The decisive victory of the leftist presidential candidate Boric in December’s election put one more nail in the coffin of Chilean dictator Pinochet’s fascist legacy. There is a vast difference between a Left electoral power and the powerful Left movement that has grown in the streets.
Chile
Youth in Action: November-December 2021
November 19, 2021Young immigration activists confront Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to demand she uphold campaign promises; protests against racially biased enforcement of the student dress code in Richardson, Texas; and the demonstration marking the two-year anniversary of the uprising led by students in Chile.
Mapuche people fight for their land in Chile
In October, right-wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera twice decreed a 15-day state of emergency for several provinces which directs the armed forces to provide support for policing and surveillance of the Mapuche people. We include part of the Mapuche people’s declaration.
Latin America notes, March-April 2021
March 11, 2021Coal mines continue to kill in Mexico; the Mapuche nation is resisting Chile’s government and logging companies.
Women worldwide, January-February 2021
February 2, 2021Lenn Keller, a Black Lesbian feminist activist, historian, and documentary photographer, remembered; women sue MindGeek/Pornhub and pressure credit card companies; Chile women win demand for half the seats in constitutional convention; women win reinstatement in First Nation bands in Canada.
Latin America Notes
November 25, 2020Chileans voted by 80% to get rid of the 1980 Constitution and begin the process of writing a new one; Bolivia’s presidential election repudiated the right wing that had taken over the government when Evo Morales was forced to flee last year; and in Colombia, thousands of Indigenous people marched hundreds of miles to Bogotá demanding a meeting with the president to protest extreme violence against their peoples.
Woman as Reason: Anti-femicide goes global
January 21, 2020Women are deepening a global movement to combat violence against us, from violent rapes to domestic battering to outright femicide. Demonstrations have spread across the globe.
World in View: Chile youth protests
November 4, 2019An overview of the recent mass protests in Chile triggered by the increase in subway fares, symbolic of the growing inequality in Chilean society.
Editorial: Catholic Church’s sins laid bare
September 17, 2018Editorial that takes up the evil that the Catholic Church has imposed on children and women; how movements from below, especially by women, have challenged it; and how future church crimes will be revealed, signaling the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church.
World in View: Reaction rises in Brazil and Costa Rica
March 12, 2018Racist and homophobic politicians have moved from the fringes to contend for state power in Brazil. Fabricio Alvarado in Costa Rica and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a further step down an anti-human path.
World in View: Chile abortion rights
September 3, 2017Chilean women won a limited but important victory Aug. 21., when the Constitutional Tribunal ruled to legalize abortion in three situations: rape, incest, and when the woman’s life is in danger.
Women WorldWide: September-October 2016
September 11, 2016A roundup of women’s actions including: Feminists in Chile demanded access to abortion by participating in International Day of Action for Women’s Heath events; Immigrant women in detention at Pennsylvania’s Berks County Residential Center on hunger strike protesting both the Department of Homeland Security’s lies and terrible living conditions; women prisoners in Egypt including lawyer Mahieour El-Massry join Basma Refaat in her hunger strike to demand visitations with her children; women throughout Peru march protesting violence against women and the light sentences given to perpetrators; feminist station Radio Shaista, in Kunduzu, Afghanistan, returns to the air after the Taliban burned it to the ground.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Queer Notes: March-April 2016
March 12, 2016The Pride Parade celebration in Mumbai, India; Transgender Girl Scout Stormi’s victorious sales of Girl Scout cookies despite those who would discriminate against her; and human rights group Observatorio de Derechos Humanos y Legislacion inspiring the Chilean Ministry of Health to grant healthcare autonomy to Intersex and Transgender children
World in View: Chile students protest
July 8, 2015Chile’s students once again took to the streets by the tens of thousands to demand fundamental education reform.
Women WorldWide, July-August 2014
July 6, 2014Oppression of women in tech industry; El Salvador demonstrations over miscarriage jailings; Brazilian Stop the Catcalls project.
Kissinger’s holocausts
May 18, 2014People from a dozen or more anti-war organizations gathered in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel to confront former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, named keynote speaker for the Awards Banquet of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Chile re-inters miners
October 1, 2013Despite overwhelming evidence against the mine owners, a judge ruled that no one was responsible for the mine collapse in Chile that trapped 33 miners three years ago.
Thatcher is dead, Thatcherism persists
May 7, 2013London, England–They gathered openly, in the streets, in the hundreds. They shouted. They cheered. Flags were waved, music was played. Yet this was not just another Belfast parade in the name of Republican pride. Far from death being a solemn occasion, the demise of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the so-called “Iron Lady,” was a [=>]
World in View: Students awaken Chile
September 19, 2011From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters:
World in View: Students awaken Chile
Hundreds of thousands of students–teenagers, and college students–have taken to the streets of Santiago, the capital, and the cities of Concepción, Valparaíso and Temuco, among others, to demand a decent public education. Hundreds of schools have been taken over. Students have been [=>]
Chilean miners’ rescue evokes many views
November 12, 2010From the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
Chilean miners’ rescue evokes many views
It is Oct. 13 and I am visually and sonically inundated with blow-by-blow descriptions of the Chilean miner rescue operation. TV, radio and newspapers have whipped themselves into a frenzy reporting the rescue of 33 miners from a collapsed mine in Chile. [=>]