestas a donar. Las que darían los aportes más abultados fueron dejadas para el final, por lo que Mario Kreutzberger, tras el escenario, estaba tranquilo. Incluso, a las 16 horas, la tendencia era que el dinero que se iba a recaudar superaría ampliamente los $ 20 mil millones.

A las 21.20 horas, la meta ya había sido alcanzada. Un dato: la última Teletón, de 2008, recaudó $ 16.589.850.127. Un monto que esta vez fue superado con creces. El último cómputo, pasadas las 23 horas, fue de $ 30 mil millones.

"No lo puedo creer" repetía una y otra vez Don Francisco, porque el equipo, conformado por el director Mauricio Correa, el editor Jaime Villa y el productor Jorge Soissa, levantó en apenas cuatro días el programa de 24 horas. Para cada Teletón se necesita de cuatro meses.

Go here for the whole article: http://diario.latercera.com/2010/03/07/01/contenido/9_25850_1.html

2010-03-06T07:42:00.005-05:00

CHILE NEEDS TO BE BETTER PREPARED FOR NEXT “TEST“

March 6, 2006

By DIEGO REYES LOPEZ

At this time, people in Chile most affected by the earthquake are slowly recovering from the huge damage from the fifth most powerful earthquake ever recorded. A feeling of hope is starting to be embraced by our nation.

A common saying claims: “It´s easy to be a general after the war.” Nonetheless, some hard-to-believe facts have disappointed me deeply and need to be discussed. After all, there is another saying that states, “We fall to stand up again.”

The first mistake was failure to alert Chileans about the tsunamis. Chile suffered an earthquake of 8.8 magnitude on the Richter scale at 3:34 a.m., and the Navy at 03:51 a.m. alerted the National Office of Emergencies (ONEMI) that a tsunami could come. But the Navy dismissed the alert when President Bachelet called them at 4:56 a.m. Due to this fact, many people lost their lives and many people are missing. The procedure to alert people about tsunamis should be automated and based on information retrieved by instruments in the sea and earth which can automatically alert people near the shores.

One of the reasons these people disregarded the tsunami alert was that they said it was impossible to have a tsunami hours after the earthquake. They believed “huge waves only come right after the earthquake not hours later. Nonetheless, the biggest waves came to the shore at roughly 6 a.m. covering all that they found in their path.

This tragedy showed immediately another vulnerability that I didn´t expect in my beloved developing country: the lack of a reliable system of communications. In an interview to Radio Cooperativa, Bachelet said: “After the earthquake no one answered my calls, so I went directly to the ONEMI.”

Its hard to believe that Chile’s highest official had to wait four precious hours to have at her disposal a helicopter to assess the harm in the south of Chile. In the mine where I work, I could know by radio a few minutes after the earthquake the status of the electrical supply, enabling me to go immediately to recover our power system. The lack of communication between the president and organizations such as the army and the ONEMI brings to light that Chile wasn’t prepared to face a state of
emergency.

In Chile there are not unexpected earthquakes. Our country is located in the joint of the Continental and Nazcar plates. Earthquakes can occur when large plates move and push each other. All Chileans know that every 20 years there is an earthquake that shakes us and tests us again. It’s like a professor that comes every two decades to test our endurance and it´s sad to realize that even when we could have taken advantage of the technology that is available now, we missed the test and we didn´t act quickly and effectively. We could have saved many lives and would have been spared much sorrow.

In the coming months and years, we’ll assess the mistakes of Feb. 27 to correct them and never repeat them. The “demanding professor” will arrive again. I’m sure on the next test we´ll pass the exam.

Diego Reyes Lopez is an electrical engineer at Los Bronces copper mine, Anglo American in Santiago, Chile. He can be reached at diegoreyeslopez@gmail.com.

2010-03-04T14:11:00.003-05:00

MARCH 11 HANDOVER OF POWER TO CONTINUE DESPITE EARTHQUAKE

March 4, 2010
By Catherine Reyes-Housholder
SANTIAGO DE CHILE – According to the 1980 constitution written during the Pinochet dictatorship, the handover of power to the president-elect of Chile must occur on March 11.
Although there was talk a few days ago of postponing the government transition, now no doubt remains that the constitution must be respected despite the massive earthquake and tsunami waves that have jolted and traumatized much of the country and killed more than 800.
Center-right President-elect Sebastián Piñera announced on Thursday in the weathly neighborhood of Las Condes in Santiago two key appointments of regional authorities in order to speed up the process. Particularly important was the appointment of current Concepción Mayor Jacqueline van Rysselberghe as the Intendente, or governor, of the Region of Bío-Bío. Van Rysselberghe was one of the most critical and outspoken public figures this week as she complained the national authorities were too slow to send in the military to control the widespread looting in her city, the second largest in Chile.

In the past few years there were whispers of a possible presidential run for Van Rysselberghe, a mother of six and member of the right UDI party and of Opus Dei. This appointment will increase her public profile which could favor her political future on the national stage. Her political orientation, religiosity and go-to-it attitude is reminiscent of former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin.
Piñera will replace President Michelle Bachelet, the first woman to govern all of Chile and the most popular president in the past 20 years. He is the first center-right politician to win the presidency since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1989. Since 1989, four presidents from the center-left Concertación coalition have managed the nation.
Piñera met with Bachelet on Friday and the pair agreed that the transition ceremony on March 11 would be “austere.“
Bachelet is known for her “maternal“ charisma which marked her national public personae since her presidential campaign in 2005. This morning Piñera – who was frequently criticized during his presidential campaign for seeming too “cold“ – tried to show a softer side of himself when he said the regions of Chile should no longer be called by their numbers, but by their “beautiful“ names. He added that these names should more “affection“ to the regions.
The dictator Pinochet divided the country into regions and assigned them numbers. Today Chile has 15 regions – numbered from north to south. In addition to their numeric names, they have more poetic appellations, such as Maule (Region VII) and Bío-Bío (Region VIII) – the regions most devasted in the aftermath of the earthquake.
If in the next four years, Piñera and van Rysselberghe do exceptionally well in their reconstruction efforts, van Rysselberghe could have a shot at a presidential run in 2013. The Chilean constitution forbids consecutive presidential terms, so Piñera could not run again, but Bachelet could. No polls have yet measured Bachelet´s approval ratings since the earthquake. Those ratings almost reached 80 percent prior to the disaster – making another presidential bid in 2013 a strong possibility.

2010-03-04T07:33:00.008-05:00

THE BEST AND WORST IN CHILE EMERGE AFTER EARTHQUAKE

March 4, 2010

By Catherine Reyes-Housholder
SANTIAGO DE CHILE – Natural disasters bring out the best and the worst in a country.
This was particularly true for Chile after Saturday´s 8.8 magnitude earthquake rocked several of its central and southern regions – taking the lives of hundreds – and tidal waves raged over beach towns – killing hundreds more.
In the days immediately after the earthquake, many in the devastated cities looted a variety of goods from supermarkets, pharmacies and shopping malls – leaving the rest of the population with nothing more to eat. Many psychologists agree that looting is a normal reaction during times of crisis because people go into “survival mode“ and aim to secure their existence.
However the live television images of young men stealing plasma televisions and looted shopping malls burning to the ground disgusted the vast majority of citizens here. “Why would the criminals stoop so low when their copatriots are hurting so much?“ Chileans asked themselves.
Crime has been a major issue in this country for years, and promises to fight crime helped center-right candidate Sebastián Piñera win the presidency in January. So when Chileans saw the looting live, and their fellow citizens in the south have to defend themselves against each other with sticks, many were outraged, but in a sense, not so surprised. It was sort of the feeling: “Well, there they go again! Those criminals have absolutely no respect for anyone. And now the world is watching.“
Last week there were reports of people in Santiago – a city that suffered relatively little and has returned to business as usual – robbing from trucks goods that were supposed to go the earthquake and tsunami victims.
The earthquake seemed to have brought out the worst in the nation.
Raged also infused many when officials began pointing fingers over the failure to sound the tsunami alert for the beach towns in the south – an error which probably cost hundreds of lives.
Confusion still clouds the truth in the controversy, but the Chilean press reports the following. The Chilean Armada is in charge of reading certain instruments minutes after the earthquake and determining if the possibility of a tsunami exists. At about 3:51 a.m. – about 15 minutes after the start of the earthquake – Armada did inform that National Emergency Office (ONEMI) that the possibility exists. After reading the measurements of its instruments, apparently many of the instruments were discalabrated, and the Armada later communicated to the National Emergency Office – where the President Michelle Bachelet was stationed at the time – that there was no possibility of a tsunami.
Officials from the Armada admitted that their tsunami warning was “confusing“ but insists that they did warn of a tsunami. They also accept responsibility for the deaths of probably hundreds of citizens from the beach towns who were ready to run to the hills, but who stayed near their homes because they received the message that there was no possibility of a tsunami.
Some ran to the hills anyway – despite the no-tsunami message – and their lives were saved.
The failure of this part of the national emergency system understandably outrages Chileans.
Despite the unnecessary looting by criminals and the apparent incompetence of some of the nation´s authorities, the good in Chile also emerges during this time of crisis.
Even though part of the national emergency system did fail, other disaster preparations proved the country was ready for such a disaster. In Santiago, building codes are based information gathered from the 9.5 magnitude earthquake – the worst ever recorded in history -- of 1960 that killed thousands. The law requires edifices to withstand earthquakes, and amazingly, the vast majority of them did. Extremely few collapsed entirely. One building in Ñuñoa – about 20 minutes from my apartment – in so damaged that authorities fear it will collapse and ordered an evacuation. The building leans a bit like the Tower of Pisa and could fall any minute.
But overall, Santiago – and many other cities in center-southern Chile – withstood one of the greatest earthquakes in recorded history – impressively well.
As normality has mostly returned to the capital, hundreds of volunteers from a plethora of Chilean organizations are collecting and sorting clothes, food and supplies for earthquake victims. The volunteers are primarily young people who will begin classes again in the coming days or weeks. Many from Hogar de Cristo (Christ´s Home) – a Catholic organization dedicated to providing for the homeless – worked a 12-hour shift last night, sorting clothes, food and supply kits. Others are from “Un Techo para Chile“ (“A Roof for Chile“) which is dedicated to provided housing for the homeless.
Some private companies are giving millions to aid the victims. Mining company Anglo-American –where my husband works – promised to give $10 million, one of the largest amounts donated so far.
Starting on Friday at 10 p.m., Chilean celebrity Mario Kreutzberger (otherwise known as “Don Francisco“) will host a 24-hour national fund-raising television show called “Chile Ayuda a Chile“ or “Chile Helps Chile.“ Kreutzberger is famous for his annual fund-raising shows in Chile – called “teletón“ – that collect money for handicapped Chileans. The goal is to raise $30 million this weekend for the earthquake victims.
Although the looting is discouraging, it has mostly stopped because there is nothing left to loot in many towns, and the heavy military presence enforces a strict curfew. Now the giving and volunteering is encouraging the disaster victims as the initial aid is arriving to the neediest areas.
Even though the ineptitude of some national officials to warn of a tsunami probably cost hundreds of lives, earthquake-resistant buildings saved millions more. Thankfully, the Armada admitted its error and did not go to great lengths to cover up its mistake. Transparency in terms of the mistakes committed during this earthquake is necessary to fix the emergency warning system.
If the good and bad emerge as Chile recovers from one of the greatest earthquakes recorded, the good certainly outweigh the bad.
Tagline:
Foreigners can also make donations to Hogar de Cristo at this web address (in English): http://www.hogardecristo.cl/index.php/colabora-con-nosotros/aid-to-earthquake-victims/

2010-03-02T08:32:00.001-05:00

CONCEPCION CRIES FOR HELP IN THE FACE OF LOOTING, VANDALISM
By Catherine Reyes-Housholder
SANTIAGO DE CHILE – The greatest fear now for many in the southern city of Concepción whose homes were destroyed by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Saturday, is not the forces of nature that flattened much of its city, but looters who are stealing what is left.
Much of the looting is not motivated by survival instinct, but is considered pure criminal behaviour. Looters are typically young men who snatch non-essential in supermarkets – for example alcohol -- or plasma televisions from stores. Many in the south whose homes collapsed refuse to leave them because they fear looters will steal all of their belongings that are left.
Yesterday a major fire of a mall in the center of Concepción that was provoked by vandals and looters. The building collapsed, consummed by flames.
Last night Concepción had a curfew from 8 p.m. until noon today in order to prevent further looting and vandalism. No one is allowed to walk the streets during those hours. If the police see someone outside at that time, they will warn them verbally. If the person does not obey order, police will fire a shot, and if the person resists, the police are authoritized to shoot to injure. The police are told to keep in mind that many are camping around the city and will not necessarily be in their homes.
Since the earthquake rocked most of the country and the tidal waves that followed killed more than 700, the mayor of Concepción, Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe has demanded that the national goverment send the military to help control the situation. The military has been slow to come, and Van Rysselberghe – desperate for help from Santiago as her city fell into chaos – has severely criticized the national authorities for their failure to react quickly enough.
“The truth is that help is just arriving, four days after the earthquake,“ the mayor said this morning. “People are trying to protect their homes … there is no way to collect trash. People are tired and are starting to scream.“
Many applauded in the streets the arrival of the military yesterday to the city. Many in Concepción are grateful for the curfew measures and are begging greater military presence, as neighbors in Concepción have been organizing themselves in self-defense against potential looters. Some in Concepción used pieces of wood to defend themselves. Others raised the Chilean flag as a sign of solidarity.
The people of Concepción are in need of food, water and basic supplies – which has yet to arrive – but the main concern for now is the re-establishment of public order.
Today the military is expected to send about 4,700 more forces to the city and a total of 7,000 to the entire region.
The pillaging reports that the rest of the country is receiving creates a collective feeling of disgust. Crime is one of the greatest problems in Chile during normal times – and promises to reduce crime by President-elect Sebastián Piñera helped him clinch his victory in January. However the extent of the looting during this crisis is creating outrage up and down the nation.
In a national address this morning, President Michelle Bachelet said the looting was inacceptable and promised all of the help necessary to obtain order. She said authorities have to assess the different situations in the southern regions. Bachelet said the country had never experienced an earthquake like this and defended the actions of the national government.
“We have to be aware of the extent of the damage,“ the president said. “There are entire cities destroyed. This is not the minute for analysis, but the time for action. This was an earthquake whose extension we have never seen before.“

Confusion and lack of information plagues citizens of southern beach towns – many of which were mostly destroyed due to tidal waves after the earthquake. Last night´s national television station TVN showed footage of the destruction, and residents of some of these towns said TVN was the first media to arrive and that no one from the national government had arrived to help.
Chileans living in areas that have returned to normal – including the capital of Santiago – are now organizing ways to deliver help to the most affected. On Friday, Chilean celebrity “Don Francisco“ is hosting a national show to raise money for the victims called “Chile Ayuda a Chile“ (“Chile Helps Chile“).
Yesterday I talked to a member of a group of young people from the Chilean organization “Un Techo para Chile“ (“A Roof for Chile“) that was collecting supplies to send to the victims. A sign in front read “No more clothes, please. Thank you so much!“ and included a list of other items they needed: food and blankets, for example. Founded in 1997 by a Jesuit priest, “Un Techo para Chile“ is dedicated to providing housing for the homeless across the nation.
In addition to the domestic efforts to collect aid, national authorities are officially accepting offers of international funds and resources.
In the immediate moments after the earthquake, the national authorities refused offers of aid, but in the past couple of days assessments of the extent of the destruction and need reversed that decision.

2010-03-02T06:27:00.004-05:00

LIFE IN SANTIAGO NORMAL, MASSIVE DESTRUCTION IN SOUTH

Publish in The News-Sun on Tuesday March 2, 2010. www.kpcnews.com

SANTIAGO DE CHILE — After an 8.8 magnitude earthquake jolted most of their country on Saturday morning, Chileans are just now beginning to understand how serious the damage really is.

As the death toll rose to 723 and authories continued to assess the situation in the south where the earthquake hit most dramatically, most in Santiago returned to normal life on Monday. The majority of buses and metro stations were running, and the supermarkets were open although with very little bottled water and bread and significantly less food than usual overall. Some Santiaguinos, such as my in-laws, still did not have electricity.

Many are discovering through the national media that life is far from normal in the south of Chile and probably won´t be for many months. My brother-in-law´s girlfriend, Eva Vallejos, lives in Santiago, but grew up in Curicó, a historic city of about 125,000 located two hours south. Hours after the earthquake, she was able to get through by cell phone to her family members and learned that everyone was safe.

Sunday when Eva saw live shots of the Curicó church San Francisco completely collapsed, she froze and her eyes filled with tears. About 60 percent of Curicó is “on the ground,“ she learned Sunday through Internet media reports. Where Eva grew up, where she went to school and made life-long friends, and where her family lives now is mostly destroyed. More than 30 people from the city of Curicó died; at least 50 from the whole province perished.

She is just one of millions of Chileans who are learning how massive and extensive this earthquake destruction truly is. She plans on returning to visit her family in Curicó as soon as she can. February and the beginning of March are vacation months in Chile. The thousands who were on vacation — either in Chile or abroad — are desperate to get home immediately.

Although officials initially thought the country would not need international aid, after being able to assess the situation, they decided to officially begin accepting foreign assistance.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to visit the country on Tuesday. She will see a nation where some cities have re-started their routine while others are worried about looting as they struggle to obtain sufficient food and water — not to mention electrictrical and public services.

I went to the local private hospital, Clinica Indisa, Monday morning for check-ups — appointments that I had scheduled weeks ago. Everything was functioning smoothly, but cracks on some of the walls showed signs of minor damage. The private health insurance system uses a digital thumbprint to identify the patient which was not working in some parts of the hospital. My doctor told me there were fewer patients than usual in the non-emergency area because many who had pre-scheduled their appointments decided not to come.

Some of the streetlights were not working, so police had to direct some traffic.

Outside the national airline office (LAN) about 150 people waited patiently for customer service. The national airport was severely affected by the earthquake, and no flights are coming in or out. The Minister of Public Works said on Monday that some domestic and international flights should take off by Tuesday and Friday, respectively.

