LATIN AMERICA:
Latin 'untouchables' face heat
September 16, 2004 Christian Science MonitorSANTIAGO, CHILE – In recent months, Latin America has made significant progress in the struggle to redress the human rights abuses committed during the dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s, say experts.
Chile is the latest domino, as its Supreme Court began hearings this week in a historic appeal of an amnesty law decreed by the country's one-time strongman, former Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
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Noose tightens on Pinochet
September 11, 2004 New Zealand HeraldSANTIAGO, Chile - This afternoon, Viviana Diaz will pin to her sweater the faded black-and-white photograph of her father, Victor, and set out for the yearly march to the general cemetery in Santiago, Chile. It's the world's other September 11.
Thirty-one years ago today, General Augusto Pinochet took power in a bloody coup. An estimated 3200 Chileans were killed, or "disappeared" after being detained by the military in a campaign to root out Pinochet's opposition.
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Poor paper pickers of Chile
July 31, 2004 Toronto StarSANTIAGO, CHILE—Carlos Cuturrufu emerges from a plastic garbage can almost his height, a stack of white papers in hand. He tosses his find into one of four industrial-sized plastic bags, which he loads onto stacks of folded cardboard boxes on his makeshift tricycle.
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In Chile, Hope Is Reborn in 30-Year Quest for Justice
July 18, 2004 Washington PostSANTIAGO, Chile -- Michele Drouilly circled the towering Ombu tree at Villa Grimaldi, an idyllic park in the foothills of the snow-capped Andes mountains. The sound of chirping birds and playing children disguised a sense of eeriness."You look at this place today and it's a beautiful park, but you wouldn't imagine what happened here," said Drouilly.
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Chilean military puts on a new face
June 1, 2004 Washington TimesSANTIAGO, Chile — Heads high, they march in awkward sync as their parents look on proudly. It's Day One of military service for these recruits in the Chilean army. Decked out for the last time in civilian skirts and blazers, high heels clunking on the pavement, these women know it will be a year of huge change for them, and for the military units they are joining.
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Divorce finally comes to Chile: Women welcome escape from abuse
Saturday, March 27, 2004 The Toronto StarSANTIAGO—Magaly Castillo has a nervous look on her face as she walks down Paseo Ahumada, one of the busy downtown pedestrian malls in Chile's capital. One of her children in tow, she checks each street corner carefully, hoping her husband is not following them — again.
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Countdown to freedom
Monday, March 22, 2004 The GuardianChile is one of the last few countries where divorce is still illegal. But not for much longer. This month, a bill to allow it was finally passed. Three Chileans tell Jen Ross why they can't wait for the new law to take effect.
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Chile defies church and legalises divorce
Friday, March 12, 2004 The GuardianSANTIAGO -- Couples eager to end their marriages breathed a sign of relief in Chile yesterday as the lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalise divorce. Until Thursday, Chile was the only country in the Americas - and one of the few left in the world - to forbid divorce.
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Latin America eyes defense pact
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 The Washington TimesSANTIAGO -- For most of Latin America, the days of dictatorships and civil wars are largely over, but security is still elusive. Historic border conflicts continue, democracy is fragile in many countries, and new internal and external threats have emerged.
To face these new threats, and to increase the region's influence, an age-old idea has taken on new strength among the region's defense ministries. In recent months, reluctant leaders have been talking seriously about building a collective regional-defense community, along the lines of the European Union's.
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Bolivia hopes to float its bid for sea access
Monday, January 12, 2004 The Globe & MailSANTIAGO -- From the shores of Lake Titicaca, you can still see the Bolivian navy puttering around, hoping perhaps naively for the day when the country's fleet will again see an ocean.
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Bolivia's land-locked navy dreams of leaving Lake Titicaca
Saturday, January 10, 2004 The IndependentSANTIAGO -- From the shores of Lake Titicaca high in the Andes, you can still see the Bolivian navy puttering around, in the hope that they may, one day, see the bright blue ocean to the west once again. While La Paz stands on the abyss of civil war, its population starving and its economy in free fall, its leaders are strangely preoccupied with rectifying what has long been relegated to the history books.
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Chile tackles child-sex trade
Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Christian Science MonitorSANTIAGO, CHILE – It's 5 a.m. on Providencia Street in Chile's capital, and you can still see children as young as 5 peddling red flowers as their parents look on from the shadows. They've been working all night, and flowers aren't the only thing they sell.
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Chile awakens to child prostitution after scandal: One organization finds 65,000 online pedophile networks
Monday, November 24, 2003 The San Francisco ChronicleSantiago, Chile -- An investigation into a suspected pedophile ring headed by a wealthy businessman has caused this conservative nation to suddenly ponder a previously ignored social problem -- child prostitution.
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The mechanical artistas of Cuba
Saturday, November 18, 2000. The Globe and Mail. T2.HAVANA -- On the road from Cienfuegos to Havana, Cuba's bumpy national highway, there's a beached car every 20 kilometres or so along the shoulders, its owner's body half visible as he tinkers under the open hood.
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EUROPE:
Big Brother looms in British offices
Thursday, November 9, 2000. The Globe and Mail. B19.LONDON -- Amid the clatter of keyboards in a busy Internet café in Central London, a man in a navy suit stares glassy-eyed at his flat compute screen.
Owen is e-shopping for a new laptop -- one of the many personal activities which, he says, he does not dare undertake from work.
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"Tourists like city bikes too much: Bike-lending program hit by souvenir-hunters," The Kingston Whig-Standard. August 12, 2000. 14.
"Emerging youth movement scorns eco-alarmists," The Victoria Times Colonist. July 31, 2000. C14.