In Chile, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup that toppled President Salvador Allende has reignited the national conversation about the legacies of both Allende and his successor, General Augusto Pinochet.
Last September, Chileans voted overwhelmingly to reject a draft constitution that would have turbocharged President Gabriel Boric’s progressive agenda. Boric’s leftist allies blamed “fake news” for misleading the electorate. Ahead of another constitutional referendum this December, the government quietly published a decree to establish an Advisory Commission Against Disinformation. The initiative has sparked deep unease among free speech advocates and an outcry from Boric’s political opponents.
Chile holds a significant position in the global economy. As the world shifts from a dependence on fossil fuels to clean and renewable sources of energy, batteries have become a key part of the transition.
Chileans have never wanted a new country or a drastically different economic model. All along, they have held the same demands.
The United States, China, Japan, and most advanced economies are actively engaged in attempting to secure new sources of lithium—a key element in the transition of the global economy from fossil fuels to renewables.
As the world looks for an energy revolution, Latin America’s lithium triangle—Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile—is estimated to hold close to 60 percent of global lithium reserves.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Vice President Francia Márquez, and Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva at the Casa de Nariño as the first stop on his week-long trip to Colombia, Chile, and Peru.
On Tuesday, world leaders began gathering in New York for the high-level debate of the UNGA’s seventy-seventh session. The debate, which was the first entirely in-person General Assembly since the start of the pandemic, was opened by Secretary-General António Guterres, who alluded to the war in Ukraine, rising energy and food prices, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis.
The label “pink tide” was already misleading 20 years ago. Today, with even more pronounced distinctions between the left-wing presidents and diverse foreign policy orientations—including some critical views of Cuba—such a generalization has become even more outdated and is by far too inaccurate to categorize a political trend.