Life in this city of about six million has mostly returned to business as usual.

2010-03-01T06:49:00.004-05:00

SEVERE AFTERSHOCKS PERSIST AFTER EARTHQUAKE

As published in The News-Sun on Monday March 1, 2010. www.kpcnews.com

By Catherine Reyes-Housholder

SANTIAGO DE CHILE – The earthquakes in Chile don´t seem to stop.
At 8:30 a.m. today, the ground-shifting in our apartment caused my husband to sit straight up in bed, alarmed. I tell him it´s ok – that the real earthquake has passed – but then we sense more movement building up.
Reacting similarly as we did on Saturday morning at 3:35 a.m. when a 8.8 earthquake hit Chile, we leaped out of bed and positioned ourselves underneath the doorway.
This time the earthquake was just a 6.1 on the Ritcher scale and produced no further damage to our apartment.
After the massive earthquake on Saturday morning that rocked most of the nation, causing over 700 deaths and affecting millions, aftershocks have persisted. The local and international media are reporting that 20-30 aftershocks have topped 5.0. These aftershocks give the feeling that – although the worst is surely over – the country is still experiencing a natural disaster.
Most metro stations and buses are up and running in Santiago, but a significant part of the city (about 20 percent) is still without electricity.
Last night we went to my in-laws ´ house for a candle-lit dinner. They had no electricity the entire day and were only able to receive news through the radio station Radio Cooperativa.
My brother-in-law´s experience was more traumatic than my own, as I learned last night. He lives on the 14th floor of an apartment building just about 15 minutes away from where I live. During the initial earthquake on Saturday of 8.8, his bed began to slam repeatedly against his walls. When he tried to walk through the hallway, he couldn´t. At that moment he wondered if he couldn´t walk because of he was in shock or because the earthquake was whipping the tall building so potently. The latter was correct. The smell of gas was extremely strong, provoking a fear a fire. He ran out of his apartment building as fast as he could.
At about 9 p.m. we turned on a tiny mp4 player radio to hear President Michelle Bachelet´s brief speech to the nation. Although the player had its volume turned up to the maximum, we had to freeze in order to not make any noise that would impede our listening.
The message was simple and hit the right tone. Bachelet´s summary and analysis of the gravity of the situation and what problems lay ahead for Chile seemed to project the idea that everything was under control.
Although the general situation around the nation is one of calm, there are moments of chaos. This morning at about 9:30, the national news station TVN broadcast live looting of a local supermarket in Concepción, a city in the south that was rattled more severely than Santiago by the earthquake.
The station showed images of hundreds of Chileans running the the supermarket, forcing the back storage doors open with metal equipment and snatching food and electrical appliances. The reporter interviewed some of the people who claimed that they needed the food, but the sights of young and old men stealing what looked to be refrigerators and washing machines contradicted the alleged “neediness“ of the population to steal.
The mayor of Concepción, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe said that the situation was “getting out of control“ and that the army should be sent to help manage. Chilean newspapers reported at about 11:25 that the same supermarket began to give away food to those who apparently needed it. Police supervised the distribution in order to prevent more looting. More lootings of supermarkets and pharmacies were reported in Concepción.
In Santiago, one major problem is the long lines at the supermarkets. Because the earthquake occurred at the end of the month when most people are at the end of their month-long food supplies, demand for food was higher than usual. My in-laws waited in line for two hours this afternoon in order to buy chicken, vegetables, fruit and soft drinks.
Chilean newspapers updated their web sites every 5-10 minutes with the latest information as the television stations are covering the tragedy 24-7. The death toll as of 5 p.m. local time rose to 708 and is expected to increase.

2010-02-28T17:54:00.005-05:00

CATHERINE INTERVIEWS WITH AUSTRIAN NATIONAL RADIO AND ALJAZEERA IN ENGLISH

I interviewed with Austrian National Radio (Steve Crilley) and Aljazeera in English in Washington D.C. about the Chilean earthquake. I will try to stream the radio interview soon.

The interview for Aljazeera will be on tonight at 9 p.m. 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Chilean time. Check it out live.

http://www.livestation.com/channels/3-al_jazeera_english_english

2010-02-28T15:06:00.004-05:00

NEXT ARTICLE TO APPEAR IN THE NEWS-SUN TOMORROW

My next article that I have already written will appear on Monday March 1 in The News-Sun. Since I do not publish on my blog before the articles are published in the newspaper, you will have to check back tomorrow to read the update about the aftershocks and supermarket chaos in Chile.

2010-02-28T07:14:00.005-05:00

CHILE PROCEEDING CALMLY AFTER EARTHQUAKE

As published in The News-Sun on Sunday, February 28, 2010. (www.kpcnews.com)

By CATHERINE REYES-HOUSHOLDER

SANTIAGO DE CHILE — I woke up at 3:35 a.m. Saturday because the bed beneath me was violently shifting over my room. It was the start of the worst earthquake in Chile since 1985, 8.8 on the Richter scale.

My husband, Diego, and I immediately jumped underneath the doorway between our bathroom and bedroom. Holding each other’s arms, we managed to stay standing the entire time.

We heard some crashing of glass which we later found out was our living room lamp and a wine bottle that had been stored up high.

One particularity of earthquakes compared to other natural disasters is that there is not much you can do during the earthquake. You just run to the nearest doorway, and hope the building doesn´t collapse.

Diego, an engineer, wasn´t worried that our apartment building would fall, even though we live on the ninth floor. Chile has a history of violent earthquakes and Chilean engineers design buildings with that in mind.

We cleaned up the apartment a bit and then we walked downstairs to see what our neighbors were doing. About 20 of them were outside, talking on cell phones and listening to Radio Cooperativa.

Diego, an electrical supervisor of the copper mine Anglo-American, was worried about the power at his work. Because two of his coworkers were on vacation (January through March are summer in Chile), he was responsible for all electrical failures in the mine.

So we hopped into his company truck in the darkness of 5 a.m. and whizzed to the mine, northeast of the capital city. As we swirled along the curvy roads leading through the mountains, we saw rocks — some the size of refrigerators — that had fallen during the quake. We also saw a car that had been turned over, but fortunately had no victims.

I have spent the last 13 hours just outside the Anglo-American copper mine, in the electrical headquarters, where Diego has been leading his coworkers on the great get-the-electricity-running-again mission. The weather is eerily peaceful and calm — 80s, sunny with cool breezes. The electrical headquarters of the mine — about an hour away from Santiago — is a haven from the chaos of the damaged city.

We have been feeling more trembling — it is gentle but still makes us nervous. The “réplicas,” which Chileans call aftershocks, do not seem to be causing more damage in Santiago.

I have been listening to Radio Cooperativa in Diego´s company´s truck. I give accolades to this radio station which has managed to keep a serious but positive tone. From what I can tell, the radio has been especially useful because while much of the country is without electricity, most people can listen to a battery-powered or car-powered radio. The station transmits important information about the disaster — for example warning Chileans on vacation at the beach to not travel immediately back to their homes because of the damage.

The Minister of Education in Chile has postponed the start of classes around the nation by one week. Instead of starting on Monday, March 1, classes should start on March 8.

Managing the natural disaster will be President Michelle Bachelet´s last major task before she is replaced on March 11 by center-right President-elect Sebastián Piñera.

Although Chile and Haiti are from the same region of Latin America, they are worlds apart in terms of political and economic strength. Chile is one of the most politically stable and economically strong countries in the region while Haiti is one of the weakest on both counts. Haiti was a basket-case after its earthquake. According to news reports, Haitian leaders were nowhere to be seen during the days following the disaster, while Chile has appeared to proceed calmly but strategically.

Bachelet and her ministers were instantly on top of the situation, giving short interviews to the media and organizing a plan of action. Although many Chilean buildings did collapse, modern Chilean buildings are generally designed to withstand earthquakes.

The number of deaths is not comparable, chiefly because Chile´s infrastructure is far superior to Haiti´s.

Chile’s last major earthquake was on March 3, 1985 (one day before I was born).

2010-02-21T17:15:00.004-05:00

As published in The News-Sun, The Evening Star and the Herald-Republican. www.kpcnews.com

WHAT IS IN A NAME? CULTURALLY-SPEAKING, A LOT

SUNDAY, FEBRURARY 21, 2010

I married a Chilean about six weeks ago. When I announced to my father-in-law that I wanted to change my last name, he covered his mouth with his hand, laughed and then said: “We don´t do that here in Chile.“

I already knew that, that was the problem. Chilean women don´t do anything to their surname when they marry. They go from being a “señorita” to a “señora” seamlessly.

Every Chilean has two last names: one from Dad and one from Mom. The couple´s children´s names are created by combining the the paternal last name from each parent. Confusing? Just when Chileans are born. Not when Chileans are married.

But I still felt inclined to do something with my name. Right after my wedding, one of my aunts was already calling me Mrs. Catherine Reyes. I did my best to correct her tactfully, but I think I might have hurt her feelings.

I needed a solution. I started to envision this marriage-name-shift-game as an opportunity. A chance to change — for the better! I didn´t get to select my first or maiden name (although I think my parents did pretty well) so I would take advantage of the chance to take CONTROL of my name.

Ever since I was a child, I have wanted to be exotic, cosmopolitan, a bit more “interesting.” Now I had the opportunity to add a Latin touch to my public persona.

Plus, modifying my family appellation could be a symbol of connectedness between the U.S. and Chile.

I discovered I couldn´t just replace my name on my current passport. I had to get an entirely new one (thank you, Homeland Security). I assembled the required paperwork, flagged down a public bus and popped up in front of the U.S. embassy. They promised me — after I forked over the $75 — my new passport with my name change in about three weeks.

Today I picked up the passport. Catherine Reyes-Housholder. The new me. A little more Latin American than before.

Then I tried to pronounce the new me. “Catherine“ was easy. When I said, “Reyes“ I pronounced it with my distinct American accent (even though I can trill my r´s). No surprise there.

Then “Housholder“came out completely wrong. Because I had to enunciate “Reyes“ Chilean-style, I couldn´t get my tongue immediately around my German heritage. After spinning out Reyes, I couldn´t pronounce the “H´s.“ The “r“ of “Housholder“ rolled out Spanish-style.

Oops. Who am I?

I am Catherine Rrrrejez-Ousolderrrrr.

So much for cosmopolitan elegance.

I could back down. The next legal step I will have to take is to change my Chilean national-ID card to Catherine Reyes-Housholder. I could just stay Catherine Housholder in Chile. That way, people here wouldn´t be tempted to think my husband was my brother.

However, I´ve decided to keep practicing pronouncing the new me, and I will swap surnames on my Chilean ID. I know some people will laugh — like my father-in-law — when they see it. But instead of it being annoying, I will see it as an opportunity. To launch into a lengthy discussion of Chilean-U.S. culture naming traditions? Depending on my audience. To initiate a debate on the feminist ethics of marriage and name-changing? Again, it depends.

Ironically, my attempt to realize a childhood dream to become more exotic/foreign/cosmopolitan will end up making me look even more alien to friends and in-laws here.

This is what I plan to say to Chileans who give me the confused-amused look. “I am Catherine Rrrrejez-Ousolderrrrr. Call me Cati. It´s just the old me.“

2010-01-20T10:14:00.003-05:00

PIÑERA COMBINES BEST, WORST OF CHILEAN POLITICS

From kpcnews.com
January 20, 2010

http://www.kpcnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10094:Piñera-combines-best,-worst-of-Chilean-politics&catid=102:other-local-columnist

By Catherine Housholder
Billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera was elected president of Chile on Sunday. Triumphing with 52.6 percent of the vote, he is the first candidate from the right to win the Chilean presidency in 52 years, and the first president in 20 years who is not from the center-left Concertación coalition.

Piñera combines the best and worst of Chilean politics. Exactly what Chile needs and what it does not need. The best: an unequivocally democratic opposition leader who sees economic innovation as key to development. The worst: a symbol of the disheartening tendency of the super-wealthy achieving more political power.

In a country where an anti-Pinochet politician from the right was often hard to come by in the 1990s, Piñera´s opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship gave him an important credential. However Latin America is considered by many experts to be the most economically unequal region in the world. So here in Chile — where the size of your bank account is more often than not proportional to your political power — Piñera´s election is also seen by many as an example of what money can buy.

I met Piñera in June, 2005 when he was running for president against the Concertación´s Michelle Bachelet, who went on to become Chile´s first woman president. I was a college student interning for The Santiago Times.

Foreign reporters were invited to Piñera´s office in the ritzy Las Condes sector of Santiago. I was the first to arrive. Less than 10 journalists showed up. At the age of 20, I turned out to be the youngest.

Piñera is and was at the time one of the richest men in Chile. Owner of the Chilean airline LAN and the television station Chilevisión, he also is credited for introducing Visa and Mastercard to Chile about 30 years ago.

I only mustered up the courage to ask Chile´s airline-television-credit card tycoon one question. Piñera — who has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard — surely could have answered me in English.

As the candidate of the Renovación Nacional party, Piñera won enough votes in the first round in December 2005 to qualify for the second round in January 2006. But the Concertación´s Bachelet evoked too much maternal warmth, female-powered momentum and motherly charisma. Piñera looked cold, poker-face and business-like during the campaigns. I remember that in the foreign journalist press conference he hardly cracked a smile. He lost in 2006 with 46.5 percent to Bachelet´s 53.5 percent.

Most people remember the 2005-2006 campaigns because they resulted in the election of the country´s first woman president. But the other highly significant fact of those elections was that for the first time the right was represented in the second round of voting by a candidate who had not supported the violent dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s.

Every country needs a viable opposition, and the subtle turn from a Pinochet-stained right (led by Joaquín Lavin of the UDI) to an anti-Pinochet right (led by Piñera) has been a remarkably under-reported phenomenon. Piñera voted “no“ in the 1988 referendum which asked Chileans whether they wanted the Pinochet rule to continue. That referendum was closer than most Chileans would like to think: The Concertación-led “no“ campaign contributed to the 56 percent tally for “no“ while 44 percent voted in favor of Pinochet who is credited for jumpstarting the economy in the 1980s and imprisoning, torturing and killing thousands of alleged leftists. (Pinochet died of old age in 2006).

So the up-side of Piñera is that he represents “cambio” (change) and the democratic wing of the right which during the 1990s tended to be heavily influenced by “Pinochetistas.” After 20 years of Concertación rule — despite Bachelet´s up to 80 percent approval rating — many Chileans began to believe that their country needed to give the opposition a chance to govern. Piñera´s popularity seems to be partially due to the Concertación´s inner quibblings and power struggles as well as a national desire for a breath of fresh air.

Piñera´s down-side?

Money.

During the 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 political campaigns, reporters plagued Piñera with business vs. politics questions. Chile is known for having relatively low levels of corruption, but billionaire politicians always tend to raise red flags. “Shouldn´t you sell your stocks and get out of business while you run for president?“ was a typical question on the campaign trail.

Piñera´s answer to money and politics essentially did not change from 2005 to 2010. Here´s what I had recorded from the press conference in 2005:

“I’m a businessman and all of Chile knows it. When I was a senator, everyone knew that I was an important shareholder of LAN Chile. My interests, my stocks and my companies have always been above the table. It seems much more dangerous to me the fact that there are certain authorities, ministers, regional governors, judges and deputies who are businesspeople, and no one knows it. The best way to avoid this is transparency.”

Despite reporters’ prodding, it is still not quite clear how much Piñera spent on his campaign. But no one from the right was thinking about that as they danced to live cumbia music on the streets of Santiago on Sunday night, celebrating their first triumph in more than 50 years. And Piñera — in a significant departure for his intellectual, Spartan image — was all smiles as he partied until 1 a.m. Not very late at all, by this country´s standards, but what do you expect from the new most powerful man in Chile?

Catherine Housholder is a 2003 East Noble High School graduate. She works in Santiago, Chile, and is a second-year master´s student in political science at the Universidad de Chile. The subject of her undergraduate senior thesis at Smith College was the use of gender in the Bachelet campaign. Housholder argued that thanks to her political skills, Batchelet’s most potent campaign weapon was her gender. Contact her at catherinehousholder@gmail.com.

2008-10-18T22:47:00.003-05:00

Trying to get back to blogging...

I realize that this blog has been on hiatus for several months. I am currently in Montevideo, Uruguay doing three things: helping in a public high school, assisting in the National Educational Administration, and researching the electoral campaigns from July-October of 2004 in Uruguay. I will present my research on November 3, and I will be leaving Uruguay for the U.S. on November 24.

On December 30, I will be back in Santiago de Chile.

2008-08-04T21:20:00.001-05:00

Plan Ceibal put into action in Salto

By Catherine Housholder

Teachers, students and parents had been talking about it for months. Every time one of the Uruguayan elementary school teachers mentioned the laptops, the children´s eyes light up. On Friday afternoon, June 20, every child in La Amarilla -- a bilingual school in Salto, Uruguay, named after its yellow walls – received their own personal laptop, courtesy of the Uruguayan government.
I was lucky enough to be assisting English teachers in La Amarilla when the computers arrived. The small, green and white laptops allow students to type and save documents, take photos, connect to the Internet and chat wirelessly.
The day of the distribution, the students´ parents came to sign a simple form and learn how to operate the machine with their sons and daughters. The initial step was for each student to carefully type their first and last names into the computer.
“Make sure you type your name correctly, but it is impossible to change it after you type it the first time,” the fifth-grade teacher at La Amarilla warned.
Jittery with excitement, the children anxiously waited for their teachers step-by-step instructions. Some nervous parents hardly knew how to type and save a document and were worried the new computers could easily break.
In December 2006, the Uruguayan government decided to participate in the One Laptop Per Child program, a non-for-profit launched two years ago by the MIT Media Lab foundation headed by Nicholas Negroponte.
The Uruguayans call the extension of the One Laptop Per Child program, Plan Ceibal (Basic Computer Educational Connectivity for Learning Online). This year, 7,500 elementary school students received computers.
The Uruguayan government hopes to connect the country to the Internet through these computers, valued at about $200 each, which the children can take home and share with their families. The computers do not use Microsoft, but Linux open-source operating system.
According to the U.S. ambassador to Uruguay with whom I spoke at Fulbright event, Frank Baxter, a political appointee (meaning he donated enough money to the current administration to receive the Uruguayan diplomatic assignment) and businessman who has served on the NASDAQ board, the funding is coming directly from the Uruguayan government. Uruguay will end up purchasing 400,000 computers and install wireless networks across the country so that every student will be able to connect to the Internet.
As a Fulbright grant English teaching assistant, I helped students learn to create, type and save documents. The students had been exposed to computers before – every classroom in La Amarilla has an Internet-connected computer, but not all knew what the function of the space bar, backspace, and shift keys were.
My time in La Amarilla was limited to three months, and I only had about one week to work on typing English texts with the students. I recently moved to Montevideo to complete the second half of my year-long grant. In the capital city, I will work part-time at the Uruguayan Education Ministry and a high school as well as continue my research on the 2004 Uruguayan elections which ushered in the first leftist administration in the country´s history.
Perhaps one of the most surprising parts of my time so far as a Fulbrighter is to see the progressiveness of the Uruguayan governments. Labeled the “Switzerland” of South America in the first part of this century because of its welfare state and forward-thinking policies, Uruguay has created bilingual “full-time” elementary schools such as La Amarilla in the poorest areas of the country to provide the neediest with access to English education. In many parts of Latin America, knowing English can ensure an elevated salary and social status.

