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| Tensions Ahead of South Sudan Vote The president of semiautonomous South Sudan has asked the visiting U.N. Security Council to deploy U.N. peacekeepers along the border with northern Sudan ahead of a contentious referendum on southern independence in January. online.wsj.com |
Chile's miners can thank God, but their leaders should show contrition | Hugh O'Shaughnessy Government officials and mine owners are using the 'spiritual fervour' of the rescue to hide their appalling safety recordPiety is part of daily life in Chile, as natural as the towering Andes mountains which cut the country off from the world along its eastern flank. The miners' reaction to their escape from the depths of the earth this week at Copiapó was no staged affair but merely what one would expect from tough Chilean workers doing a dangerous job in a dilapidated set of tunnels.Augusto Pinochet himself, at least in his early years, showed the piety he inherited from his devout mother Avelina, who was unlettered but had a ferociously strong will. When he damaged his knee in a road accident when he was six she vowed she would wear clothes coloured brown – the colour of the Virgin of Mount Carmel, patroness of Chile – for 15 years if he recovered and that he would do the same for 10 years, reduced to two years if he went into the army. And so it came about.In 1936 the young officer himself fixed an ex-voto plaque to the wall of a church in his native ValparaÃso in honour of the Virgin which bore the words.Thank you, mother mineSuccour me always,Ensign A PinochetThere was no indication that either the adolescent Pinochet or his mother were insincere or in bad faith in their devotions though in later years he defied the church and quietly blitzed it where he could when churchmen, as they often did, took issue with his policies as a dictator.Indeed in the first years of his tyranny his most fervent and dangerous critic was Chile's most outstanding catholic of the last century Cardinal Raúl Silva HenrÃquez, the pious, humbly born but extremely effective archbishop of Santiago. Silva did a great deal for Pinochet's victims, setting up a multifaith campaigns for human rights and promoting soup kitchens for those who had little to eat.At the same time, sadly, the Catholic church in Chile has suffered from senior clerics, including those appointed by the Vatican as its representatives in Chile. Chief among them was Cardinal Angelo Sodano, an Italian who was appointed papal nuncio for a decade in 1978, five years after Pinochet's bloody coup.Seeking to smooth the feathers of the tender-minded dictator, Sodano saw that the great Silva was packed off by Rome as soon as he reached retiring age and had the much more dubious cardinal, Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, in his place. Back in Rome where he rose to be a cardinal and the secretary of state – the prime minister of the Vatican – under pope John Paul II, Sodano had the gall to appeal to the Blair government and the Archbishop of Canterbury in November 1998 to release Pinochet from confinement at Virginia Water and allow him to return to Chile, thus letting him to escape justice before the Spanish courts.As in many other Latin American countries, the Jesuits are strong in Chile and their magazine, Mensaje, has under Pinochet and his successors been a beacon of decency in the highly unequal society that the dictator set up in 1973 and which his successor and fellow-rightwinger President Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire, has strengthened.It will come as no surprise to those who have had experience of the deep vein of arrogant smugness that sometime affects those at the top of Chilean society that Piñera's chaplain, Alfredo Cooper, declared during the rejoicings at Copiapó this week that Chile was gripped by spiritual fervour in the aftermath of the miners' rescue and he urged Britain to throw off its "perverse unbelief" and turn to God.That sounds more than a little rich from a man who presumably agrees with his master Piñera that it has been acceptable for mine owners such as those who own the San José mine to ignore safety regulations and put the lives of the 33 miners in the gravest jeopardy in the first place.If that is part of Chile's "spiritual fervour", count me out.ChileChristianityReligionCatholicismPope Benedict XVIHugh O'Shaughnessyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Kanye West says he had considered suicide By RYAN PEARSON 2010-10-19T13:59:07ZLOS ANGELES (AP) -- Kanye West told an audience at a screening of his film, "Runaway," that he thought about killing himself, but now feels a responsibility to make a meaningful contribution to pop culture and art.... hosted.ap.org |
Questions about accuser surround sex slave case By BILL DRAPER 2010-10-23T18:54:57ZKANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The allegations in the indictment were shocking: A young woman had been held captive for years as the sex slave of a Missouri couple. She had been locked in a cage and subjected to electrical shocks. Parts of her body had been nailed to wooden planks. When announcing charges last month, U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips called the case one of "the most horrific ever prosecuted in this district."... hosted.ap.org |
Mining Start-Ups Look for Northern Exposure The Toronto Stock Exchange and its venture affiliate host almost 1,500 mining firms, more than any other set of global exchanges. online.wsj.com |