person:sebastián piñera

  • Île de Pâques : le combat du peuple Rapa Nui pour la restitution de son patrimoine culturel
    https://www.franceculture.fr/sculpture/ile-de-paques-le-combat-du-peuple-rapa-nui-pour-la-restitution-de-son-

    C’est le symbole de l’Île de Pâques. Le moaï est devenu indissociable de cette île, rattachée au Chili depuis 1888, comme la Tour Eiffel l’est pour Paris. Près de mille statues aux airs de géant de pierre se dressent encore aujourd’hui sur cette île de 166 km2, située entre Tahiti et les côtes chiliennes. Mais certaines oeuvres manquent à l’appel et sont exposées dans des musées à l’étranger, comme à Paris, quai Branly. 150 ans après la disparition du moaï Hoa Hakananai’a, une délégation de l’Île de Pâques s’est rendue mardi 20 novembre au British Museum de Londres pour réclamer la restitution de la statue. La statue a été emportée sans autorisation en 1868 par un navire britannique. La reine Victoria l’avait ensuite offerte au musée londonien, mal à l’aise devant cette représentation dénudée.

    Cette revendication date en fait d’une trentaine d’années et s’inscrit dans un combat pluriel du peuple Rapa Nui. Sa terre est d’ailleurs sur le point de changer officiellement de nom pour s’appeler « Rapa Nui - Isla de Pascua ». « Nous voulons faire un acte de reconnaissance historique, de revendication : reconnaître l’origine et l’histoire millénaire de l’île », a ainsi déclaré le président du Chili, Sebastián Piñera. Le musée norvégien Kon-Tiki pourrait d’ores et déjà avoir créé un précédent : il vient lui de s’engager à restituer toute sa collection de pièces archéologiques et photographies de Rapa Nui.

    #restitution #art #musée #colonialisme #Ile_de_Pâques #Rapa_Nui

  • The Rise and Fall of the Latin American Left | The Nation
    https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ebb-and-flow-of-latin-americas-pink-tide

    Conservatives now control Latin America’s leading economies, but the region’s leftists can still look to Uruguay for direction.
    By Omar G. Encarnación, May 9, 2018

    Last December’s election of Sebastián Piñera, of the National Renewal party, to the Chilean presidency was doubly significant for Latin American politics. Coming on the heels of the rise of right-wing governments in Argentina in 2015 and Brazil in 2016, Piñera’s victory signaled an unmistakable right-wing turn for the region. For the first time since the 1980s, when much of South America was governed by military dictatorship, the continent’s three leading economies are in the hands of right-wing leaders.

    Piñera’s election also dealt a blow to the resurrection of the Latin American left in the post–Cold War era. In the mid-2000s, at the peak of the so-called Pink Tide (a phrase meant to suggest the surge of leftist, noncommunist governments), Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia, or three-quarters of South America’s population (some 350 million people), were under left-wing rule. By the time the Pink Tide reached the mini-state of Mexico City, in 2006, and Nicaragua, a year later (culminating in the election of Daniel Ortega as president there), it was a region-wide phenomenon.

    It’s no mystery why the Pink Tide ran out of steam; even before the Chilean election, Mexican political scientist Jorge Castañeda had already declared it dead in The New York Times. Left-wing fatigue is an obvious factor. It has been two decades since the late Hugo Chávez launched the Pink Tide by toppling the political establishment in the 1998 Venezuelan presidential election. His Bolivarian revolution lives on in the hands of his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, but few Latin American governments regard Venezuela’s ravaged economy and diminished democratic institutions as an inspiring model. In Brazil, the Workers’ Party, or PT, was in power for 14 years, from 2002 through 2016, first under its founder, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, between 2003 and 2011, and then under his successor and protégée, Dilma Rousseff, from 2011 to 2016. The husband-and-wife team of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of the Peronist Party governed Argentina from 2003 to 2015. Socialist Michelle Bachelet had two nonconsecutive terms in office in Chile, from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018.

    Economic turmoil and discontent is another culprit. As fate would have it, the Pink Tide coincided with one of the biggest economic expansions in Latin American history. Its engine was one of the largest commodities booms in modern times. Once the boom ended, in 2012—largely a consequence of a slowdown in China’s economy—economic growth in Latin America screeched to a halt. According to the International Monetary Fund, since 2012 every major Latin American economy has underperformed relative to the previous 10 years, with some economies, including that of Brazil, the region’s powerhouse, experiencing their worst recession in decades. The downturn reined in public spending and sent the masses into the streets, making it very difficult for governments to hang on to power.