2008-03-14T08:17:00.006-05:00

Condoleezza Rice arrives in Chile today

... but she plans on leaving tonight too!

Rice will meet with the President Bachelet today and said she will study whether Venezuela is supporting the FARC. If they are, then the U.S. may black-list Venezuela as a promotor of terrorism.

Rice will also ask the Bachelet administration if they could send peace-keeping troops to Kosovo. Rice is also promoting the U.S. digital television system (whatever that is...)

Rice, quien llega hoy al país, conversará con el gobierno chileno un pedido para enviar fuerzas de paz a Kosovo.
ANTONIETA CÁDIZ y MACARENA VILLA

La promoción del sistema norteamericano de televisión digital y el posible ofrecimiento de Estados Unidos de apoyar al gobierno chileno en el desarrollo de energía nuclear con fines pacíficos, marcarán la agenda de la corta visita que hoy realizará la secretaria de Estado norteamericana, Condoleezza Rice, a Chile.

Este último eventual ofrecimiento, que trascendió de fuentes diplomáticas, coincide con la solicitud de Washington de que Chile envíe tropas de paz a Darfur y Kosovo, la cual aún no tiene respuesta por parte de Santiago. Eso sin mencionar los problemas energéticos que enfrenta el país.

De hecho, el embajador de Estados Unidos en Chile, Paul Simons, manifestó ayer que durante la visita de Rice -que llega al mediodía y regresa a Estados Unidos esta misma noche- uno de los temas de cooperación que se tratarán globalmente será el energético. "La diversificación energética ha sido muy clave para Estados Unidos: energías alternativas, energía nuclear, eólica... hay toda una serie de oportunidades para diversificar las fuentes de energía", dijo.

Check out the whole article here from El Mercurio.

Here's a recent photo of Rice:

Rice is traveling with Paul Simons, the U.S. ambassador to Chile. Seems like a nice guy.

2008-03-12T07:53:00.002-05:00

Hillary's race against time

This piece by Camille Paglia caught my attention. Is Hillary bad for women in politics?

By Camille Paglia

March 12, 2008 | Greetings from ground zero -- the Philadelphia suburbs where the epic battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may be decided in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary on April 22. Current scuttlebutt -- a frail reed in this mercurial race -- is that the multiracial metropolises of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will go for Obama, while the vast rural and small-town heartland will endorse Clinton, whose family roots are in coal-country Scranton.

I saw the first Hillary signs going up this week: a thin, white-haired, but very determined elderly lady was trying to wrestle one into the ground near zipping traffic on a county highway. I thought, "Hmm ... Hillary's demographic?" Obama is certainly a darling of youth, the wave of the future. If he has failed thus far to reach working-class whites, it's because he's a dewy and somewhat reserved newcomer on the national stage. Ruggedly stumping Hillary, warts and all, is a known commodity. Obama's effect has been heaviest on the information class -- journalists, academics and white-collar professionals chained to computers and surfing the Web all day. He's been a flickering media phenomenon for everyone except attendees at his electrifying mass rallies. What's militated against Obama is simply time. The more he is known, the bigger his gains.

Here's the link to the full article.

2007-12-17T16:41:00.000-05:00

Stung in Miami
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
December 17, 2007; Page A20
Argentina isn't conscientious about paying its debts, but maybe that's about to change under freshly inaugurated President Cristina Kirchner. Two news items that broke last week suggest that her government may be running a hefty tab with President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and is earnestly trying to repay him.

The U.S. Justice Department alleged on Wednesday that Mrs. Kirchner's recent election campaign was the destination for $800,000 in cash shipped south in a suitcase from Mr. Chávez in August. If true, it would confirm what many Argentines have long suspected: that Argentina, under former President Nestor Kirchner and now his wife, has been leased out to the Venezuelan strongman in much the same way that Bolivia and Nicaragua have come under Mr. Chavez's influence.

This is grim not only for Argentine democracy. If members of the Organization of American States are indeed on Mr. Chávez's payroll, it would explain why the Washington-based multilateral organization, charged with defending democracy, has been so timid with the anti-democratic Venezuelan president.

It also raises questions about whether Mrs. Kirchner was acting in good faith last week when she met with Mr. Chávez's sworn enemy in South America, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, to discuss the plight of French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and 44 others held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Mrs. Kirchner went on the offensive last week, charging that the U.S. sting operation was "garbage." But the feds may have the goods. Recall that the bagman carrying the $800,000 returned to his home in Florida after being released by the Argentine authorities. The U.S. attorney in Miami says that three Venezuelans and an Uruguayan acted as foreign agents when they traveled to the U.S. to try to silence him "in an effort to keep the lid on a burgeoning international scandal."

Given the nonchalance with which the smuggler approached his task, it is not hard to fathom that the transaction was considered routine by Venezuela and that he was only an unlucky one who got caught. The Argentine daily La Nación revealed last summer that Venezuelan aircraft and personnel regularly land and bypass customs inspections at Jorge Newberry Airport in Buenos Aires.

Mrs. Kirchner would owe Mr. Chávez a lot if he did indeed underwrite her campaign. So perhaps that explains the pro-Chávez attitude she took last Tuesday toward Colombia's hostage issue when she met with President Uribe in Buenos Aires. Rather than endorse the 1949 Geneva Convention and, as Chilean President Michelle Bachelet did recently, call for the FARC to immediately release its victims without conditions, Mrs. Kirchner pressured the Colombian head of state to be more forthcoming. In other words, she took the same line as Mr. Chávez and the FARC, insisting that Mr. Uribe is the barrier to progress.

Mrs. Kirchner may have domestic political reasons for avoiding the subject of the Geneva Convention. Her government -- and her husband's before her -- relies on allies, advisers and cabinet members who are former members of Argentine terror groups that made a living from kidnapping in the 1970s. If the FARC is guilty of violating the convention, so too are many kirchneristas.

If she has a debt with Mr. Chávez, she now has an additional motivation for trying to place blame on Mr. Uribe rather than the terrorists. Mr. Chávez makes no secret of his support for the FARC or his enmity for Mr. Uribe. The FARC leadership hangs out in Caracas and runs its drugs through Mr. Chávez's backyard. If he wanted to free the hostages for purely humanitarian reasons, he could have already done so. The guerrillas need passage through Venezuelan territory and could be brought to heel anytime Mr. Chávez wants.

Mr. Uribe may have made a big mistake by even considering a hostage negotiation with the FARC. The rebels have never suggested that they are interested in peace. They want to trade their "political" captives -- police, soldiers, politicians and three American contractors -- for a strategic gain that will enhance the efficiency of their narcotics and kidnapping businesses. In light of this reality, Mr. Uribe would have been better off sticking to a policy of no talks with terrorists.

But the Colombian government is under intense pressure from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and hostage family members, so he gambled on opening a dialogue. He took an even bigger risk by agreeing to allow Mr. Chávez to act as a negotiator. The Venezuelan president almost immediately violated the ground rules by attempting to talk directly with the military. His goal was to secure the guerrillas' No. 1 demand, a new rebel territory guaranteed free of Colombian forces. Mr. Uribe promptly and wisely fired the Venezuelan "negotiator," but now he finds himself under renewed pressure from Mrs. Kirchner to do more to satisfy the demands of the narcotraffickers.

According to local news reports, in her meeting with Mr. Uribe, Mrs. Kirchner showed no appreciation of Colombia's latest concession to the FARC, to allow an internationally observed, demilitarized zone of 150 square kilometers for 30 days in order to exchange 500 FARC insurgents that the government holds for the hostages. The FARC has also ignored the offer.

Nor does the Argentine president seem interested in getting to the bottom of the "suitcase affair." Instead, an enraged Mrs. Kirchner went before television cameras last week and played the gender card. "This president may be a woman but she is not going to allow herself to be pressured," she said in reference to U.S. antipathy toward her friend, Mr. Chávez.

Her attitude can't be too comforting to Colombians, men or women, who live with the FARC terror that Mr. Chávez and now Mrs. Kirchner want to appease.

2007-12-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

Meet the Kirchners Print Mail
Meet the Kirchners...
For the full article go to: http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26983,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

By Mark Falcoff
Posted: Thursday, October 18, 2007

ARTICLES
The American Interest (November/December 2007)
Publication Date: November 1, 2007

Mark Falcoff
He is a popular president, the former governor of rather backward state, who completes his tenure in office with the highest approval rating in memory. She is an ambitious lawyer with an agenda and following of her own, who leverages her celebrity and her husband's popularity into a Senate seat representing a state other than her own. After a relatively brief time in office she, too, decides to run for president. Although not without political liabilities, few doubt she can win her party's nomination. And as of this writing, polls show no opposition candidate likely to defeat her.

The couple in question is not Bill and Hillary Clinton--though it well might be--but Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Argentina's newest power couple. Virtually unknown a mere five years ago to most Argentines, let alone to the world at large, their audacity, ruthlessness and a fortuitous convergence of domestic and international factors have tempted the Kirchners to imagine themselves ruling one of South America's most important countries for the indefinite future.

2007-12-10T18:37:00.000-05:00

Cristina sworn in as president of Argentina
From today's La Tercera...

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner juró como nueva Presidenta de Argentina en un traspaso de poder inédito en la región, cuando su esposo le cedió el gobierno de un país con un robusto crecimiento económico pero con el desafío de controlar la inflación.

Ante la presencia de líderes de todo el continente, Fernández, de 54 años, juró a las 15:09 horas como la primera Mandataria mujer surgida de las urnas en la historia argentina.

Tras el juramento del vicepresidente Julio Cobos, su esposo, el saliente Presidente Néstor Kirchner, le dio un cariñoso abrazo y le hizo entrega de la banda presidencial.

"Vengo a tomar posesión del cargo de Presidenta de la República Argentina. Ser Presidente es el honor más grande que puede tener un argentino o una argentina", enfatizó Fernández al iniciar su primer discurso como Mandataria.

2007-11-12T17:44:00.000-05:00

The XVII Cumbre Iberoamericana in Santiago turns into circus, Bachelet gets bad reviews

The XVII Cumbre Iberoamericana in Santiago was quite the circus thanks to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The most memorable incident was when he provoked the King of Spain who told him to "shut up."

Chávez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage hosted a parallel conference in the National Stadium for leftists on Saturday. I think I could have gone had I known about it. I am still kicking myself, because I did not read any pre-announcement in the papers -- I just read about it after it happened! Apparently there was no security, and anyone could have entered. It lasted all day on Saturday, and the highlight, according to the local press, was when Chávez talked to Castro on his cellphone in front of the crowd of 4,000. (They were expecting a much larger crowd.)

Overall, Bachelet got bad reviews from the press who said she was "visibly uncomfortable" in her role as the hostess-moderator. She struggled to control Chavez's crazy comments and rude behavior. But when the King of Spain left during Ortega's speech, Bachelet followed him and convinced him to return to the conference.

Because of the Transantiago disaster (which is improving slowly), her popularity is quite low. Many people still love her as a person, but disapprove of her performance. Others say she does not have a good team of ministers. She has had to shuffle her cabinet a few times, and I think that at this moment, the cabinet is not 50/50 in terms of gender like it was at the beginning of her term. So I am a little disappointed.

The other fascinating point (in terms of media) was when President-elect Cristina Kirchner appeared with Bachelet before the conference from a balcony on La Moneda! (I thought -- "I want to write my doctoral dissertation on these women!") I was not there either, but I just read about it in the newspapers!

Apparently Cristina arrived two hours late, and she had very VERY important people waiting for her. I read that when she got off the plane, she decided to go back to her hotel to primp instead of going directly to meet Bachelet! She changes her clothes at least three times a day. Her style is very different from Bachelet's. The Supermodel vs. Supermadre!

2007-10-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

CRISTINA KIRCHNER: FIRST WOMAN ELECTED PRESIDENT IN ARGENTINA!

...But she is not the first woman president of Argentina! Isabel Perón was Juan Perón's vice-president, and she became the first woman president of Argentina when her husband died.

Here's some news from La Tercera

Tras el último cómputo realizado en Argentina, la candidata oficialista Cristina Fernández de Kirchner se confirmaba como ganadora de las elecciones presidenciales al sumar el 44,6 por ciento de los votos, escrutado el 94,60 por ciento de las mesas de votación, informó el Ministerio del Interior transandino.

La candidata de la Coalición Cívica (CC), Elisa Carrió, se consolidó en tanto en el segundo lugar con el 23,00 por ciento de los votos, mientras que el ex ministro de Economía Roberto Lavagna, de Una Nación Avanzada (UNA), quedó relegado en el tercer puesto con el 16,9 por ciento, de acuerdo con el escrutinio.

El candidato del Frente Justicia, Unión y Libertad (Frejuli), Alberto Rodríguez Saá, quedó en el cuarto lugar con el 7,7 por ciento de los votos.

"Hemos ganado ampliamente, tal vez con la mayor diferencia entre la primera fuerza y la segunda desde el advenimiento de la democracia", manifestó anoche Fernández tras confirmarse su triunfo. Y agregó que "esto (la amplia ventaja), lejos de colocarnos en alguna posición de privilegio, al contrario, nos coloca en un lugar de mayor responsabilidad y obligaciones por la confianza que nos han depositado los argentinos", puntualizó.

2007-10-26T12:57:00.000-05:00

Argentine elections Sunday!

Argentinians will cast this presidential votes this Sunday, Oct. 28! First lady and Senator Cristina Fernandez is WAY ahead in the polls and will most likely coast to victory.

Check out previous entries on Cristina and the links to the Argentine newspapers on the right of this page!

2007-10-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

Bachelet to propose gender quota bill

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said she will propose a gender quota law favoring women for next year's municipal elections.

Here are excerpts from La Tercera:
Ante alcaldesas y concejalas de todo Chile la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet anunció que el próximo lunes enviará al Congreso el proyecto de Ley de Cuotas, que exigirá un piso mínimo de candidatas mujeres a cargos políticos en las próximas elecciones municipales.

"Esperamos que en las elecciones del próximo año contemos con una ley que permita que sean muchas más las candidatas a concejalas y alcaldesas, y por eso que el día lunes con la ministra del Sernam vamos a estar enviando al Parlamento un proyecto de ley que permita tener las mejores condiciones para que las mujeres opten a cargos populares", explicó la jefa de Estado.

Esta iniciativa había sido esbozada anteriormente en el viaje que hizo la Mandataria a Quito, Ecuador.

En el marco de la ceremonia de inauguración del encuentro nacional de alcaldesas y concejalas, la Presidenta remarcó que el desafío país es "cómo lograr que más mujeres estén en la política y estén en cargos de representación popular y poder vencer todos los obstáculos que se producen cotidianamente para lograr, por ejemplo, ser candidatas".

2007-10-09T09:09:00.000-05:00

Watching “futbol” in Santiago de Chile…
CHI-CHI-CHI, LE-LE-LE! UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE

I’ve become an Universidad de Chile soccer fan (thanks to a new special someone in my life …), and I went to my first professional soccer game on Saturday October 6: Universidad de Chile vs. Palestino.

Palestino scored a goal very early in the game, but the Universidad de CHI-CHI-CHI, LE-LE-LE scored three beautiful goals to win the match 3-1!

A few observations:
1. Chilean fans chant throughout the entire match. They beat drums and wave their right hand – something that no one does in the U.S. Americans tend to clap their hands while Chilean swing their right forearm to the beat.

See what I mean?

2. The vast majority of fans at the game in Santiago were male. In the U.S., the crowd tends to be more evenly divided between men and women.

3. There’s a surprisingly large amount of pot smoking at professional soccer games in Chile. (Of course, I am deriving a broad generalization from my sole Chilean soccer experience.) You can smell it everywhere. This surprised me particularly because there were so many carabineros, or cops, present. I suppose the carabineros have decided that it is enough work to thwart any fan violence … marijuana is a tolerable offense.

4. Chilean fans tend to weave foul language into their chants, but one of my favorite “clean” chants is: !Vamos a romper el estadio de Pinochet! We are going to tear down Pinochet’s stadium! (Apparently the stadium was built during the dictatorship…)

5. There is something delightfully simple about a Chilean soccer match. These battles are a far cry from U.S. professional sports which tend to be overwhelmed by flashing lights, billboards, commercials, advertisements … in short, stimuli overload. Without these distracting additions, Chilean soccer matches are more focused on the essential beauty of the encounter: 22 players running their hearts out across a lush green field. May Pepsi and Nike never invade a Chilean stadium!

2007-08-25T10:44:00.000-05:00

Cristina Kirchner -- the "Hillary Clinton of Argentina" -- looks strong in presidential polls

Spanish language television station Univision is reporting that Argentina's current Kirchner administration is enjoying an incredible 71 percent approval rating.

http://www.univision.com/contentroot/wirefeeds/50noticias/7216775.html

If the elections were held today, Senator and First Lady Cristina Kirchner would easily slid to victory in the first round with 49 percent of the popular vote. To win in the first round, candidates need only 45 percent of the vote.

