Chile, Latin America: Week in Review
Chile: Blackouts Force Energy Minister To Call For New Investments In Network
September 27, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Chile’s energy minister called for strong new investments in the country’s energy network after widespread blackout hit the Southern Cone nation for the third day in a row. Failures in the transmission grid are suspected to have caused the blackouts. On Saturday more than half of the country’s 17 million people were plunged into darkness due to a blackout, which was followed Sunday by a blackout around Chile’s port city of Valparaíso. On Monday, much of northern Chile also lost power. Energy Minister Rodrigo Álvarez said that the companies responsible for the power outages would be fined, but much of the country’s power grid is not connected. Updating this is now seen as a major priority of President Sebastián Piñera’s administration.
Read More From The Washington Post.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Though he couldn’t make it to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez rallied his supporters in New York by phone from Cuba on Friday. Read the report from Roque Planas and Juan Víctor Fajardo.
- Check out our continuing coverage this week of the United Nations General Assembly.
- Mexican President Felipe Calderón called on the U.S. government to reduce weapon sales to Mexico and domestic demand for illegal drugs, in a talk before business leaders at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday. Mari Hayman has more.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A new state panel in Georgia that is entrusted with enforcing a tough immigration law will meet for the first time next week amid controversy over one of it’s members.
- Sixteen lawmakers in Massachusetts announced that they plan to file legislation calling for tougher penalties for unlicensed drivers, better tracking of immigrants who are arrested and new immigration checks for state contractors.
- Hurricane Hilary picked up strength and stirred up surf in Baja California and southwestern Mexico.
Caribbean
- Cuba wants to re-establish relations with the United States with a focus on humanitarian and other issues, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Monday at the United Nations.
- Bruce Golding’s resignation as Prime Minister of Jamaica is official.
- Puerto Rican officials are competing over what part of the island will receive a controversial Christopher Columbus statue.
Central America
- Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said that she want her country to be considered a “developing nation” by the United Nations Development Program, despite believing it will be Latin America’s first developed nation.
- Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said his country plans to build a new commercial airport at Palmerola Air Base in Comayagua to replace Tegucigalpa’s Toncontín International Airport.
- The Russian car manufacturer GAZ plans to send 169 mid-range buses to Nicaragua in the coming months as part of an on-going humanitarian program.
Andes
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will not address the United Nations General Assembly, according to an e-mail from the Venezuelan Mission to the U.N.
- Hundreds of indigenous people protesting a controversial highway through the Amazon were freed by Police in Bolivia.
- Police in Peru have released a video of murder suspect Joran van der Sloot confessing to the killing of a young Peruvian woman.
- The Latin Grammy Awards will honor Colombian singer Shakira for her humanitarian work.
Southern Cone
- A prosecutor in Brazil plans to order police to investigate the country’s soccer federation president over a money transfer allegedly stemming from kickbacks.
- An explosion that killed nine people and wrecked two homes on the outskirts of the capital of Argentina was allegedly caused by a gas leak, not space debris as previously thought.
- A doctor in Brazil accidentally declared a woman in her 60s dead even though she was still breathing.
- Deere & Co. plan to open a factory in Argentina as the country tries to reduce the country’s dependence on imported manufactured goods.
Image: Hector Garcia @ Flickr.
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