    Meanwhile, as the commodity boom filled states’ coffers, leftist politicians became enmeshed in the same sorts of corrupt practices as their conservative predecessors. In April, Lula began serving a 12-year prison sentence for having accepted bribes in exchange for government contracts while in office. His prosecution, which in principle guarantees that he will not be a candidate in this year’s presidential race, was the high point of Operation Car Wash, the biggest anti-corruption dragnet in Brazilian history. Just after leaving office, in 2015, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was indicted for fraud for conspiring with her former public-works secretary, José López, to steal millions of federal dollars intended for roadwork in Argentina. The “nuns and guns” scandal riveted the country, with the arrest of a gun-toting López as he hurled bags stuffed with millions of dollars over the walls of a Catholic convent in a suburb of Buenos Aires. In Chile, Bachelet left office under a cloud of suspicion. Her family, and by extension Bachelet herself, is accused of illegal real-estate transactions that netted millions of dollars.

    All this said, largely overlooked in obituaries of the Pink Tide is the right-wing backlash that it provoked. This backlash aimed to reverse the shift in power brought on by the Pink Tide—a shift away from the power brokers that have historically controlled Latin America, such as the military, the Catholic Church, and the oligarchy, and toward those sectors of society that have been marginalized: women, the poor, sexual minorities, and indigenous peoples. Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 perfectly exemplifies the retaliation organized by the country’s traditional elites. Engineered by members of the Brazilian Congress, a body that is only 11 percent female and has deep ties to industrial barons, rural oligarchs, and powerful evangelical pastors, the impeachment process was nothing short of a patriarchal coup.

    In a 2017 interview, Rousseff made note of the “very misogynist element in the coup against me.… They accused me of being overly tough and harsh, while a man would have been considered firm, strong. Or they would say I was too emotional and fragile, when a man would have been considered sensitive.” In support of her case, Rousseff pointed out that previous Brazilian presidents committed the same “crime” she was accused of (fudging the national budget to hide deficits at reelection time), without any political consequence. As if to underscore the misogyny, Rousseff’s successor, Michel Temer, came into office with an all-male cabinet.

    In assessing the impact of the Pink Tide, there is a tendency to bemoan its failure to generate an alternative to neoliberalism. After all, the Pink Tide rose out of the discontent generated by the economic policies championed by the United States and international financial institutions during the 1990s, such as privatizations of state enterprises, austerity measures, and ending economic protectionism. Yet capitalism never retreated in most of Latin America, and US economic influence remains for the most part unabated. The only significant dent on the neoliberal international order made by the Pink Tide came in 2005, when a massive wave of political protests derailed the George W. Bush administration’s plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA. If enacted, this new trade pact would have extended the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to all countries in the Americas save for Cuba, or 34 nations in total.

    But one shouldn’t look at the legacy of the Pink Tide only through the lens of what might have been with respect to replacing neoliberalism and defeating US imperialism. For one thing, a good share of the Pink Tide was never anti-neoliberal or anti-imperialist. Left-wing rule in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile (what Castañeda called the “good left”) had more in common with the social-democratic governments of Western Europe, with its blend of free-market economics and commitment to the welfare state, than with Cuba’s Communist regime.

    Indeed, only in the radical fringe of the Pink Tide, especially the triumvirate of Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador (the “bad left,” according to Castañeda), was the main thrust of governance anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist. Taking Cuba as a model, these self-termed revolutionaries nationalized large sectors of the economy, reinvigorated the role of the state in redistributing wealth, promoted social services to the poor, and created interstate institutions, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, to promote inter-American collaboration and to challenge US hegemony.

    Second, the focus on neoliberalism and US imperialism obscures the Pink Tide’s biggest accomplishments. To be sure, the picture is far from being uniformly pretty, especially when it comes to democracy. The strong strand of populism that runs through the Pink Tide accounts for why some of its leaders have been so willing to break democratic norms. Claiming to be looking after the little guy, the likes of Chávez and Maduro have circumvented term limits and curtailed the independence of the courts and the press. But there is little doubt that the Pink Tide made Latin America more inclusive, equitable, and democratic, by, among other things, ushering in an unprecedented era of social progressivism.