Argentine presidential elections are slated for October 28. Stay tuned!

2007-08-24T15:32:00.000-05:00

Bachelet demonstrates unifying leadership
Chilean newspapers are buzzing about President Bachelet's attempt to unite the left and right in an effort to promote equality. To me, it is refreshing to see this kind of attempt to gather Chile's brightest and most powerful around a common goal, but today's La Tercera editorial expressed doubts about the efficiency of Bachelet's proposed "Equity Commission."

For English readers, check out today's Santiago Times lead story. Spanish readers should check out La Tercera. (See links on the right of this page.)

BACHELET INCLUDES POLITICAL RIVALS ON CHILE’S EQUITY COMMISSION

“One Does Not Say 'No' To Chile” Says President, As She Calls For Co-Operation Among Members.

(Aug. 24, 2007) Chilean President Michelle Bachelet appointed 48 Chileans on Thursday to serve on the government’s Equity Commission and tasked them to come up with concrete proposals to counter the nation’s dismal income disparities by no later than March, 2008.

Politicians of all political stripes, including former right-wing presidential candidate Joaquín Lavín, will be participating on the commission, as well as academics, economists, labor leaders , business leaders and religious officials.

2007-08-24T15:26:00.000-05:00

Read a review of this blog
Check out a review of this blog:
http://c.hileno.com/2007/08/catherine-housholder-chile-blogger.html

What do you think of it?

2007-08-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

Found a apartment, two jobs

Blogger's Note: I recently found an apartment and two jobs in Santiago de Chile. If anyone in cyberspace would like information about teaching English in Santiago, do not hesitate to contact me. I would love to answer any questions.

Bachelet's approval rating is still in the low 40s, and billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera is positioning himself as a presidential candidate for 2010. He recently gave up leadership of Chilean airline LAN.

2007-07-31T05:51:00.000-05:00

Leaving for Santiago de Chile today

Blogger's Note: I'm leaving for Santiago de Chile today, and once I get settled, I'll try to blog regularly about Chilean culture and politics.

2007-07-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

Argentine first lady could be model for Hillary

As published in The News-Sun, The Evening Star and Herald Republican on July 5, 2007

By Catherine Housholder

They are calling her the Hillary Clinton of Argentina.

The Argentine press is buzzing with news that its first lady — Sen. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — will officially announce her presidential bid July 19.

The Kirchner couple’s ample popularity means Cristina is the favorite among a pack of power-hungry male competitors. Cristina’s husband, Nestor, is more popular, but either Kirchner would slide past any other candidate, according to recent polls.

Cristina wouldn’t be Argentina’s first female president. Because of the musical and the Hollywood movie starring Madonna, many in the United States remember the conservative populist Juan Perón and his media starlet wife, Eva (lovingly nicknamed Evita) who died while Perón was in office. In 1955, President Perón was ousted by a military coup (an unfortunately frequent occurrence in 20th century Latin America). He went into exile and years later returned with a new wife and running mate — Isabel.

The couple won the presidency in 1973. When Perón died in 1974, vice president Isabel inherited the office but she so badly mismanaged the country that the military overthrew her as well in 1976.

So much for female presidents.

Yet recent developments suggest a brighter future for female heads of state in the Southern Cone. (The Southern Cone refers to southernmost countries of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, which look like they form the bottom part of an ice cream cone.)

Chile’s first female president, Michelle Bachelet, cruised to victory in the nation’s fourth consecutive democratic elections last year and today rules a prosperous country. She enchanted the public with her maternal warmth. She is an average public speaker and a mediocre debater compared to other heads of states.

But Bacheletismo isn’t about defeating your opponents with verbal swordplay. It’s all about horizontal leadership and understanding the concerns and emotions of Chilean citizens. The recent Chilean presidential election can be summed up in one sentence: Chileans no longer wanted a father but a mother to run their national household.

While Michelle represented the “average” woman — a plump and single mother of three — Cristina invented the glamorous, supermodel politician, as much as any 54-year-old could. She is famous for her mascara and shiny long hair as well as her fierce, intense, populist speeches that are captivating Argentine audiences.

Despite her overused cosmetics, Cristina comes off as a fighter — much like Hillary. To compensate for her gender, Michelle established her toughness not with her speeches and leadership style but with her credential as Latin America’s first female defense minister.

As senators, Cristina and Hillary don’t have that kind of experience, which may be why they seem to intentionally assume masculine leadership qualities.

Since the Argentine elections are this October, Hillary can study the Argentine bid and learn from it. She should continue to examine the U.S. public and gauge whether it wants her to soften or toughen up. Should she go conciliatory maternal or combative beauty queen?

A win for the Argentine senator/starlet would mean Hillary would have a choice: Groom her image to become either the “Michelle” or “Cristina” of the United States.

Catherine Housholder is a summer reporter for this newspaper. She can be contacted at catherineh@kpcnews.net.

2007-07-03T16:43:00.000-05:00

Buenos Aires Herald opines on Cristina presidential bid

Blogger note: Argentina's major English-language newspaper today offers one of the most insightful insider perspectives on Argentina's first lady, Cristina's, run for the presidency.

Now that the “male or female penguin” doubts have finally been laid to rest in favour of first lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s presidential candidacy, the question becomes — is this queen gambit the first move in a dynastic strategy or is President Néstor Kirchner passing on a poisoned chalice? Conventional wisdom long had it that the Cristina Kirchner candidacy was a fair-weather experiment which would give way in favour of her more experienced and established husband if the going grew tough — now the going has grown tough with mounting problems and a series of electoral defeats feeding each other but the result is confirmation of the first lady’s candidacy.

Many pundits have long maintained that it defies human nature for anybody to accumulate power as relentlessly as Kirchner over the last four years, only to give it away, but Kirchner is not necessarily parting company with either human nature or self-interest with this latest move. The situation has changed dramatically since the arrival of winter with an acute energy crisis, soaring prices (with INDEC statistics bureau’s fiddling fooling nobody) and a fiscal balance which is almost as artificial as the price data. Since exactly a month ago the government has lost four elections in two areas very close to Kirchner’s heart — namely the two rounds in the national capital and two provinces in his native Patagonia (Neuquén and Tierra del Fuego) — with last Sunday (the day the first lady’s candidacy was defined) providing a fifth setback in the form of the Santa Fe Peronist primaries.

Here the Lower House Majority Leader and Kirchner ultra-loyalist Agustín Rossi barely won half the votes of Rafael Bielsa, also a deputy on government benches but belonging to the ranks of Kirchner’s ex-ministers (like the leading opposition presidential candidate Roberto Lavagna) — the only consolation for the government in Sunday’s primary voting was the defeat in La Pampa of ex-governor Rubén Marín (identified with the Carlos Menem presidency since most of his four terms in office overlapped with that period). In this context a Kirchner re-election would limit his horizons to an increasingly difficult second term — the change of face seeks to regain the initiative with the prospect of a return in better times.

Within less than a month this capital thus finds itself with both a lame-duck mayor and a lame-duck president — will it now find itself with its first female mayor (Gabriela Michetti) if mayor-elect Mauricio Macri concludes that he is the strongest national option to head off this country’s first elected female president?

2007-07-02T15:51:00.001-05:00

UPDATE ON THE CRISTINA CANDIDACY

From today's Buenos Aires Herald
Cristina candidacy made official

The Cabinet chief confirmed that the candidacy of the first lady (photo) will be launched in July 19 at a rally in her hometown La Plata, at the same place where she started her successful senatorial campaign in 2005.
Although there has been no information regarding the identity of her running mate, rumours suggest that her vice-presidential candidate could come from among the K Radicals of the Plural Concertation built by members of different parties and ideologies who support Néstor Kirchner and his wife.
According to polls, the senator is favoured to win. However, she has considerably less support than her husband President Néstor Kirchner, who is averting running for his second term at a moment when he has a positive image of 75 percent. Surveys by the consultants CEOP and Analogías published yesterday found that around 46 percent of the electors will support Cristina’s ticket.
The opposition expects this amount to descend below the 40 percent barrier forcing Cristina Fernández to a runoff.

2007-07-01T17:20:00.000-05:00

BREAKING NEWS: CRISTINA KIRCHNER -- THE HILLARY CLINTON OF ARGENTINA -- WILL RUN FOR PRESIDENT

Report: Argentine President's Wife to Seek Presidency Bid
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 1, 2007; 11:20 AM

BUENOS AIRES, July 1 -- Argentine President Néstor Kirchner will not run for reelection in October, but his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, will run in his place, according to local news reports published Sunday.

According to unnamed official sources quoted in Argentina's Clarin newspaper, the Kirchners made the decision last week after lengthy meetings with the president's cabinet chief.

An official announcement would end more than a year of speculation about which of the Kirchners will be their Front for Victory party's candidate in this year's election, scheduled for Oct. 28. The paper reported that Cristina Kirchner, currently a senator representing Buenos Aires province, is expected to announce her candidacy during a rally later this month.

The Kirchners have not publicly discussed any reasons why the president -- who would be easily reelected, according to most polls -- would not seek a second term. But he has experienced several recent setbacks, watching endorsed allies lose elections for Buenos Aires mayor and provincial governorships in recent weeks.

Some analysts suspect she could inject new life into the party, while allowing her husband to run for re-election again in 2011. Argentine term limits prevent more than two consecutive presidential terms.

According to recent surveys, either of the Kirchners would easily win this year's election. About 52 percent of voters now have a positive image of President Kirchner, while 61 percent have a positive image of the first lady, polls show. However, the same polls showed that he would win the election by a wider margin.

***

Check out some of my previous entries on Cristina under "Latin American Women" (on right).

***

Here's Cristina and Michelle Bachelet, the current president of Chile (and the subject of my undergraduate thesis). YOU GO GIRLS!

***

One of the reasons I'm so excited about Cristina's candidacy is not that I approve of the Peronist party so much ... but I see a potential Ph.D. dissertation topic if she wins ... well even if she doesn't win, I see lots of scholarly questions popping up ...

2007-06-14T17:57:00.000-05:00

As published in The News-Sun, The Evening Star and the Herald-Republican Monday June 11

Why Hillary Clinton won’t win the presidency

By Cathering Housholder (Created: Monday, June 11, 2007 10:30 AM EDT)

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton will not win the presidency in 2008 — I doubt she’ll even win the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Despite my personal desire to someday see a woman in the White House, I predict this because I have a theory about women in politics: Female presidential candidates who are closely tied to the political establishment parties fail to win. For women, tight links to the party elite actually can hinder their presidential chances.

Two case studies support my theory: Chile’s Michelle Bachelet’s successful presidential bid in January 2006 and Ségolène Royal’s Socialist Party nomination and then presidential loss last month in France.

In Western nations, women hold roughly 10 percent of the nationally-elected posts. Since so few women are represented in politics, they are often viewed as inherent agents of change. This is a potential strength for female candidates: When voters want reform, they frequently lean to female candidates — if the parties back the women first.

Let’s start with the Chilean example: Michelle Bachelet’s resume and gender kept her on the political periphery. She had never been elected to public office, and she actually lost overwhelmingly in the only race in which she ran. She was on no political pundit’s radar screen until December 2002 when then President Ricardo Lagos named her the first female defense minister in Latin America.

The leftist coalition, the Concertación, has ruled Chile since brutal dictator Pinochet stepped down in 1990. The coalition has overseen a prosperous economy, peaceful foreign relations and increased democratization ever since. Yet in order to sell yet another Concertación candidate to the public (Bachelet is the fourth consecutive head-of-state from that coalition), the left had to nominate someone who could re-energize the public. The novelty of a female candidacy sparked intense interest among Chilean voters and journalists.

Emphasizing her maternal qualities and compassion for the marginalized, Bachelet ran an unconventional campaign, zipped to the top of national polls, captured her party’s nomination and soundly defeated two formidable male contenders. This all happened in a nation once deemed by scholars as one of the most conservative in Latin America.

Now on to France: As the wife of Socialist Party head François Hollande, Ségolène Royal was more of a political insider than Bachelet. With legislative and executive experience under her Chanel belt, she was arguably more prepared for the post than her Chilean counterpart.

Royal also graduated from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) — the graduate institution churns out future CEO’s, senators and presidents. A snobby l’ENA degree is generally a brand of uber-elitism and even a touch of conservatism.

So despite her gender which could have stamped her as a political outsider, Royal was the establishment candidate — a strategic weakness rather than asset. Many complained that her campaign lacked innovation, and that was a major reason why she fell to the rightist candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s second round of presidential voting last month.

A bundle of energy, Sarkozy’s win signals a national desire for change in France, a country plagued by economic and social crises partially related to its failure to assimilate immigrant populations. Perhaps had Royal run a more reform-based campaign or played up her gender-related comparative advantage on the change issue, she may have become France’s first female president.

As for Hillary, her fate will be decided soon, and if she stays the course, she is bound to fall to Obama. Should Hillary ever hire me as her adviser, I would tell her to:

1. Get maternal. Her gender is an important asset which will differentiate her from other candidates. Played up in the right way, it can serve as a critical political weapon. “I am a mother. I care about the families who have suffered the loss of their sons and daughters in Iraq.” It’s the female version of her husband’s “I feel your pain.”

2. Distance yourself from your husband. As a former president he represents the political establishment, and since Americans want reform, the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sequence turns many off. Emphasizing her female identity rather than her affiliation with her husband could soften the anti-Clinton backlash.

3. Do everything possible to appear less power-hungry: Frequently quoted as never actively having sought the presidency, Bachelet’s unambitious demeanor mesmerized the Chilean public. It’s time to get warm, Hillary — not spicy, just a little earthy. A cold, calculated political image does not jive with popular female stereotypes and will lead to political suicide.

If Hillary takes these tips to heart and starts feeling everyone’s pain, she may become the first female president in U.S. history. But so far, it appears as if the Hillary image that continues to stick in Americans’ minds is that of the second-Clinton. Since she comes off as the VIP of the political establishment (which she is, of course) and voted for the Iraq war (does she really regret the vote?), the U.S. will have to wait until 2012 for the next viable female presidential candidate.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for president, anyone?

CATHERINE HOUSHOLDER has studied and worked in both Chile and France. Her e-mail address is catherineh@kpcnews.net

2007-05-28T19:20:00.000-05:00

Shakira not planning on marrying De La Rua next year

From Chile's La Tercera:

El ex Presidente argentino Fernando de la Rúa desmintió que su hijo Antonio planee casarse con la cantante colombiana Shakira en septiembre próximo, tras los rumores divulgados en los últimos días, informaron medios locales.

"No, cada dos o tres meses inventan alguna cosa", respondió De la Rúa, al ser consultado por las versiones que aseguraban que la pareja se casaría en la mansión que la intérprete tiene en República Dominicana.

En una entrevista publicada ayer por el dominical argentino Perfil, el ex mandatario sostuvo que la relación entre su hijo y la artista colombiana "es excelente".

"Ella es una gran chica, la queremos mucho", resaltó el ex jefe de Estado, quien renunció a su cargo en diciembre de 2001, en medio de una profunda crisis social y económica que atravesó el país.

2007-05-28T18:40:00.000-05:00

Bachelet visits Europe

La Tercera, The Santiago Times and MercoPress are reporting that Bachelet is slated to visit with the Finnish, Norwegian and Swiss heads of state.

2007-04-22T22:32:00.002-05:00

All about Rigoberta: Menchu photos/update

Here is a photo I took at the recent talk by Guatemalan presidential candidate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú. The speech took place at Amherst, a college near Smith.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs also published an update on the Menchú candidacy. Check out the whole thing.
Can “Nobel Prize” Rigoberta Menchú Stand Up to Guatemala’s Corruption, Military Arrogance and Self-Serving Political and Economic Elites?
# Rigoberta Menchú has the potential to advance the cause of the disenfranchised Guatemalan indigenous population and bring their oppressors to justice.
# While Menchú’s platform includes noble and certainly necessary goals, it will have to be part of a larger national program which encompasses the problems faced by far more than half the country’s indigenous peoples, if it is to be successful.
# Though Rigoberta Menchú may be an outsider in traditional Guatemalan politics, politics as usual is the last thing that most Guatemalans need.

Taking the packed public bus for three hours daily from Antigua to Guatemala City and back, one hears many contrasting views about Guatemala’s human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and now presidential candidate Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

2007-04-16T09:26:00.000-05:00

Chilean Youth Protests Similar to Spring 2006 Parisian Student Demonstrations

The Santiago Times had a great story yesterday about the recent student protests in Chile.

CHILE'S DISAFFECTED YOUTH TURN TO STREET VIOLENCE

Writes Nathan Crooks, The Santiago Times.

(April 14, 2007) Santiago does not see the gang warfare often associated with American or Brazilian cities, but the city’s streets are becoming increasingly violent. In May of 2006, widespread student protests rocked the city, and the government of newly elected Michelle Bachelet suffered its first major setback.

The street violence returned on the September 11 anniversary of the 1973 military coup led by Augusto Pinochet and also started up again shortly after the former dictator died in December of last year.

2007-04-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

Finished with Thesis

I finished my thesis on Friday. I argued that gender stereotypes both helped and hurt the Bachelet campaign, but overall she won the election because she was able to use popular conceptions of women to her advantage.

If anyone is interesting in hearing more, email me at choushol@email.smith.edu or catherinehousholder@gmail.com.

I am slated to defend my thesis next Friday. I am presenting it at Celebrating Collaborations at Smith College on Saturday April 21.

2007-04-01T10:21:00.000-05:00

Report on the Rigoberta Menchu lecture forthcoming ...

I am swamped with my thesis work. I did attend the lecture, and I promise photos an a full report once I catch my breath!

- Catherine Housholder

2007-03-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

Blogging Moratorium

Due to my rapidly-approaching thesis deadline, I will no longer be blogging daily. Please kindly anticipate sporatic blogging efforts.

