May 17, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Peru-Chile rapprochement?

With the new conservative administration of Sebastian Piña taking the reins of power in Chile, there is a possibility for a rapprochement with their old strategic rivals to the north. Chilean Senator Ignacio Walker, a forme Minister of Foreign Relations, said it's essential to try to continue moving forward in relations with Peru. For his part, Peru's Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde has announced that the "2+2" diplomatic mechanism will be restarted. It had been suspended when the two countries engaged in a bitter dispute over rights to maritime fishing areas off the Pacific Coast. See the televised interview at cnnchile.com.

Pisco still in ruins

While much of the world's attention is focused on earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti, and to a lesser extent Chile, the people of Pisco, Peru are still suffering the aftermath of the severe earthquake that struck them in August 2007. The rebuilding effort is proceeding at an agonizingly slow pace, as this video at CNN.com makes clear.

More Web page updates

As part of the massive, all-encompassing overhaul of this absurdly overwrought (!) Web site, I have reformatted and updated the content on the Latin America information pages, with two new additions that were previously part of other pages:

The twenty (20) country pages will be reformatted and updated within the next week or so.