    Because of the Pink Tide, women in power are no longer a novelty in Latin American politics; in 2014, female presidents ruled in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Their policies leave little doubt about the transformative nature of their leadership. In 2010, Fernández boldly took on the Argentine Catholic Church (then headed by present-day Pope Francis) to enact Latin America’s first ever same-sex marriage law; this was five years before same-sex marriage became the law of the land in the United States. A gender-identity law, one of the world’s most liberal, followed. It allows individuals to change their sex assigned at birth without permission from either a doctor or a judge. Yet another law banned the use of “conversion therapy” to cure same-sex attraction. Argentina’s gay-rights advances were quickly emulated by neighboring Uruguay and Brazil, kick-starting a “gay-rights revolution” in Latin America.

    Rousseff, who famously referred to herself with the gender-specific title of a presidenta, instead of the gender-neutral “president,” did much to advance the status of women in Brazilian society. She appointed women to the three most powerful cabinet positions, including chief of staff, and named the first female head of Petrobras, Brazil’s largest business corporation; during her tenure in office, a woman became chief justice of the Federal Supreme Court. Brutally tortured by the military during the 1970s, as a university student, Rousseff put human rights at the center of Brazilian politics by enacting a law that created Brazil’s first ever truth commission to investigate the abuses by the military between 1964 and 1985. She also signed laws that opened the Brazilian Army to women and that set into motion the corruption campaign that is currently roiling the Brazilian political class. These laws earned Rousseff the enmity of the military and conservatives.

    Bachelet, the last woman standing, made news when she entered office, in 2006, by naming the same number of men and women to her cabinet. After being term-limited, she became the first head of the newly established UN Women (formally known as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), before returning to Chile to win a second term at the presidency in 2014. During her second term, she created the Ministry of Gender Equality to address gender disparities and discrimination, and passed a law that legalized abortion in cases of rape, when there is a threat to the life of the mother, or when the fetus has a terminal condition. Less known is Bachelet’s advocacy for the environment. She weaned Chile off its dependence on hydrocarbons by building a vast network of solar- and wind-powered grids that made electricity cheaper and cleaner. She also created a vast system of national parks to protect much of the country’s forestland and coastline from development.

    Latin America’s socioeconomic transformation under the Pink Tide is no less impressive. Just before the economic downturn of 2012, Latin America came tantalizingly close to becoming a middle-class region. According to the World Bank, from 2002 to 2012, the middle class in Latin America grew every year by at least 1 percent to reach 35 percent of the population by 2013. This means that during that time frame, some 10 million Latin Americans joined the middle class every year. A consequence of this dramatic expansion of the middle class is a significant shrinking of the poor. Between 2000 and 2014, the percentage of Latin Americans living in poverty (under $4 per day) shrank from 45 to 25 percent.

    Economic growth alone does not explain this extraordinary expansion of the Latin American middle class and the massive reduction in poverty: Deliberate efforts by the government to redistribute wealth were also a key factor. Among these, none has garnered more praise than those implemented by the Lula administration, especially Bolsa Família, or Family Purse. The program channeled direct cash payments to poor families, as long as they agreed to keep their children in school and to attend regular health checkups. By 2013, the program had reached some 12 million households (50 million people), helping cut extreme poverty in Brazil from 9.7 to 4.3 percent of the population.

    Last but not least are the political achievements of the Pink Tide. It made Latin America the epicenter of left-wing politics in the Global South; it also did much to normalize democratic politics in the region. With its revolutionary movements crushed by military dictatorship, it is not surprising that the Latin American left was left for dead after the end of the Cold War. But since embracing democracy, the left in Latin America has moderated its tactics and beliefs while remaining committed to the idea that deliberate state action powered by the popular will is critical to correcting injustice and alleviating human suffering. Its achievements are a welcome antidote to the cynicism about democratic politics afflicting the American left.