Thank you,
Catherine Housholder

2007-03-22T16:57:00.000-05:00

Rigoberta Menchú coming to Amherst

Rigoberta Menchú-Tum will speak on March 29 at Amherst, one of Smith's neighboring colleges. I will definitely take photos and report on the event in the same manner as I did for the Cardoso lecture a few weeks ago.

More on Menchú later ...

2007-03-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

Cristina hopping around Latin America to build presidential credentials

From MercoPress

Argentina’s First Lady, Senator Cristina Fernandez and a serious candidate to succeed her husband if President Nestor Kirchner finally does not run for reelection next October, is back on the international trail on a high exposure tour.
Next Tuesday Mrs Kirchner will be flying to Ecuador and Venezuela for a four days visit with the purpose of strengthening her profile as a possible presidential candidate following on a recent “successful” experience in France.

In Ecuador the Argentine First Lady will be visiting the country’s two main cities, Quito the capital and Guayaquil, and is scheduled to meet with President Rafael Correa at least on two occasions, with the purpose of advancing of strategic cooperation in such areas as agriculture, food and production.

A particularly interesting issue will be Mrs Kirchner’s conference on Argentina’s post default experience and drastic debt relief program when the Kirchner administration finally managed to convince most creditors to accept a 75% face value reduction on defaulted sovereign bonds.

Here's the full story.

2007-03-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post opines on
Bush's Latin American Tour

Help Colombia
Alvaro Uribe gets blamed for the success of his own reforms.

Thursday, March 15, 2007; Page A18

MUCH OF President Bush's tour of Latin America was haunted by what his administration has failed to accomplish during the past six years. In Brazil, the shadow was the absence of progress on trade between the United States and Latin America's largest country; in Mexico, the absence of immigration reform. The mood of the president's stop in the third-largest country on his tour, Colombia, was somber, too -- but, oddly enough, because of his policy's success, not its failure.

Since the beginning of this decade the United States has invested nearly $5 billion in Plan Colombia, a broad attempt to reduce drug trafficking and violence through military aid, economic development and drug eradication. From the beginning, skeptics in Congress have grumbled that the program was too focused on military measures and that it did not go after the right-wing paramilitary groups that were often linked to the military.

Check out the full story.

2007-03-14T12:39:00.000-05:00

Georgie Geyer opines on Bush trip to Latin America

In the next few days, I am going to offer additional analysis of U.S.-Latin American relations and specifically on President Bush's recent five-nation trip to Latin America.

My favorite foreign correspondent, Georgie Anne Geyer, opined on the Bush trip to Latin America. I'm posting the entire article because it's so insightful.

Geyer is highly critical of Bush's invasion of Iraq and believes his trip to Latin America is too late. She believes the war in Iraq already generated an immense amount of anti-imperialism, anti-U.S. sentiment, and Bush really has little to offer the Latins.

WASHINGTON -- Watching President and Mrs. Bush crisscross Latin America, I found myself almost overwhelmed by my own memories from some decades ago, when we foreign correspondents were doing our "first writings" of history there.

Most vivid in my mind was a night in September 1964, when the popular and thoughtful Eduardo Frei was elected to the presidency in Chile, auguring a new era with his progressive Christian Democrat Party. But the black-haired, intensely Catholic Frei also had new ideas about true independence in the Southern Hemisphere, and he immediately challenged the Latins' propensity to put the blame for everything on those old "Yanquis."

"We ought to have a word in the world because we have our own personality," Frei said that night, to thunderous applause. "We ought to be independent not only economically, but spiritually. If we always look outside for our blame, that is in itself a form of dependence. We must look for our own blame to find our own personality."

These were daring words at that time, words that challenged the traditional Latins' ideas about self-reliance and dependence, and about themselves and the "Colossus of the North." And as a matter of fact, there were plenty of things to blame the "gringos" for.

The United States had moved, often unthinkingly, to humiliate the Latins (taking the surrender of Spain away from the Cubans during the Spanish-American war of 1898, for instance, one of many events that enraged Fidel Castro and his generation of revolutionaries) and even to assassinate many of their most progressive leaders, particularly in Central America. American trade policies were often Neanderthal, mulcting the natural wealth of the Southern Hemisphere and denying the region the most minimal of fair trade policies.

But that was only part of the story. There was also FDR's great "Good Neighbor Policy," which, to waves of approval across Latin America, abjured America's former interventionism in the hemisphere and treated the Latins as such good neighbors that most Latin countries fought with the Allies in the forthcoming war. Nor will virtually any Latin forget JFK's "Alianza para el Progreso," which then inspired the Latins to sponsor and support their own development.

Those were halcyon years in the hemisphere -- until President Kennedy died and President Johnson tragically dismissed the program, triggering another sad gyration of the north/south relationship.

So, what was George W. Bush doing this time around in Latin America, as he visited Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico (all "friendly" countries)? With so many now embracing the new socialist left (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua in the lead), was this American president able to pull off an FDR or a JFK?

Unfortunately, no. In Latin America, as in so many other parts of the world, Bush's obsession with Iraq has been not only highly unpopular, but it has carried his attention, as the super-sensitive Latins well know, far away from his "brothers" to the south. But more than this, for the first time in hemispheric history outside of Cuba, Latin America is breaking down into ruling administrations that are inextricably opposed to the United States on every level.

When Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez roused the masses at a soccer stadium in Argentina while the Bushes were in Uruguay, he was not just demonstrating his strident anti-Americanism. He was seriously proclaiming a new anti-American ideological commitment for many Latins: "21st-Century Socialism." He has already decreed that some of the foreign oil company operations in Venezuela must be handed over to the state-owned oil company by May l.

Don't doubt for a moment that Chavez represents something new: Unlike his pal Fidel Castro, who seized power in Cuba, Chavez has been elected three times, and his cohorts in the other leftist-ruled countries have also been elected. So we have not classic dictatorships but elected caudillos who want to set up a Latin American bund of states wholly against the United States and everything it stands for.

In response to this, President Bush had little to offer -- he was like the suitor who came too late. In Brazil, he praised the fact that 70 percent of the cars run on ethanol (uniquely made of sugar cane), but unless American tariffs are reduced, a biofuel partnership with Brazil will never come about. In Colombia, he found a country where more than $5 billion in U.S. aid has gone in the last six years -- for anti-guerrilla military, not developmental, support. The president insisted, often pettishly, that the Latins should be more grateful. In Guatemala, Mayan leaders said before the trip that they would spiritually cleanse the areas where Bush visited after he left. So much for gratitude.

Latin America is not "lost," if indeed it were ever ours to hold. But this trip shows the dangerous extent to which old relationships between north and south have changed. There is still plenty of Eduardo Frei's "blame" on the Latin side, but still few genuine answers on the American side.

2007-03-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

One year after the Bachelet election: How is Chile's first female president performing?

The Santiago Times has a great lead story evaluating Bachelet's first year in office.

CHILE’S BACHELET MARKS FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH MIXED RECORD

(March 12, 2007) Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first woman president, marked the first year anniversary of her government on Sunday. A darling of the international press, her presidency garnered unprecedented interest abroad by championing her liberal values in what was once South America’s most conservative country. Still, she completes her first year with a mixed record.

Bachelet promoted human rights, made advances in the health and education sectors of the country, and also continued Chile’s aggressive economic expansion by pursuing new free-trade deals all over the world.

But Bachelet’s first 365 days were much more complex at home. The sometimes embattled leader lived through grueling student protests, corruption scandals, the death of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, a heated debate on reproductive rights, and a hugely criticized public transit overhaul in Santiago.

Do check out the entire story.

2007-03-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

How much progress are Latin American women in politics making?

After celebrating International Women's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to note that lots of Latin American heads-of-state are naming women to elite cabinet positions.

An Associated Press story from earlier this year details Latin American women's ministerial progress. Of all positions, females are often assigned the the defense minister posts. Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador all have female defense ministers. Kudos to the southern cone!

(At left) Current Chilean president Michelle Bachelet was the first female defense minister in Latin America. Here she is with former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled.

By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
South America's leaders are increasingly naming women as their defense ministers, putting them in charge of keeping the peace in nations still grappling with legacies of military dictatorships.

The wave of female defense heads one-third of the posts in South America are filled by women is especially surprising in a hemisphere known for its machismo.

But analysts say Latin America is changing fast, as newly elected leftist leaders across the region are reaching out to appoint women to Cabinet posts.

Chile's first female president filled half her cabinet with women upon taking office last March. Ecuador's new president Rafael Correa assigned women seven of 17 cabinet posts earlier this month. Other leaders regionwide have named women to key posts in the Economy, Interior and Defense Ministries.

Some observers say those are signs of maturity in once shaky democracies that traditionally were dominated by men, as the women filling the roles have moved quickly to make their presence felt.

In Argentina, leftist Nilda Garre was appointed as the country's first female minister of defense in November 2005, 30 years after coup-plotting generals helped install a dictatorship.

On Friday, she announced that former military officers could no longer use the cloak of state secrecy laws as an excuse not to testify about illegal abductions, torture and disappearances under junta rule.

"The rules of secrecy cannot be transformed into an obstacle to truth and justice," she said in announcing a presidential decree that will compel more officers to testify. Hundreds of cases of rights violations from Argentina's "Dirty War" are now being investigated since the country's amnesty laws were struck down in 2005.

Across the Andes, Chilean Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot was booed loudly when she went as the government's envoy to the military funeral for ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died in December.

"Go away, go away!" hundreds of Pinochet's mourners chanted.

But Blanlot stayed put, not twitching a muscle. "I was not the one who had to leave, but them," she said. "I'm the one who is in charge."

Blanlot's predecessor, Michele Bachelet, a socialist and former torture victim, faced similar challenges as defense minister. But she parlayed public respect for her role into her election in January 2005 as Chile's first woman president.

Following her inauguration, Bachelet named 10 men and 10 women to her cabinet, including Blanlot, and she promised equal numbers of men and women in some 300 decision-making posts.

In Uruguay, Defense Minister Azucena Berruti, a socialist and lawyer who defended political prisoners during the 1973-1985 military rule, did not hesitate to sack her army chief last year for unauthorized meetings with political foes of the president.

Correa in Ecuador named the country's first female defense minister, Guadalupe Larriva, in December. But she was killed Wednesday in a helicopter crash.

Larriva, 50, was one of seven women in a Cabinet of 17 and reportedly had the full support of the military in the fragile Andean nation. On Friday, Ecuador's leader Correa said he would seek to appoint another woman as defense minister.

2007-03-09T09:58:00.000-05:00

Latin America celebrates International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! (Actually it was yesterday, March 8.) Here's a smattering of news on how Latin Americans are celebrating.

Chile makes progress on women's rights, representation
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - One year into her mandate, Chile's first woman president has legislated the right to breast-feed in the workplace, offered greater protection against domestic violence, cracked down on alimony-dodgers and placed more women in positions of power.
But there's more to be done in this conservative country where women often earn up to 30 percent less than men, administration officials say.
The election in January 2006 of socialist Michelle Bachelet, a separated mother of three, gave women across Latin America cause for hope that the region's macho ways were changing. "Chile is no longer our fatherland - it's our motherland'' became a popular refrain.
On Thursday, Bachelet celebrated International Women's Day by promising no return "to the days when the top jobs were filled with dark suits and neckties.''
Here's the full story.

Guatemala Women Protest Bush Visit

Guatemala, Mar 8 (Prensa Latina) The traditional march in Guatemala on International Women's Day had a different nuance Thursday: rejecting the upcoming visit of US President George Bush and anti-immigrant raids in the United States.

The backdrop of the march was Sunday's arrest of 500 immigrants in a factory in Bedford, Boston, including 321 Guatemalans and 183 women, who were separated from their 100 children who were placed with strangers.

Social and popular organizations announced another protest on Saturday, on the eve of Bush' arrival to this Central American country.

A world without foreign military bases Kintto Lucas 3/9/2007

An international network for the abolition of foreign military bases has been created at a conference attended by over 1,000 activists and experts from 30 countries, which opened in Ecuador's capital city on Monday. The No Bases Network will coordinate action strategies against the more than 1,000 military bases worldwide.
Lina Cahuasquí, an activist with the Ecuador No Bases Coalition, told IPS that the No Bases Network will be "a plural, democratic space, linked to the permanent struggles of social organisations for a military-free system that is based on respect, equity, justice and a culture of peace."
The first international conference of its kind will continue until Friday, and will analyse the impact of foreign military bases and local people's struggles against their existence.

2007-03-08T00:22:00.000-05:00

Bush to travel to Latin America to contain Chavez?

I prefer to sidestep the whole Chavez-Bush antagonisms. I make an exception this time because former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda offers a great analysis of the upcoming Bush trip to Latin America about which I have already blogged.

Castaneda is an interesting guy who went to undergrad at Princeton, earned his doctorate in Paris, started out as a communist and married a Chilean woman. (Perhaps not in that order?)

By Jorge G. Castañeda

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

MEXICO CITY -- Each stop on President Bush's upcoming swing through Latin America has its own mini-agenda: ethanol and the Doha round with Brazil; a Trade Framework Agreement in Uruguay; Plan Colombia and drug enforcement in Bogotá; immigration and security with Mexico and Guatemala. But there is an overall agenda for which this trip may well represent too little, too late: Chávez containment.

The balance of forces in the region has shifted. Not only has the leftward tilt persisted -- with electoral victories in Nicaragua and Ecuador, unprecedented near-misses in Mexico and Peru, unexpected advances in Colombia -- but the Venezuelan president's influence has expanded. Hugo Chávez has found his sea legs and assembled an impressive array of tools to seduce the region. His "21st-century socialism" is a strange blend of a state-run economy, blanket social subsidies, a perpetual presidency, government by decree, and authoritarian theory and practices, as well as endless quarrels with Washington.

Here's the full story.

2007-03-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

New cause of death for Ecuador's first female defense minister

QUITO, March 2 (Reuters) - A helicopter crash that killed Ecuador's defense minister in January was caused by human error and violations in air safety procedures, according to a report by a commission of international experts released on Friday.

Defense Minister Guadalupe Larriva, her daughter and five military officials were killed on Jan. 24 when the helicopter they were traveling in collided with another helicopter and crashed near Ecuador's coast.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa called in Chilean and French aviation experts to investigate the crash after Larriva's Socialist Party raised questions about whether the crash was an accident. The commission's report, parts of which were released by the Defense Ministry, said the pilots of the two helicopters violated safety regulations by failing to keep distance and did not have sufficient training or equipment for night flights.

2007-03-06T09:05:00.000-05:00

Cardoso praises Bachelet, calls Chavez a "trouble-maker"

Story and Photo By Catherine Housholder

Former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso called Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez a "trouble-maker" and sang Chilean president Michelle Bachelet's praises.

The president spoke at Amherst College in Massachusetts last night to promote awareness of deforestation in Brazil and the importance of sugar-based ethanol energies.

"The (environmental) crisis is upon us," Cardoso said with a heavy Portugeuse accent. "The cost of inertia is greater than the cost of strong action." He pointed out that 17 percent of the Brazilian rain forest is deforested. That area is equal to about one-third of the U.S.

Cardoso blamed the problem on law enforcement.

"Often we have very good legislation, but no one takes care of the legislation," he said.

Cardoso used the example of Brazil's successful response to AIDs during his tenure as Finance Minister. The government began to promote condoms and safe sex.

"We did that brutally," Cardoso said, prompting giggles among the college-aged audience. "You can imagine in a Catholic nation ..."

Cardoso said as Finance Minister it was a difficult decision to increase spending to fight AIDs. The results were impressive, and for the neoliberal Cardoso, saving lives justified increased spending. He used the AIDs example to illustrate how Brazilians can work together effectively.

Cardoso heavily promoted sugar-based ethanol energies and questioned the U.S. laws which tax Brazilian sugar-based ethanol but did not tax crude oil. He acknowledged that it may be difficult to alter the law given the special protection demanded by U.S. farmers who produce a corn-based ethanol variety. He quote New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman who wondered why the U.S. would tax imports from its poor neighbors (Brazilian ethanol) and not tax imports from its rich enemies (Mid-East oil).

Brazilian law requires vehicle engines to burn at least 23 percent ethanol gas. Cardoso called this a major advancement.

During the question-and-answer time, Cardoso called Chavez a "trouble-maker" and said he embodies a new kind of populism different from former Brazilian president Getulio Vargas and former Argentina President Juan Peron. He called Chile's center-left Concertacion coalition a responsible left and said he respected current Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and her predecessor Ricardo Lagos.

2007-03-05T23:24:00.000-05:00

Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso pushes ethanol energy

Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso spoke at Amherst, a neighboring college near Smith. I instantly fell in love with him.

Even though he is most famous for whipping hyperinflation in Brazil in the 1990s, he has a very paternal, academic presence. Here he is with me:

Cardoso gave an hour-long talk at the Massachusetts college on Monday evening March 5. His top concern is the environment in Brazil. I will give the full report on Cardoso's talk tomorrow.

2007-03-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to speak at Amherst College

Tonight I'm going to hear former President Cardoso (1995-2002) speak at Amherst, a neighboring college. I will take photos and report on the talk later this week.

Here's the Latin American Political giant:

2007-03-05T10:39:00.000-05:00

Bachelet approval rating hovering around 50 percent

By The Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile: With the first anniversary of her government nearing, President Michelle Bachelet has seen her approval ratings drop steeply, mainly because a new bus system has stranded many commuters, according to two opinion polls published Sunday.

Bachelet's popularity this month stands at 48 percent, down from 65 percent when she was sworn in on March 11, 2006, as Chile's first female president, according to a poll by Santiago newspaper El Mercurio and polling enterprise Opina S.A. Her rate of approval was 59 percent three month ago.

The El Mercurio-Opina poll queried 400 people by telephone in Santiago on March 1 and has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Another poll by the Santiago daily La Tercera showed a 51 percent rate of approval for Bachelet, down from 56 percent three months earlier and 66 percent in May last year. The paper used its own team to poll 1,000 people nationwide. The result has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Polls showed the main reason for the president's decline in popularity was Transantiago, a new public transportation system in the sprawling capital city of 6 million people. A scarcity of new buses has left large areas of the city almost without transportation and overwhelmed the subway system.