    How the epoch-making legacy of the Pink Tide will fare in the hands of incoming right-wing governments is an open question. Some of the early signs are not encouraging. The Temer administration in Brazil has shown a decidedly retro-macho attitude, as suggested by its abolishment of the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality, and Human Rights (its functions were collapsed into the Ministry of Justice) and its close ties to a politically powerful evangelical movement with a penchant for homophobia. In Argentina, President Mauricio Macri has launched a “Trumpian” assault on undocumented immigrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, blaming them for bringing crime and drugs into the country. Some political observers expect that Piñera will abridge or overturn Chile’s new abortion law.

    But there is reason for optimism. Temer and Macri have been slow to dismantle anti-poverty programs, realizing that doing so would be political suicide. This is hardly surprising, given the success of those programs. Right-wing governments have even seen fit to create anti-poverty programs of their own, such as Mexico’s Prospera. Moreover, unlike with prior ascents by the right in Latin America, the left is not being vanished to the political wilderness. Left-wing parties remain a formidable force in the legislatures of most major Latin American countries. This year alone, voters in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia will have presidential elections, raising the prospect that a new Pink Tide might be rising. Should this new tide come in, the Latin American left would do well to reform its act and show what it has learned from its mistakes.

    Latin American leftists need not look far to find a model to emulate: Uruguay. It exemplifies the best of the Pink Tide without its excesses. Frente Amplio, or Broad Front, a coalition of left-wing parties in power since 2005, has put the country at the vanguard of social change by legalizing abortion, same-sex marriage, and, most famously, recreational marijuana. For these reasons alone, in 2013 The Economist chose “liberal and fun-loving” Uruguay for its first ever “country of the year” award.

    Less known accomplishments include being one of only two countries in Latin America that enjoy the status of “high income” (alongside Chile), reducing poverty from around 40 percent to less than 12 percent from 2005 to 2014, and steering clear of corruption scandals. According to Transparency International, Uruguay is the least corrupt country in Latin America, and ranks among the world’s 25 least corrupt nations. The country also scored a near perfect 100 in Freedom House’s 2018 ranking of civil and political freedoms, virtually tied with Canada, and far ahead of the United States and neighboring Argentina and Brazil. The payoff for this much virtue is hard to ignore. Among Latin American nations, no other country shows more satisfaction with its democracy.

    Omar G. EncarnaciónOmar G. Encarnación is a professor of political studies at Bard College and author of Out in the Periphery: Latin America’s Gay Rights Revolution.

    #politique #amérique_latine #impérialisme

  • World Bank Unfairly Influenced Its Own Competitiveness Rankings - WSJ
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-unfairly-influenced-its-own-competitiveness-rankings-1515797620

    The World Bank repeatedly changed the methodology of one of its flagship economic reports over several years in ways it now says were unfair and misleading.

    The World Bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, told The Wall Street Journal on Friday he would correct and recalculate national rankings of business competitiveness in the report called “#Doing_Business” going back at least four years.

    The revisions could be particularly relevant to Chile, whose standings have been volatile in recent years—and potentially tainted by political motivations of World Bank staff, Mr. Romer said.

    The report is one of the most visible World Bank initiatives, ranking countries around the world by the competitiveness of their business environment. Countries compete against each other to improve their standings, and the report draws extensive international media coverage.
    […]
    I want to make a personal apology to Chile, and to any other country where we conveyed the wrong impression,” Mr. Romer said. The problems with the report, he said, were “my fault because we did not make things clear enough.” Mr. Romer said the World Bank is beginning the process of correcting the past reports and republishing what the rankings would have been without the methodology changes. He said he couldn’t defend “the integrity” of the process that led to the methodology changes.

    Chile’s overall ranking has fluctuated between 25th and 57th since 2006. During that period, the presidency of Chile has alternated between Ms. Bachelet, of Chile’s socialist party, and Sebastián Piñera, a conservative. Under Ms. Bachelet, Chile’s ranking consistently deteriorated, while it consistently climbed under Mr. Piñera.

    Recalculating the numbers could show significant changes to other countries as well.

    • Info arrivée via Sergio Coronado, député des Français d’Amérique latine dans la législature précédente qui possède également la nationalité chilienne…

      Je n’ai plus accès au WSJ (paywall) mais toujours au journal chilien qui reprenait l’info (et qui m’y avait conduit). Mais on a déjà trouvé le lampiste à qui imputer ces magouilles. Parce que les changements de méthodologie, hein, ça reste quand même super-sérieux.

      El Banco Mundial perjudicó los números de Chile durante el Gobierno de Bachelet - Cooperativa.cl
      http://www.cooperativa.cl/noticias/economia/competitividad/imagen-pais/el-banco-mundial-perjudico-los-numeros-de-chile-en-los-gobiernos-de-bachelet/2018-01-13/110242.html

      El Wall Street Journal apuntó a la figura del economista boliviano Augusto López-Claros.

      Augusto López-Claros, de nacionalidad boliviana (La Paz, 1955), es director de Indicadores Globales y Análisis del Banco Mundial, el departamento responsable del informe «Doing Business» y otros estudios internacionales de evaluación comparativa.

      De acuerdo a la biografía de su página web, anteriormente fue economista jefe y director del Programa de Competitividad Global en el Foro Económico Mundial (FMI) en Ginebra (desde el año 2003), donde también fue editor del Global Competitiveness Report (Reporte de Competitivad Global), la publicación principal del fórum, así como otros estudios económicos regionales.

      Como precisa la plataforma Thinking Heads, antes de unirse al Foro, López-Claro trabajó durante varios años en el sector financiero, ejerciendo durante cinco años como director ejecutivo y economista internacional superior en Londres en la firma Lehman Brothers International, cuya quiebra en 2008 incendió los mercados y aceleró la crisis mundial.

      De acuerdo a su página web, López-Claros se desempeñó como profesor de Economía en la Universidad de Chile y recibió un diploma en Estadística Matemática de la Universidad de Cambridge, Reino Unido, y un Doctorado en Economía de la Universidad de Duke, Estados Unidos

  • #Chili : un « Front de gauche » veut créer la surprise aux élections
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/171117/chili-un-front-de-gauche-veut-creer-la-surprise-aux-elections

    Beatriz Sánchez, lors d’une conférence à Santiago, en août 2017. © Reuters Élections présidentielle et législatives, dimanche, au Chili : en marge des deux grandes forces, la droite de Sebastián Piñera et la majorité sortante de centre-gauche du candidat Alejandro Guillier, s’est constituée une troisième force, la gauche radicale du #Frente_Amplio (le Front large). C’est une coalition d’organisations, certaines issues des mouvements étudiants et lycéens de 2011, qui n’est pas sans rappeler la France insoumise, et surtout le mouvement des indignés.

    #International #gauche_chilienne

  • Venezuela infos | En Occident il y a bien longtemps que la gauche n‘ose plus parler de démocratiser la propriété des médias. Les grands groupes privés imposent leur image du monde au service public et… balisent l’imaginaire de la gauche. Comme le Venezuela construit une démocratie participative et bat les records en nombre d’élections, les grands médias personnalisent le processus : « Chavez ceci », « Maduro cela », « populiste », « dictateur », « iranien ». Ceci est le journal d’une révolution, aux antipodes de l’AFP ou de Reuters.
    https://venezuelainfos.wordpress.com

    Je ne comprends pas pourquoi Maduro ne se dépêche pas d’adopter la constitution de l’Arabie Saoudite pour faire plaisir au gouvernement états-unien (Julien Assange)

    • Venezuela. L’opposition sort groggy du scrutin
      https://www.humanite.fr/venezuela-lopposition-sort-groggy-du-scrutin-639786

      Leopoldo Lopez, l’une des figures de l’opposition et l’homme clé de la stratégie américaine. Son parcours : violence, détournement et tentative de coup d’État.
      Caracas (Venezuela), envoyé spécial.
      À la veille du scrutin vénézuélien, le vice-président américain, Mike Pence, s’est fendu d’un appel téléphonique à Leopoldo Lopez, l’une des figures de l’opposition, pour le féliciter de « son courage et sa défense de la démocratie vénézuélienne ». Mais qui est Lopez ? Une gueule de Brad Pitt latino ou un Delon aux traits gras, comme on voudra, genre voyou beau gosse. Ce qu’il semble effectivement être, son CV comportant des accusations de corruption, de coups, d’incitation à la violence, et même de tentative de coup d’État. Déclaré coupable par la procureure générale de l’époque, Luisa Ortega, en 2014, il a écopé, en 2015, d’une condamnation à treize ans et neuf mois de détention, et se trouve actuellement en résidence surveillée, extrait de sa prison récemment pour raisons de santé. Il a reçu le soutien de « démocrates » aussi célèbres que le Mexicain Felipe Calderon, dont la guerre de la drogue a fait 100 000 morts, ou le milliardaire chilien proche de Pinochet, Sebastian Pinera.