2007-03-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

Cristina and Nestor to trade off Argentine presidency?

If anyone was doubting whether Argentine first lady/senator Cristina Kirchner really had a chance at the presidency, New York Times journalist Larry Rohter is here to dismiss doubts.

Say it sister .... !

By LARRY ROHTER

Published: March 3, 2007

BUENOS AIRES, Feb. 28 — In political circles here, a single question is being asked incessantly these days: him or her? Will President Néstor Kirchner run for a second term or will he, as seems increasingly likely, step aside and let his wife, Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, become the Peronist candidate?

It would be highly unusual for a head of state in a situation as favorable as Mr. Kirchner’s to voluntarily relinquish office. The Argentine economy has grown by 8 percent or more every year since he took power in 2003, and largely as a result, two-thirds of Argentines approve of his job performance.

But the Kirchners seem to be playing for stakes much bigger than just the Oct. 28 election and the next four years, political analysts argue. Rather, their objective is said to be to take turns in office for at least the next dozen years.

Here's the full story.

2007-03-04T01:10:00.000-05:00

Following up on the issue of Latin America's relevancy to the U.S. ...

U.S. and Brazil Seek to Promote Ethanol in West

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and LARRY ROHTER

Published: March 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, March 2 — President Bush, hoping to reduce demand for oil in the Western Hemisphere, is preparing to finish an agreement with Brazil next week to promote the production and use of ethanol throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, according to administration officials.

The agreement could lead to substantial growth in the ethanol industry in Brazil as technology and manufacturing equipment developed there is exported to other countries in the region.

Much of the ethanol produced there is made from sugar cane and is far cheaper to produce than the corn-based ethanol that has been nurtured by protective tariffs and government mandates in the United States.

But the agreement has already begun to prompt complaints from politicians from corn-producing regions of the United States. They fear that the plan would lead to an increase in imports of cheap foreign ethanol and undercut American producers.

By increasing ethanol production and consumption, particularly in countries that produce sugar, officials of the Bush administration hope to reduce the region’s overall dependence on foreign oil and to take some of the pressure off oil prices.

As a side effect, American officials contend, the program could also reduce the influence of Hugo Chavez, the president of oil-rich Venezuela.

Here's the full story.

2007-03-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Is Barbados part of Latin America?

If Barbados qualifies as part of Latin America, then I can justify dedicating a blog entry to Barbados pop star Rihanna. The Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC from the prestigious University of Texas) includes information on Barbados. Although it is part of the Caribbean Barbados was an English colony, therefore it does not have the "Latin" (Spanish, Portuguese, French) roots.

Part of the Lesser Antilles, Barbados is an island nation 270 miles northeast of Venezuela. English is the official language.

Click on the map to enlarge it. It shows all of the Lesser Antilles, and see if you can find Barbados.

If case you don't know Rihanna, she's famous for belting out "SOS," "Pon de Replay" "We Ride" and "Unfaithful." She sings in English (duh) and is very much a product of the U.S. mega-music industry, so it would definitely be a stretch to say she is a Latin musician. She's 100% pop.

Here she is. Like I said, 100% U.S. pop.

By Heather Adler, February 27, 2007

Barbados beauty Rihanna is sending out an S.O.S. to famous friends Ne-Yo, Timbaland and Will.I.am, asking them to rescue her from making a horrible follow-up to her breakthrough album, A Girl Like Me.

The 19-year-old superstar has been working on songs for her new record, but admits she’s in need of guidance by former “Unfaithful” collaborator Ne-Yo.

"I read through the lyrics, and I'm like, 'What are you thinking? What is going through your head?'" Rihanna tells MTV. "I just have to stop sometimes and be like, 'Ne-Yo, OK, tell me why you wrote this song.' Because I don't understand how he comes up with certain concepts and he just blows me away sometimes. He's just insane."

Here's the full story.

2007-02-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

Male Wages in Argentina 39 Percent Higher than Female

Looks like the Argentine women are suffering the greatest salary gap in Latin America.

In any case, if the Argentine first lady/senator Cristina Kirchner makes it to La Casa Rosada,* I'm sure she'll be equally remunerated as her husband for her public service.

By Latin America New Digest

The male wages in Argentina are higher by 39 pct in comparison with the female ones, a report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) showed on February 23, 2007.
The report was published in the Chilean daily La Tercera.

Argentina is the South American nation with the biggest difference in male and female wages.

According to the report, the equality between men and women in Latin America continues to be "a utopia".

The difference in wages in Mexico is 37 pct, while in Brazil it is 34 pct to the detriment of women. Brazil is followed by Chile, Peru and Ecuador.

In Argentina women represent 42 pct of the labour force, but earn less than 30 pct of the income of a family.

The women have difficulties in advancing to high-ranking positions in the institutions, where they are working. This fact is one of the reasons why women have difficult access to higher salaries. Women work an average 121 hours per month in Argentina, while men work 171 hours monthly.**

* La Casa Rosada (The Pink House) is the Argentine equivalent of The White House. Some cultures just have more style.

** Remember though that women's labor in the home (cleaning, taking care of kids, cooking, organizing the family agenda, etc.) is not included in this tally!

2007-02-27T11:31:00.001-05:00

More rumors of Cristina's potential presidential run ...

By Kevin Gray
REUTERS
9:57 a.m. February 21, 2007
BUENOS AIRES – President Nestor Kirchner stood behind a podium at the presidential palace, rattling off statistics about Argentina's roaring economy when he dropped a new hint that he'd like his wife to take over his job.
Kirchner said the numbers were proof that his center-left policies are providing a sturdy foundation for sustained growth after he leaves power. ...
A glamorous and outspoken senator, the first lady is one of Kirchner's leading advisors and has helped him expand his political base in Buenos Aires province, the country's largest. As Argentina's power couple, the two have drawn comparisons to former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination at next year's presidential election.
For months, Kirchner has said Argentina's next leader could be a “pinguino” or “pinguina” – Spanish for a male or female penguin, a playful reference on the frosty Patagonian region where both began their political careers.
If she were to run and win, Cristina Kirchner would be Argentina's first elected female president but not the first woman to run the country.

2007-02-26T14:21:00.001-05:00

Bachelet runs into more trouble with new transportation policies

According to The Santiago Times, the national back-to-school season spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for Bachelet's Transantiago plan.

(February 26, 2007) Santiago’s revamped public transport system faces its first major test today, Monday, as Chile’s summer vacation comes to an end and more than 300,000 students return to classes. By the start of next week, there will be almost a million extra users making journeys at peak times, and officials are concerned that the new transport system will not be able to cope.

The concern is one shared by Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet, who returned early from her summer vacation seeking new solutions for what is increasinglyseen as a flawed project. After another chaotic week for the Transantiago, marked by strikes, protests and yet more delays, Bachelet returned from her vacation on Thursday, two days earlier than originally planned.
Do check out The Santiago Times for the whole story. (It's free.)

2007-02-24T15:22:00.000-05:00

Latin American Ethanol
Reviving its Relevancy for the U.S.?

Finally! An indirect rebuttal to Moises Naim's gloomy analysis of Latin America's relevancy (Foreign Policy November/December 2006 cover story).

The insightful Marcela Sanchez argues Latin American ethanol is going to become even more important to the U.S. as it tries to wean itself off Mid-East oil. Much of this alternative fuel source comes from Brazil which produces a sugar-cane variety of ethanol.*

In case you're wondering, this what ethanol looks like close-up:

This is a model of an ethanol molecule. It looks sort of like a dog. Could it be the key to reviving U.S.-Latin American relations?

*My uncle, an Indiana corn farmer, is also excited about ethanol fuels. Apparently there are corn-based ethanol varieties as well.

By Marcela Sanchez for The Washington Post. February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Today there is a lot of excitement among current and former U.S. and Latin American officials, regional think tanks and multilateral institutions over this thesis: The U.S. pursuit of oil alternatives may lead to unprecedented levels of cooperation in the Western Hemisphere, bringing with it the strategic, social and environmental benefits long promised by trade integration advocates.

As outlined in his State of the Union address last month, President Bush wants to reduce gas consumption by 20 percent in 10 years, requiring 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels annually by 2017. Fuel experts agree that in order to meet such a goal, the United States will need foreign suppliers of biofuels, particularly ethanol, the most widely used biofuel.

Latin America is uniquely positioned to be a top supplier of ethanol. (Italics added by blogger) Despite a 50-cent per gallon U.S. subsidy for its producers and a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, Latin American and Caribbean suppliers delivered enough ethanol to meet nearly 10 percent of U.S. consumption last year. The Americas account for 80 percent of biofuel production in the world.

Most of the ethanol imported by the U.S. comes from Brazil, the world's largest exporter and biofuel industry leader. With more than 30 years of experience in sugar cane ethanol, Brazil has achieved the highest level of oil independence of any country, having replaced 40 percent of its gasoline consumption with ethanol.

But like the U.S., Brazil may soon find itself straining to satisfy its own growing appetite for biofuels. In addition, worldwide demand is on the rise, with at least two dozen other countries pursuing biofuel mandates.

Because demand will outpace their ability to produce, the United States and Brazil are about to officially launch a new energy partnership. The same two countries that in recent years have been at loggerheads over economic and trade priorities, stalling regionwide trade integration, now see their biofuel industries growing as partners rather than competitors, according to Marcos Jank, president of the Brazilian Institute for International Trade Negotiations. In the words of Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), biofuel energy is becoming a "great point of convergence for the Americas."

Part of their common interests will be to motivate other countries to pick up the slack in production. In this regard, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia, large sugar cane growers in the region, stand to benefit from the new boom in ethanol demand. These three are considered to be very efficient producers, yielding more sugar per acre than Brazil, which in turn is eight times more efficient than U.S. corn-based ethanol producers. Colombia too, as the fifth-largest exporter of palm oil, could become a source for biodiesel.
...

Here's the full story.

2007-02-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

Female Foreign Minister of Colombia Resigns in Scandal

I didn't know Colombia's (now former) foreign minister was a woman! Apparently she had to resign because her brother was charged with working with paramilitaries. So she is immediately and automatically linked to the drug squads because of her brother?

By Simon Romero, The New York Times

Published: February 20, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 19 — The foreign minister of Colombia resigned Monday as the government of President Alvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in South America, struggled with a scandal that has disclosed ties between paramilitary cocaine-trafficking squads and some of Mr. Uribe’s most prominent political supporters.

The resignation of Foreign Minister María Consuelo Araújo came days after Mr. Uribe expressed support for her. But fallout from the arrest last week of five politicians, including her brother, Senator Álvaro Araújo, on charges of working with paramilitary squads in a kidnapping case related to the scandal, made her presence in the cabinet untenable.

Hours after the resignation, the president appointed Fernando Araújo, who recently escaped after six years in rebel captivity, to replace Ms. Araújo. The two are not related.

2007-02-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

Chile Waives Student Fares
After Delays in New Bus System

I apologize for missing a couple of days of news on Latin American women, politics and culture ...

This story is not good news for the star Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. She implemented new transportation policies which was originally conceived by her predessor President Lagos. Transantiago is supposed to make Santiago's public transport -- particularly buses and the metro -- more afforable for the poor. It was also created to cut down on pollution. The plan is called Transantiago, and so far The Santiago Times has labeled it a "fiasco." The transportation revamp sparked massive strikes just a couple of weeks ago.

Last month, I was in Chile just before the government was going to fully transition to Transantiago. Instead of buying separate metro and bus tickets, you get this free reuseable card called "BIP" and you deposit money on it. You can use the "BIP" card for buses and the metro.

Many worried that Transantiago would cause major metro overcrowdedness... and their fears have been confirmed. During the first days of Transantiago, everyone was confused and Santiaguinos (Santiago inhabitants) waited in line for hours to get on the bus.

Whew. Another headache for Bachelet.

Inside a Santiago bus. Photo by Catherine Housholder

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will waive student bus fares next week to make up for disruptions caused by glitches in deploying a new bus system this month.

Students won't have to pay fares for the first three days of next week, and the government is reviewing bottlenecks in the new system that have increased travel times for riders in Santiago, Bachelet told reporters today at the Presidential palace.

"I understand the effect that this change has had on people,'' Bachelet said. "For some, it's caused big initial difficulties with delays, and also with a lack of understanding of new routes.''

Increased employee tardiness during the first weeks of the new transportation system's operation could slow economic growth in February, Citigroup Global Markets said this week in a research note. The system is also less expensive than the old one, allowing riders to make free transfers between subways and buses, which will probably contribute to a 0.2 percent drop in consumer prices during the month, Celfin Capital economist Cristian Gardeweg said yesterday in a note to investors.

Waiving student fares will facilitate the influx of riders as Chilean classes resume at the end of summer break, Bachelet said.

2007-02-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

Argentina demands its former president from Spain

Remember Argentina's first female president -- Juan Peron's third wife (after Evita)? Isabel was vice-president during Peron's return to the presidency in the early 1970s. When he died, she took over. The military staged a bloodless coup in 1976. She fled to Spain in 1980.

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: February 14, 2007

Argentina formally asked Spain to extradite María Estela de Perón, the former president, as part of an investigation into past human rights abuses, a Foreign Ministry official said. Ms. Péron, known as Isabel, is 75 and has lived in exile in Spain since 1980.

Isabel has unsuccessfully tried to keep a low profile.

***
Here's an interesting BBC article which resurfaced on its Web site as a type of "This Day in History" story.

1974: First female president for Argentina

Maria Estela Isabel Martinez de Peron has been sworn in as interim leader of the Argentine Republic.

Her husband President Juan Peron delegated responsibility after doctors said he required 24-hour medical attention and rest.

Mrs Peron, a former cabaret dancer, is now Argentina's first female president and at 43 the youngest Latin American head of state.

Her 78-year-old husband has not been seen in public for two weeks and is reported to be seriously ill with bronchitis and influenza. ...

Mrs Peron, known to the Argentine public as 'Isabelita', is Juan Peron's third wife and became vice-president after his return to power in September 1973.

The couple met in a night club in Panama during Juan Peron's years of exile after being ousted from power in a military coup in 1955. ...

***

Here's more Wikipedia background:

Juan Perón died on July1, 1974 less than a year after his third election to the presidency. Isabel assumed the position and became the first female head of state and head of government in the Western Hemisphere. Unlike Evita, who was almost a demigoddess in Argentina, Isabel was very unpopular. ... On March 24, 1976, she was deposed in a bloodless coup. After remaining under house arrest for five years, she was sent into exile in Spain in 1981.

2007-02-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

Chile ponders gender quotas

Here's a fabulous article about gender quotas in Chile.

What are gender quotas? They take different forms in different countries, but an example of a gender quota could be a law requiring all political parties to reserve 40 percent of their candidate slots for women. A political party could also have an internal rule that a certain percentage of their positions be reserved for women.

By Jen Ross
WeNews correspondent

Chile may be notable for having a female president,

but the country ranks 14th out of 18 Latin American

countries in female political representation.

Congressional hearings on a gender-quota bill for

political parties are stirring debate.

SANTIAGO, Chile (WOMENSENEWS)--Chile may have caught the world's attention by electing its first female president last year, but that doesn't mean legislators here are rushing to join a regional trend toward gender quota laws for congressional representation.

Cristian Monckeberg, secretary-general for the right-wing's opposition National Renovation Party--holding 20 of the 120 seats in the House of Representatives--has called President Michele Bachelet's support for a gender-quota law a "a sickly obsession" that excludes men and creates a "risky and divisive discourse."

Do check out the entire story.

2007-02-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

Shakira Middle-East show expected to sell out

Blogger's Note: This is a special report for Bahrain-based Shakira fans.

TICKETS for global pop sensation Shakira's only commercial concert in the Gulf are to go on sale in Bahrain from Sunday.

Shakira's concert in Dubai is being presented by PlayStation in association with the brand new PlayStation3 and Bravia.

The Lebanese-Colombian superstar, whose hits include Whenever Wherever, Hips Don't Lie and the latest Illegal (featuring Carlos Santana), will be making her debut Gulf and Middle East performance on March 23 at the Dubai Autodrome.

"The 30 million albums Shakira has sold worldwide and more than seven million copies of her latest album, Oral Fixation, shows how popular she is," said Mirage Promotions marketing and public relations manager Nasim Tabatabaei.

Here's the full story.

And here's Shakira again. In case you forgot what she looked like.

2007-02-17T14:07:00.000-05:00

Rigoberta Menchu set to run for president with indigenous support

From the Associated Press (GUATEMALA CITY) Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu announced the formation of an Indian-led political movement whose primary aim is to back her probable bid for Guatemala's presidency this fall.

Menchu is in talks with two minor leftist parties that have offered to make her their presidential candidate. The movement, known as Winaq, does not have time to register itself as a political party before September elections but will back Menchu's candidacy under the banner of one of the smaller registered parties.

Here's the full story.

Menchu is the subject of the highly controversial book I, Rigoberta Menchu.

Check out my previous entry on Menchu for more background.

2007-02-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

Bachelet to visit Guatemala, Mexico and Panama --
but not Cuba

It looks like President Michelle Bachelet's Spring Break will not include Havana beaches after all.

According to today's El Mercurio, the Chilean Cancillería, or foreign affairs headquarters, said the president will visit Guatemala, Mexico and Panama, but not Cuba. The trip is slated for March 18-22. This past week, the president was supposedly contemplating visiting Cuba.

This is not actually a vacation, but a diplomatic visit.

Bachelet may visit Colombia and Venezuela in April.

Check out my previous entries on this Cuba trip false alarm. Here is the first entry. Here is the second entry.

2007-02-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

A second female president for Chile in 2010?

One year after Chile elected its first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, many in the center-left Concertacion coalition are pushing for former Foreign Affairs minister and current senator Soledad Alvear to run president in 2010.

According to El Mercurio, many within the Concertacion are against former President Ricardo Lagos running again.

Is former president Lagos thinking of running again in 2010?

Is Soledad Alvear the only one who can stop him?

2007-02-14T17:35:00.000-05:00

Chilean intellectual criticizes Bachelet's trip to Cuba

Journalist Jose Rodriguez Elizondo severly criticized Chilean president Michelle Bachelet's upcoming trip to Cuba in La Tercera today. He warned that this could alter Chile's image as a pro-free trade nation. Outsiders may view Chile as part of the Castro-Chavez-Morales 21st century Latin America socialism.