      De droite, Leopoldo Lopez l’a toujours été. Et il aime l’argent. Né en 1971, diplômé aux États-Unis, il est rentré au #Venezuela pour travailler, de 1996 à 1999, dans la compagnie pétrolière PDVSA, où il va se faire remarquer : une enquête conclut que Lopez a « volé de l’argent et a pratiqué le trafic d’influence », ce qui lui a permis de détourner de l’argent pour financer son mouvement. Il sera suspendu, mais peu lui importe. Il est vrai que sa position et ses idées politiques lui ont permis de rencontrer beaucoup de monde. Évidemment, avec l’élection de Chavez, il va s’affirmer comme l’un des fers de lance de l’opposition. À partir de 2002, il se rend souvent à Washington, où il rencontre la famille Bush et visite l’International Républican Institute (IRI), qui fait partie du National Endowment for Democracy (NED, dotation nationale pour la démocratie), qui va injecter des dizaines de millions de dollars dans les groupes d’opposition au Venezuela, dont celui de Lopez, Justice First (la justice d’abord, sic). En 2002 toujours, Leopoldo Lopez fait partie de la marche de l’opposition venue s’affronter avec les partisans d’Hugo Chavez qui manifestaient devant le palais présidentiel de Miraflores. Une expédition punitive, préméditée, qui se soldera par la mort de douzaines de personnes. Le but était de justifier le coup d’État et le kidnapping de Chavez. On ne s’étonnera donc pas de savoir que, de 2000 à 2008, Lopez a été le maire du riche quartier de Caracas, Chacao. L’un des quartiers les plus violents ces derniers jours pour s’opposer à l’élection de la Constituante.

      https://www.humanite.fr/leopoldo-lopez-un-delinquant-de-premiere-soutenu-par-washington-639611

  • Épiphanie

    Le 31 août, le président conservateur chilien Sebastián Piñera a prononcé un discours évoquant le quarantième anniversaire du #coup_d’Etat contre Salvador Allende. Un passage a sans doute surpris ses alliés de l’Union démocrate indépendante, une formation politique issue de la dictature. Il a en grande partie disparu de la transcription officielle ; mais non de celle publiée par le site Alainet.org.

    Le pouvoir judiciaire n’a pas rempli son rôle, celui de défendre l’Etat de droit et de protéger la vie. Il s’est systématiquement refusé à appliquer des mesures qui auraient pu sauver des vies. (…) Bien souvent, la presse non plus n’a pas joué son rôle, en n’informant pas avec la véracité attendue sur ce qui était en train de se dérouler et, d’une certaine façon, en contribuant à ce que ces événements ne soient pas connus comme ils auraient dû l’être.

    #Chili

    Ernesto Carmona, « A 40 años del golpe cívico-militar », 11 septembre 2013. http://alainet.org/active/67252

    #Coupures_de_presse #2013/10
    http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/10/A/49698

  • La Carène inaugure le VST | Ciel et Espace
    http://www.cieletespace.fr/node/9888

    Pour inaugurer le Very Large Telescope Survey Telescope (VST), l’Observatoire européen austral (ESO) a visé une « star » de l’hémisphère Sud : la nébuleuse de la Carène. L’image a été prise le 5 juin 2012, en présence de Sebastián Piñera, l’actuel président du Chili. La nébuleuse de la Carène est une région très active de formation stellaire. Elle a déjà été observée à de nombreuses reprises, mais le VST a un atout pour étudier un objet aussi vaste : il est équipé de la caméra Omegacam. Il s’agit d’un détecteur comptant 268 millions de pixels ! Pour obtenir une telle résolution, 24 capteurs sont disposés en mosaïque. Une version haute définition de l’image est visible sur le site de l’ESO. La mise en route du VST est un soulagement, car le projet a rencontré de nombreuses difficultés. Il y a dix ans, son premier miroir primaire a été cassé pendant le transport et a dû être refait entièrement. Coup du sort, le miroir secondaire a lui aussi été endommagé dans les mêmes circonstances et a dû être réparé.Le télescope est installé sur la plateforme principale de l’observatoire Paranal, aux côtés des quatre télescopes géants de 8,2 m.