"Michelle Bachelet's visit to Cuba today is a high-risk operation: A good foreign policy is not just made up of good intentions," Rodriguez Elizondo said. He added that the trip could unbalance the conservative equilibrium of Chile's careful diplomacy. Bachelet's act is unprecendented: She would be the first president since Allende to visit Cuba.

Elizondo argues that Bachelet's trip to Cuba will diminish Chile's center-left Concertacion coalition's moderate, consensual and "accomodating" reputation and could be perceived a step toward independence from Washington.

Bachelet mentioned the reason for the trip was related to Cuba's welcoming of lefty Chilean exiles during the Pinochet dictatorship.

Is Bachelet giving Cuba the thumbs up?

Is this La Tercera journalist overreacting, or does he have a point? Has Bachelet not carefully considered the potential political consequences of this trip? As usual, all comments are welcome!

2007-02-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

Bachelet to visit Cuba

From The Santiago Times:
BACHELET INTENDS TO BE CHILE'S FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT CUBA IN 33 YEARS(February 12, 2007) President Michelle Bachelet has announced her intentions of visiting Cuba during her presidency. The last Chilean President to visit Cuba was Salvador Allende in 1972.

Check out the full story.

Former Chilean Interior Minister and current Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General José Miguel Insulza applauded Fidel Castro's charisma on Tuesday Feb. 13. Here's the La Tercera story. Insulza added that Castro's charisma legitimizes him as a leader.

2007-02-11T16:58:00.000-05:00

Shakira to perform at tonight's Grammies!

(Business Wire) New York, Feb 08: For the first time in Grammy history, international sensation and current nominee Shakira will perform, and fellow nominee Wyclef Jean will join her.

Here's Shakira. She's only 4'11''.

I've been a Shakira fan ever since I checked out one of her CDs from the local public library! I was 16 and beginning to learn Spanish. I first fell in love with the "Estoy aqui" tune.

A bit on Shakira: She's from Colombia, and her father is Lebanese. She perhaps is best known for her belly dancing. "Ojos Asi" and "Suerte" (her first U.S. hit, changed to "Whenever, Wherever") showcase her belly dancing the best. She also knows a little tango -- "Objection" or "Te Aviso, Te Anuncio" in Spanish -- and she adapted "Objection" once to an afro-punk dance. Her performance of "Dude Looks like a Lady" is solid proof that she's actually a rocker at heart. Let's recap: belly dancing, tango, afro-punk and rock.

Her last Spanish record "Fijacion Oral" was released before its English-language twin "Oral Fixation." "La Tortura" and "Hips Don't Lie" are her latest hit singles. She has a beautiful voice, but I definitely prefer her Spanish tunes to her English ones.*

Shakira's dance moves and costumes have become significantly more erotic over the years.

*A couple exceptions: "Underneath Your Clothes" and "Poem to a Horse".

2007-02-10T23:07:00.000-05:00

New video of Cristina in Paris found

Argentinian first lady, senator and potential presidential candidate Cristina Kirchner recently traveled to Paris. Check out this video of her discurso.

2007-02-10T22:26:00.000-05:00

Skipping Chile, Argentina and Venezuela, Bush to trot through Latin America

I had to add the first clause to this headline. Bush plans to hit Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. The last time he entered Chile and Argentina (both in November 2004), he was welcomed by massive demonstrations -- and we don't have to really speculate on how the Venezuelans would receive him.

Perhaps I should add to that headline "Skipping Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, ..." Well, you can't hit them all.

Here's the news brief:

(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington -- President Bush will travel to Latin America from March 8–14, visiting Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
...
Bush will begin his trip in São Paulo, Brazil, where he will meet with President Luíz Inacio “Lula” da Silva. Snow said the leaders will discuss a range of issues, including energy and trade.

Bush then will travel to Montevideo, Uruguay, to meet with President Tabaré Vázquez, who visited the president in Washington in May 2006.

Next, Snow said, Bush will travel to Bogotá, Colombia, where he will meet with President Álvaro Uribe and underscore the United States’ continuing commitment to supporting Colombia’s battle against narco-terrorism and efforts to improve the lives of the Colombian people.

From there, the president will visit Guatemala, where he will meet with President Oscar Berger, and emphasize the long, close historical relationship between the two countries.

The president will conclude his trip with a visit to Mexico “to emphasize our strong partnership with Mexico and to demonstrate support for President Felipe Calderón’s efforts to address poverty and income inequality, restore law and order, fight the common threat of drug trafficking, and strengthen the economic relationship between the United States and Mexico,” Snow said.

***

Want more on "Why Latin America hates Bush?" Check out the link. The article is interesting but contains some major flaws ...

This Time article lists a couple reasons why the Latin Americans are not fond of the northern leader:
1. "After pledging during his 2000 election campaign to correct Washington's indifference to Latin America, the President is viewed as having all but turned his back on the region after most Latin American capitals declined to back his invasion of Iraq." In other words, Latin Americans want the president to pay more attention to them, but they were quite disapproving on the war in Iraq. (Chile's then President Lagos and then Foreign Affairs Minister Soledad Alvear were showered with national praise when they opposed the Iraq war without jeopordizing their free trade agreement with the U.S.)

2. "Bush's hemispheric cold shoulder has backfired: It created a political vacuum that has been largely filled by neo-leftists like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez." CATHERINE'S CORRECTION: The left-ward turn in Latin America is not due to Bush's lack of involvement in the region. This assertion is ridiculous. The lefty presidential trend is a complex issue and has much more to do with doubts over the neoliberalism and demands for more economic equality.

The article also notes "Bush today is arguably more unpopular in Latin America than any U.S. president in history. In Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, a recent poll showed 64% have a poor or very poor opinion of him. Elsewhere in the region, Bush's approval rating usually falls below 25%." Then the article points to the Latin American perception that Bush is overly active in the region (i.e. a "Monroe-doctrine throwback).

CATHERINE'S CORRECTION: Um, this actually contradicts what the Time journalist said initially, so perhaps I'll take the liberty to nuance: Latin Americans prefer certain types of intervention over others. I'll use academic examples: Like impoverished college students, Latin Americans love financial aid!* Like young students, Latin Americans hate being threatened or told what to do.

Let's look at the two of them together:

Bush

Chavez

Well, we can just add one more to the mix:

Student who likes financial aid

*Quick counter-example: Recently Chavez, declaring he does not want dollars from "satan," said he was not mourning the loss of U.S. aid to his country.

2007-02-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Moisés Naím reports Latin America
is no longer relevant to the world

Who's Moisés Naím? He's the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine and a former Venezuelan minister. His news: Latin America had too little economic power and too few crises to grab the world's attention, and Latin Americans are to blame. From the U.S. perspective, Latin America has no terrorists and little economic clout -- even Hugo Chavez's crazy rants do little to catch U.S. officials' eyes.

Here's Naim. He looks pretty intelligent.

Check out his article "The Lost Continent." It's free in PDF form.

"Latin America cannot compete on the world stage in any way, not even as a threat." - Moises Naim. Foreign Policy November/December 2006.

Why is this so depressing to me? This report is actually mixed: the fact that the fragile region is economically wimpy is not new news, and the presence of Latin American terrorists will definitely not be missed.

However, the headline spells death-by-starvation for any journalist interested in Latin America. If the U.S. is not interested in the region, how will correspondents eat? I became interested in Latin America after reading Georgie Anne Geyer's autobiography Buying the Night Flight. Geyer started her foreign journalism career in Latin America in the 1960s when the communist threats in Central America and the Caribbean were close to the top of Cold War concerns in the U.S. Maybe I was born too late.

According to Naim, any aspiring foreign journalist today should start learning Arabic.

However the historical problem with U.S. policy for Latin America is that U.S. politicians ignore the region when it's calm and then panic when crises erupt (See Robert Pastor's Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Latin America and the Caribbean. The only way to resolve the vicious cycle is to pay consistent attention to Latin America. And I believe that even if U.S. officials are (understandably) more interested in explosions in Iraqi and shootings in Israel, U.S. women and men are intrigued by peaceful, democratic leaders such as Chilean president Michelle Bachelet.

And isn't it refreshing to study a region that -- despite its perennial problems -- is enjoying a democratic resurgence? Is it not just as important to study political successes as failures?

Any and all comments appreciated!

2007-02-06T21:25:00.000-05:00

Corruption scandals weigh down Bachelet's polls

La Tercera is reporting that Bachelet's approval rating fell from 54.3 percent in December 2006 to 47.2 percent last month. The poll tumbling is due to corruption scandals that have plagued the Concertacion (Bachelet's center-left coalition).

Is Bachelet worried?

The newspaper talked to Roberto Mendez (who I interviewed last month for my thesis) who said although the Chileans still like Bachelet, they are disapproving more and more of her actual performance. Mendez is the president of the polling company Adimark. He's great at interpreting the numbers.

Previously Bachelet was shielded from the corruption scandals in the sense that although the corruption charges kept piling up against members of her coalition, she remained steady in the polls. Why? One theory is that Chileans believe women are naturally honest and are immune to "dirty" politics.

2007-02-05T18:27:00.000-05:00

Rigoberta Menchu for president?

I haven't been following Guatemalan politics that closely lately, so this report of Menchu's potential candidacy did catch me off guard. Rigoberta Mechu is most famous for her 1983 testimony "I, Rigoberta Menchu" -- required reading in many university Latin American studies courses -- in which she recounts her life as an Indian woman in Guatemala. The book generated international controversy when it turned out that much of her personal testimony was false. She still was able to keep her 1992 Nobel Peace Prize though.

Here's Menchu. Less sexy than Cristina Kirchner, but who cares? This highly controversial feminist-political icon battles machismo, racism (anti-indio) and classism.

Unfortunately, I have yet to locate any polls that might indicate her presidential chances. Guatemala obviously has a significant Indian population, but who knows if the indigenous will vote?

Guatemalan elections are slated for Sept. 9 with a possible second round in November.

Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu weighs run for presidency

By: Associated Press -

GUATEMALA CITY -- Rigoberta Menchu, who won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, said some political leaders are urging her to run in Guatemala's September presidential elections, but she said she would have to weigh the possibility.

If elected, Menchu would become the second Nobel laureate serving as president in Central America. Oscar Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 1997 for helping broker an end to Central America's civil wars, took office as Costa Rica's president in May.

"I owe my loyalty to a series of Mayan leaders, and we would have to see what these parties have in store for Mayan people," Menchu said, referring to political parties that have reportedly offered to back a potential presidential bid.

The newly formed Encounter for Guatemala party recently announced it was considering backing her for president; Menchu, a proponent of Indian rights, did not say which other parties may have approached her.

2007-02-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet admits to being a workaholic

President Bachelet regularly works from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. or 1 a.m. and dreams of being able to take siestas like other heads of state according to a recent interview with Qué Pasa translated by the Santiago Times. As usual, the Chilean press probed the president on how she balances work and family.

QUESTION: What time does the presidential day usually start?
MICHELLE BACHELET: Normally I get up at seven in the morning. And I never leave the house after eight. I like working early, so that I can make the most of the day. I try to be in La Moneda by 8.30 at the latest, unless I have a meeting elsewhere.
Q: Do you take your youngest daughter, Sofia, to school every day?
MB: Not any more. She doesn’t like it, because her classmates would always make the usual jokes. Before, I used to go every day, but she asked me not to, so I don’t anymore. I have to respect her wishes, because she’s at an age where having the President as her mother is a difficult issue.

Do check out the entire article.

Cristina Kirchner video found: Is she just hairspray or real political potential?

A francophone Canadian television station offers us a t runcated clip of a rally for Argentinian Senator-first lady Cristina Kirchner. The video includes part of her speech and footage of her working the crowd. (Note: for background on Cristina, check out the first Cristina entry on this blog.) The Canadians were impressed. Are you?

"C'est une belle femme" ("She's a beautiful woman,") one of the Canadian reporters commented after the event. "Et ca joue" ("And that's important") "Un peu de theatre" ("A little bit of theater"). But they also thought she seemed a bit young: "un peu jeune."

From what I can tell from the very short clip, I think she is quite a good speaker, and she has animated facial expressions.

I do find this whole beauty-politics business to be a bit unnerving. Bachelet reportedly enjoyed a very minor political advantage because she was blond, but she was also made fun of for being a bit overweight. Do women have to be beautiful to be powerful? Are women politicians subjected to disporportionate demands to be attractive? If a man were as attractive as Cristina, would he enjoy as much of a political advantage the she seems to currently enjoy thanks to her looks?

Any and all comments are appreciated!

2007-02-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

Don Omar, Ivy Queen and Aventura to represent Latin American music at Superbowl 2007

Latin music stars Don Omar, Ivy Queen and Aventura will entertain sports fanatics during the Superbowl Sunday.

Let's take a look at this select Latino trio.

I ADORE Aventura's hit song Obsession. Here's the video. Listening to it brings back a flood of memories from dancing bachata in Parisian salsa clubs! (Latin music acts as my Proustian madeleine.)Salsa clubs such as La Pachanga and La Coupole in Paris played this bachata favorite almost every night. "It's not love. What you are feeling is called obsession."

Here's Aventura. They're pretty cute!

I'm not much of an Ivy Queen fan, but here's her video. She's probably the only mainstream reggaeton artist who is a woman.

Don Omar is one of the kings of reggaeton. One of his hit songs is "Dile."

I wonder why the Superbowl co-ordinators couldn't get Shakira this year?

Finally, as a proud Hoosier, I'm rooting for the Colts!

2007-02-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

Bachelet Review: Personal life, presidential campaign and first year in office

I recently wrote a special report on President Michelle Bachelet for the Santiago Times. Check it out. It's free.

http://www.chipsites.com/chile-news/michelle-bachelet.html

Here's a teaser:

Profile: Michelle Bachelet
by Catherine Housholder

She is the smiling new mother of Chile. On January 15, 2006, center-left Concertación presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet coasted to victory, six points ahead of her run-off opponent, billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera. The election was particularly surprising given that Chile is often considered a Catholic, socially conservative, economically liberal nation where many of its women maintain traditional roles in the home. Bachelet is a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist - a divorced mother of three - whose curriculum vitae includes an M.D. degree and top government positions such as Defense Minister. She had never before been elected to a political office.

So who is (and was) Michelle Bachelet the first woman president of Chile? How did she rise to become the most politically powerful Chilean despite the nation's machista, male-dominated culture?

Here's three very interesting videos for Bachelet fans -- or at least those interested in the Bachelet "phenomenon."

The first video is a political commercial that encapsulates the Bachelet campaign -- or the message that Bachelet campaign aimed to project. It's called "Estoy contigo," meaning "I am with you." The political advertisement emphasizes national unity -- young, elderly, female, male, student, worker -- this clip appeals to the voters' emotions. IN SPANISH

The second video is a January 2006 clip of Bachelet's victory speech. "Who would have thought a few years ago that Chile would have elected a woman? ... Democracy permitted it. ... Thank you for the trust you gave me." IN SPANISH

The third video is a Bachelet interview on the popular U.S. television show The View. Bachelet speaks fluent English because she lived in the U.S. as a girl. IN ENGLISH

2007-02-02T13:21:00.000-05:00

Chilean women can now breastfeed at work

(Note: I would post an image, but I am afraid students may be blocked from this site!)

This new law seems to go along well with President Bachelet's maternal political image crafted during the 2005-2006 election season.

BREASTFEEDING LAW PASSED IN CHILE
From the Santiago Times, Feb. 2, 2007

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet passed a new law this week giving working mothers the right to breast feed their child at work. The law has been used by Bachelet to defend her administration’s stance on the morning after pill against strong criticism from the rightist opposition Alliance and even some members of the ruling Concertación coalition that the government was “anti-family” (ST, January 22).

“I believe that it will prove to be a very important law,” said the President at the ceremony in the O’Higgins Room of La Moneda. “It represents what the government is seeking to do - defend the Chilean family unit.”

“We are guaranteeing tools which both mothers and fathers can use to strengthen family ties and to solidify the bond between mother and child,” Bachelet added.

2007-02-01T17:22:00.000-05:00

The New Hillary Clinton of Argentina?

I, Catherine Housholder, am the first to call it. Argentina's first lady/distinguished senator is the new Hillary Clinton of the southern cone.

Actually, I'm not really the first one to say it -- Argentinian newspapers such as "Clarin" have been buzzing about this for awhile -- but the parallels are becoming more and more striking with Hillary's recent (official) announcement of her presidential aspirations.

Cristina Kirchner is married to the current leftist President Nestor Kirchner and is currently leading the presidential polls. Elections are set for October.

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
Fernández de Kirchner is First Choice in Argentina
January 24, 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Buenos Aires senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is the top-rated presidential contender in Argentina, according to a poll by Julio Aurelio. 36.5 per cent of respondents would support the current first lady among a group of four prospective candidates.

Former economy minister Roberto Lavagna is second with 20.7 per cent, followed by Mauricio Macri of Commitment for Change (CC) with 15.2 per cent, and Elisa Carrió of the Alliance Affirmation for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI) with 12.1 per cent.

According to several media reports in Argentina, Kirchner is planning to create a new political party once his term in over, if he declines from pursuing re-election and supports his wife’s candidacy instead. In late December, Kirchner declared: "The times of deepening (Argentina’s) evolution, of deepening change are ahead, and we all have to prove we are capable of building the political space of change in Argentina so we can construct a country that encompasses us all."
Polling Data

Which of these four candidates would you support in the presidential election?

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 36.5%

Roberto Lavagna (former Economy Minister) 20.7%

Mauricio Macri 15.2%

Elisa Carrió 12.1%

Source: Julio Aurelio
Methodology: Interviews with 3,203 Argentine adults, conducted from Jan. 12 to Jan. 14, 2006. No margin of error was provided.

According to Wikipedia, the gorgeous Mrs. Kirchner was elected to the Senate in 1995 and then to the Chamber of Deputies in 1997. In 2001, she won again the Senate post for Santa Cruz, and in 2005 she returned to the Senate -- this time to represent Buenos Aires in the Senate.

Fernández provided the main backbone to her husband's successful campaign for the presidency of Argentina in 2003, against two other Justicialist candidates and several other competitors. As First Lady, she has become an itinerant ambassador for her husband's government. Her highly combative speech style polarises Argentine politics (recalling the style of Eva Perón) but seems to be appreciated by a large part of society, mainly in the lower classes.

The Economist also ran an article about the Argentinian presidential race. The magazine noted that Mrs. Kirchner is not as popular as her husband, but she does benefit from his popularity. The public credits the president for its current economic good times.

Family matters

Jan 11th 2007 | BUENOS AIRES
From The Economist print edition
An early start to the presidential campaign

THE presidential election is not until October. But Roberto Lavagna chose this month, when most Argentines head for the beach, to announce his candidacy. As finance minister from 2002 to 2005, he has a good claim to be the architect of four years of economic growth running at 9% a year.

But the man to whom Argentines give the credit is the left-leaning president, Néstor Kirchner, who sacked Mr Lavagna. With an approval rating of over 70%, Mr Kirchner should easily win a second term. Odd, then, that officials have been touting the candidacy of his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a senator. The logic: he could then come back in four years' time, extending the life of the Kirchner family regime.

Mrs Kirchner is less popular than her husband. The betting is that Mr Kirchner himself will stand if he is not confident she could win without a run-off. That means winning at least 45% of the vote, or 40% with a ten-point lead. So the Kirchners are likely to delay their choice until closer to the deadline for registering candidacies in September.
***

I will keep this blog updated with news about Cristina. In the meantime, check out this news clip of Shakira meeting Cristina. Shakira also mentioned President Michelle Bachelet. The video is in Spanish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImSQ5sPXc_M

2007-01-31T12:33:00.000-05:00

Female Ecuadorian Defense Minister killed in helicopter crash

This is tragic and interesting because I was not aware that they was another female defense minister in Latin America. (The new, popular leftist Ecuadorian President Correa named women to lead the foreign, health, housing, and social welfare ministries as well.) The late Guadalupe Larriva must have been the second female defense minister in Latin America because Michelle Bachelet, the current president of Chile, was the first. Bachelet was named by former President Lagos to the Defense Minister post in 2003.

This is Larriva. She was a pretty blond just like Bachelet!

By The Associated Press, January 24, 2007

Ecuador’s new defense minister, Guadalupe Larriva, and one of her children were killed Wednesday when their helicopter collided with another near a military base in southern Ecuador, officials said.

The crash, near Manta, 150 miles southeast of Quito, the capital, also killed two pilots, though it was unclear whether both were on the minister’s helicopter, a government spokeswoman, Monica Chuji, said.

No other details were available. Ms. Larriva, 50, took office with President Rafael Correa nine days ago.

2007-01-31T12:25:00.000-05:00

Pinera unofficially declared center-right RN presidential candidate for 2010

Chilean politics are getting more and more interesting as the far-off 2010 presidential election inches closer. According to the Santiago Times today, Sebastian Piñera -- the guy who lost Bachelet in January 2006 -- is the unofficial center-right Renovacion Nacional candidate.

Piñera also managed to secure a promise from the RN party leadership that it would not continue spreading the names of other possible presidential candidates, only candidates for “complementary” positions. Lily Perez, the party’s secretary-general, affirmed that “Sebastian Piñera is the RN presidential candidate,” a sentiment echoed by other major RN figures.

I interviewed Piñera in 2005 when he was running against Bachelet. I snapped a photo of him as well.

Here's a story I wrote about him for The Santiago Times.

PIÑERA IN PERSON

Can Sebastián Piñera Topple Lavín’s Lead In The Polls?

(June 23, 2005) Some of his critics disparagingly call him a neoliberal. Others resent his political independence. His supporters see him as a middle-class Chilean whose business success propelled him into becoming one of the nation’s most powerful men.

Still others find him sexy, in a billionaire sort of way.

Opinions of the National Renovation candidate Sebastián Piñera – today polling between 18 percent and 21 percent of voters – are as varied as his own ideas for the country. Those on the far right begrudge his candidacy, which erupted about a month ago and threw the entire political scene into chaos. Those on the left see him as a flashy presidential hopeful who is rising in the polls but still not presenting a major challenge to leftist coalition Concertación candidate Michelle Bachelet, who today polls between 46 percent and 51 percent.

Piñera fielded questions from foreign journalists in his swanky office in Las Condes on Tuesday afternoon. Piñera – billionaire businessman, owner of LAN Chile and Chilevisión, Ph.D. in economics, former senator and now presidential contender – opined on corruption in the Concertación, his presidential qualifications, the Chilean transition to democracy, the war in Iraq, money in politics and moral issues.

Few doubt Piñera’s intellectual brilliance. And there’s no question he has bundles of energy, fidgeting while reporters articulate their questions and then rapidly firing off well-rehearsed responses. He has animated expressions and a commanding presence.

But does the man have charisma? Does he have the personal appeal to voters that seems so natural for Bachelet?

Piñera seems more focused on the issues than charming journalists. He rarely cracked a smile, preferring to stay serious even when the reporters found his responses humorous.

“How much money have you spent on your campaign?” one reporter asked.

“Very little,” the candidate said.

When the press exploded in laughter, Piñera remained poker-faced, trying to justify his response instead of pulling a self-deprecating joke or teasing his interrogators.

Piñera is a serious guy, a classic neoliberal who believes in the need for the entrepreneurial spirit, imagination, creativity, education and equal opportunity for all.

He’s against all abortion, for allowing divorce and against gay marriage. He stood against the war in Iraq, wanting weapons inspectors to finish their job before the U.S. invaded. Perhaps most importantly of all, Piñera is one of the few on the right who voted in 1980 against Pinochet’s constitution and in 1988 against eight more years of Pinochet rule. This is a democratic credential that his rightist opponent Joaquín Lavin does not have.

Piñera clearly craves the presidency, but he doesn’t seem desperate for it. He feels comfortable statistically tied with Lavín.

“I believe I have much more potential (than Lavín) to gain more votes,” Piñera said. “I have been campaigning for four weeks while Lavín has been campaigning for 400 weeks!”

A major obstacle for Lavín, who ran for president in 1999, is the huge block of voters who dislike (or worse) the conservative former mayor of Santiago. The Piñera camp takes comfort in the “rejection level” statistic, which reveals that while 50 percent of voters would never vote for Lavín, less than 10 percent would never vote for Piñera. Translation? Piñera’s potential appeal to undecided voters overshadows that of the Independent Democratic Union Party (UDI) presidential candidate. So Piñera has greater hope than Lavín of toppling Bachelet in the next few months.

So why should Chileans vote for the showy, maverick RN candidate whose pocketbook – many believe – outweighs his political experience (six years as a Santiago senator)?

Piñera ticked off his qualifications: Harvard Ph.D in economics, Universidad Católica professor, Santiago senator, RN president and, of course, wildly successful businessman.

“First of all I believe that we all have the right to run for political office – workers, businesspeople, professors, academics – and I have dedicated my life to politics,” Piñera said. “Being a businessman has many advantages. I believe people value what it means. I did not inherit my wealth. … I didn’t receive anything material from my parents. They gave me many things – education, love – but in material terms, nothing …

“I have worked all of my life in public service. From the point of view of resources, Chile has a law that limits presidential campaign spending, and all the presidential candidates will spend close to that limit since it is very low. So from that point of view, being a businessman is no advantage.”

Some analysts believe Chilean voters also appreciate, and even look up to, extremely wealthy “self-made” men because they hope they will have so much money that they will not have to skim money from the government. In short, billionaires may be less prone to corruption – the hot issue currently plaguing the Concertación.

The classic capitalist is also trying to paint himself as honest and has promised to sell his stocks should he capture the most coveted office in the country. He’s careful not to directly attack the president – instead he opts to categorize the immensely popular leader as “a good president.”

“In my life, I have always tried to have transparency,” Piñera said. “I’m a businessman and all of Chile knows it. When I was a senator, everyone knew that I was an important shareholder of LAN Chile. My interests, my stocks and my companies have always been above the table. It seems much more dangerous to me the fact that there are certain authorities, ministers, regional governors, judges and deputies who are businesspeople, and no one knows it. The best way to avoid this is transparency.”

This is Piñera’s roundabout way of approaching the Concertación corruption issue – he quietly tip-toes around the topic, mentioning MOP-Gate and then talking more about his personal honesty. He also doesn’t directly attack the historical RN nemesis/political alliance partner – the UDI, the party most closely tied to the Pinochet regime.

“The political structure is centered on who was for and who was against the military regime,” he said. “In my modest opinion, our party is more favorable to democracy, to human rights, to pluralism, to dialogue, to agreement, to equal opportunities. … We should do everything we can to find the disappeared.

“But I know as well, because I’m a realist, that many of them will never be found because we all know that they are at the bottom of the sea. There’s no magic solution for this problem.”

Piñera compromises on the issue of eliminating the unique binomial system that the nation inherited from Pinochet.

Prior to Pinochet, Chile had a proportional representation system that fostered party overpopulation. He said there are advantages to the new system – it creates coalitions, brings the coalitions to the center, eliminates political extremes. There are disadvantages to the system as well – it suffocates new emerging parties and makes the system more rigid overall. Instead of eliminating the binomial system, as some politicians would like, the candidate said if he were president, he would seek to incorporate the best points of both systems.

That is, of course, if Piñera gets to La Moneda.

“My decision is to run for president until the end,” he said. “We are going to get to the second round.”

And if he does squeeze past Lavín in the second round – which most polls show is clearly possible – Piñera’s next task would be to surpass the Concertación’s Bachelet and make history as the first Alliance for Chile president since the transition to democracy. With Bachelet polling as high as 56 percent, Piñera has his work cut out for him. In December, Piñera may find out that there’s some things money can’t buy.

By Catherine Housholder

2007-01-30T18:55:00.000-05:00

Chile's tennis superstar Gonzalez is simply hot

Isn't he beautiful? A Chilean dream.

Gonzalez's strokes are also hot ... he was a finalist in the Australian Open this year -- a true source of Chilean (not to mention Latin American) pride! He lost to the Swiss master Federer 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4. Ouch. Still, to get to the finals is quite impressive!

"Gonzalez, seeded 10th and into his first Grand Slam final, kept Federer under pressure with his big forehand, but could not quite match the all-court game of the player who has been ranked No. 1 for 156 consecutive weeks." -- AP.

2007-01-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

Bachelet to tour Latin America and Europe

The Santiago Times is reporting that Bachelet will visit with Mexican President Calderón, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez and Brazilian President Lula de Silva before she jets off to Europe.

"In Venezuela, President Bachelet and fellow Heads of State will unite as the South American Community of Nations to discuss energy issues. Chile’s President is slated to meet privately with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez where the two will aim to smooth out relations following Chile’s abstention from the United Nations Security Council vote last October (ST, Oct. 16 2006).

"Bachelet will then begin a tour of 'like minded countries' in Europe – relatively small states with developed economies and good social welfare - including Finland, Norway and Switzerland."

“We want to develop a cooperation network and reciprocal understanding with like-minded countries,” said Foreign Secretary, Alejandro Foxley. “This is a new trajectory for Chilean foreign policy and we’ll be putting a major emphasis on it.”

I wonder how often President Lagos visited Europe.

2007-01-28T18:07:00.000-05:00

Mexican music sensation: Julieta Venegas eases switch from summer to winter

While freezing on the train back to Smith College, I listened to Julieta Venegas' "Si" CD on my Ipod over and over and over again, and her Mexican heat warmed me up! Thanks to some friends from Chile, I fell in love with Julieta in 2005, and I just recently obtained this record. This is her official site. My favorite tracks are "Lento" and "Andar Conmigo."

http://www.julietavenegas.net/

"Limon y Sal" is her new album -- apparently Mexicans like to put lemon and salt (limon y sal) on everything. Venegas' music is upbeat, innocent, smooth -- simply lovely! She has won a couple Latin Grammies. Check out "Limon y Sal" on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c1ERvT4dao

The best expression of Latin American culture is by far music. I am going to try to figure out how to download audio onto my blog.

2007-01-24T12:18:00.000-05:00

¡Adios, Santiago! ¡Ya te extraño!

Yesterday was my final interview with one of the most colorful, lefty, francophile journalists in Chile, Fernando Villegas, who generously afforded me an hour-long conversation in his home. Marcelo Cid, my trusty Chilean knight who greatly assisted me in making contacts, is on my right, and Villegas is on my left.

I also sewed up my newspaper-magazine archival research in the Biblioteca Nacional.

I am pleased with the work I accomplished here: about ten interviews, tons of reading, archival digging and endless political conversations round out my personal achievements. I know I will be back to Santiago -- probably in August 2007 after my graduation from Smith College.

So goodbye, Santiago! I already miss you!

2007-01-20T12:57:00.000-05:00

Santiaguino vs. Parisian metro habits

Now I have been using the clean, modern Santiago metro frequently, and I can´t help but note that the Chileans have different metro habits than the French. (Note: The metro system in Santiago was modeled after its French counterpart.)

Here are a few of the main differences I witnessed:
1. Chilean adolescents and young adults have few reservations about sitting on the floor inside the metro while Parisians NEVER sit on the floor.

2. Chileans often move toward the doors before their last stop to strategically position themselves for a quick, clean exit. I never saw that in Paris except among the foreign tourists. Parisians wait until the metro has stopped before clearing out.

3. The subway drivers in Chile are much more impatient than in Paris about closing the doors. I saw one lady get her nose brutally smooshed while the doors were closing -- Parisian drivers are a little more careful.

4. The Parisians nearly always hold on to something metal while the metro is in motion, but the Santiaguinos can maintain their equilibrium with no hands. Perhaps all of that dancing works wonders for their balance.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet would like for the metro to stay open until midnight, and I wholeheartedly support this! The Chilean metro closes its doors every night at 10:30 while in Paris the daily shutdown is extended to 12:45-1 a.m. In Chile, the subway is cheaper than in Paris of course, and rush hour tickets are slightly more expensive.

Many Santiaguinos prefer to drive.

2007-01-16T13:17:00.000-05:00

Salsa dancing in Santiago`s Smokey La Maestra Vida

OK, so the weekend before my big week of interviews -- averaging two a day -- I decided it was definitely time to test the Santiago salsa scene.

And I was impressed. La Maestra Vida is probably the best, most hip salsateca in Chile. As a Paris-trained amateur salsa aficionada, I have always wanted to salsa in its original birthplace: Latin America. Here are some of my observations.

1. Even though the Parisians overall are familiar with a higher quanity of passes and turns, almost every Chilean know how to stay on beat.

2. The age group/social class of salsa in Santiago is essentially the same as in Paris. Typically 30-40 middle class. However more "lower" class Parisians dance salsa in clubs than "lower" class Chileans. It is a question of the relativity of their respective economic situations.

3. The Chileans are generally more interested in conversation than technique. Overall, inter-dance small talk is scarce in Paris while it is much easier to chat in Santiago.

After this mentally exhausting week, I aim to spin into La Maestra Vida again on Friday!

www.maestravida.cl

2007-01-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

Interviews and salchichas

While my interview count is steadily growing, I spend the extra in between time at the library reading December 2005-January 2006 newspaper articles/opinions from La Tercrea, El Mercurio, La Nacion and La Segunda. The Chilean press has in the past few years become much more aggressive when it comes to reporting corruption scandals, and overall I think the national newspapers' coverage of the elections was excellent.

Pinning hair up before an interview

It is difficult for me to compare Chile with other countries in this respect, but I think that it has a fairly rich political science-sociology literature as well, and the same intellectuals who write academic books are often columnists for the newspapers. This makes the intellectual circles much tighter than in the US for example. A Chilean intellectual such as Eugenio Tironi for example is a regular author, journalist, columnist, political analyst and paid center-left political consultant/advisor. Whew.

Oh, I discovered salchichas italianas yesterday too! These are hotdogs with mayo, avocado and tomatos, and they cost less than a dollar!

2007-01-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

First interview finished

Today I interviewed an author/journalist/professor whose thoughts on the Bachelet campaign essentially confirmed my research. She is a lovely person, and it was good to hear her analysis.

Santiago is so beautiful this time of year -- it is hot, but unlike so many cities like Paris and New York, Santiago has lots of trees and parks which helps cool the city. That is one of the best parts of Santiago -- living in the city does not mean you are closed off from nature.

The Andean mountains encircling Santiago are magnificent when the smog clears.

One other great thing about Santiago is the hamburgesas italianas: hamburgers with tomato, avocado (palta) and mayo! Mmmm...

I never realized how much I enjoy research! Researching, analyzing and writing this thesis never gets boring, and I will even go so far to say that every moment has been fun!

2007-01-04T10:36:00.000-05:00

Blog title

I want to add that if anyone has a cute idea for a new blog title, I am very much open to suggestions. You will be credited with the creation of the blog title if I choose it! :)

I wanted to add that the weather is so wonderful here -- not too hot, although at night it is difficult to sleep.

2007-01-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

Researching and making contacts in Santiago

The first few days in Santiago have primarily revolved around catching up with friends, figuring out the library system, scheduling interviews, watching local news, talking politics with Chileans and grocery shopping! (Perhaps the first one is the most fun and the second is the most frustrating!)

All of the archives for the Chileans newspapers are on MICROFILM which is clearly difficult to handle. However the plethora of political academic works written by Chileans is wonderful, and today I am at the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) where I believe I can check out books once I sign up for a card or something.

The system for looking at books in the library is quite simple, and photocopies are about 30 pesos a page ... which is quite cheap. There is a guy waiting at the library photocopier who makes the copies for you (and you do not have to tip him!). This system is much more user-friendly than the US version since at US universities you often have to sign up for a special card that you then put money on so that you can finally make copies for 10 cents a page.

I have two interviews scheduled with two prominent women journalists/authors for Monday. The first is a Bachelet supporter and the second is a former Pinochet supporter. This will be interesting...

Already I have been learning so much about the Chilean intellectual circles ... More on that perhaps later.