    #Astronomie #Carène #VST #ESO

  • Chili. Quand le néolibéralisme triomphant se fissure | Franck Gaudichaud (Contretemps)
    http://www.contretemps.eu/interventions/chili-quand-n%C3%A9olib%C3%A9ralisme-triomphant-se-fissure

    Le 22 septembre 2011, costume sombre, cravate violette, chemise bleu clair, le président Sebastián Piñera monte à la tribune de l’assemblée générale de l’ONU.Le chef du gouvernement chilien – et néanmoins entrepreneur multimillionnaire à succès –, affiche un beau sourire. En ces temps de crise mondiale du capitalisme, il revendique une économie florissante, à l’aune d’un taux de croissance de plus de 6 % du PIB (début 2011). Durant son bref discours devant les principaux chefs d’État de la planète, il tient aussi à faire référence au conflit social pour l’éducation qui traverse son pays depuis plusieurs mois : « La course pour le développement et la bataille pour le futur, nous devons la gagner dans les salles de classe » assène-t-il. Il assure que son gouvernement cherche « à garantir l’éducation pour tous et une éducation gratuite pour tous ceux qui le nécessitent ». Et si les jeunes chiliens luttent vaillamment, cela serait même la preuve de la bonne santé de la démocratie chilienne, tous mobilisés pour « une cause noble, grande, belle qui est celle de donner une éducation de qualité » au peuple. Magie du verbe politicien... Source : (...)

  • Au #Chili, les vieilles lunes de la nouvelle droite | Franck Gaudichaud
    http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/05/GAUDICHAUD/20455

    Le président chilien, M. Sebastián Piñera, avait promis le changement. Dans un premier temps, la formule a séduit. Un an après le début de la reconstruction du littoral, ravagé par un séisme en janvier 2010, certains commencent à douter. / Chili, Exclusion sociale, #Finance, #Amérindiens, Mouvement de (...) / Chili, Exclusion sociale, Finance, Amérindiens, Mouvement de contestation, Parti politique, Pauvreté, #Politique, #Travail, #Néolibéralisme - 2011/05

    #Exclusion_sociale #Mouvement_de_contestation #Parti_politique #Pauvreté #2011/05

  • Student protests in Chile (The Big Picture)
    http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/09/student_protests_in_chile.html

    The ongoing student demonstrations in Chile began as a protest over the costs, profits, and fairness of higher education there. They have since attracted other segments of Chilean society venting frustration over wages, health care, and other issues. Uniting the protesters is common dissatisfaction with hugely unpopular President Sebastian Pinera and social inequality. Workers joined a 48-hour general strike in August which, like many demonstrations during the course of the protests, was met with police using tear gas and water cannons on the participants. With changes in the education system still unsettled, the student protests are likely to continue. Chileans yesterday celebrated their national independence day. Source: The Big Picture

  • #Chile: Teenage Boy Dies After Shooting During Protests Against President Sebastian Pinera’s Policies | World News | Sky News
    http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16057462

    A 14-year-old boy has died after being shot in the chest during massive protests in Chile’s capital, Santiago.

    It is the first fatality in months of demonstrations across the country.

    The teenager was identified by local media as Manuel Gutierrez.

    He died on Friday after apparently being shot near a security barricade as protesters battled police the day before.

  • [CHILI] Etudiant.e.s et salarié.e.s plus que jamais uni.e.s contre l’Etat !! | le chat noir emeutier
    http://lechatnoiremeutier.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/article-356

    SANTIAGO — Barricades de pneus et heurts entre police et manifestants ont lancé mercredi une grève nationale de 48h au Chili, signe d’un foyer social que peine à éteindre le gouvernement de Sebastian Pinera, déjà aux prises depuis trois mois avec une mobilisation étudiante historique.

    En plusieurs points de Santiago, la capitale chilienne de 6 millions d’habitants, la police a fait usage de lances à eau et de gaz lacrymogène pour dégager des carrefours où avaient été improvisés des barrages avant le lever du jour, ou disperser des manifestations spontanées qui bloquaient la circulation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19vKmlRzrMM&feature=player_embedded