Peru says air force officer confessed to spying for Chile

Peru today pressed accusations that Chile is assaulting its sovereignty, saying an air force officer has confessed to passing national security secrets to its South American neighbor.

The proof of espionage includes an Internet address allegedly used by the Peruvian officer to provide information to Chile and money transfers, Peru's chief Cabinet Minister Javier Velasquez told America Television. Chilean military officers are among others suspected in a spy ring, Velasquez said.

The Velasquez comments followed those by Peruvian President Alan Garcia, who on Monday said Chile was buying national security secrets.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet responded today by calling Garcia's comments "offensive and haughty" and saying they "do not contribute to the integration and cooperation that neighbors should enjoy," according to Reuters.  The Chilean government has denied any involvement in the alleged spying.

Late last week, a judge in Peru ratified charges against Victor Ariza, 45, and an unidentified member of the air force for allegedly revealing national secrets, espionage and money laundering, according to media reports.

— Efrain Hernandez Jr.

Charge in Chilean singer's death

A judge in Chile has charged a former soldier in connection with the killing, more than 35 years ago, of the popular folk singer Victor Jara, reports the BBC.

The accused man, Jose Adolfo Paredes Marquez, now 54, was an army conscript at the time, the BBC says.

Jara was among thousands of people rounded up in the early days of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's right-wing military coup. He was taken to Santiago's national stadium, tortured and shot.

Read more here.

--Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Chilean Amenabar premieres 'Agora' at Cannes

With the premiere of his historical epic "Agora," Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar introduced audiences at the Cannes Film Festival to the little-known scholar Hypatia, an astronomer and mathematician working in 4th century Egypt. 

Buenos Aires, Panama City and Santiago among men's favored cities

The Latin American cities of Buenos Aires, Panama City and Santiago have been included in a global list of 29 cities where men would most like to live, reports Reuters.

The list, assembled by  AskMen.com, put Chicago at the top, helped perhaps by President Obama's association with that city.

AskMen.com used eight rating categories -- livability, sports and entertainment, culture, fashion, sex and dating, health, power and money and the good life -- when judging the winners.

Ratings took into account a list of factors including the rate of unemployment, income growth, ratios of single women to men, the cost of a pint of beer and the rate of male heart disease. An initial list of 60 was cut to 29.

AskMen.com's editor-in-chief James Bassil said the unexpected appearance of cities such as Panama City and Santiago reflected that "the cost of living is low and there is cool development and suddenly they are appropriate places to live in 2009."

Click on the AskMen.com link to read the article on its website.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Internet use grows in Latin America

More affordable computers and an expanding broadband network are two of the factors helping to push Internet use in Latin America, according to a survey conducted by Pyramid Research for Google.

The Miami Herald reports that the recent expansion of Internet users in Latin America has been dramatic.

In 2007, for example, Colombia added 5.4 million Internet users, or about 12% of its population of 45 million -- an 80% increase in the number of Colombia's Internet users that year.

Brazil added 7.4 million Internet users in 2007 (17% growth), Mexico more than 2.2 million (an 11% increase) and Venezuela 1.58 million (38% growth).

Read the full report through the link above.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Iran's Latin America push

John Kiriakou, now in the private sector, served as a CIA counter-terrorism official from 1998 to 2004. Today, he writes in Los Angeles Times Opinion about how he thinks Iran is making major diplomatic inroads into Latin America, right under Washington's nose.

It's amazing, really. Iran, after all, is regarded by most of the world as an outlaw country. Sanctions are in place on much of its military-industrial complex, and international loan guarantees are virtually impossible to come by. The Iranian economy is in tatters. Even while $100-plus oil was enriching most producers in the region, Iran's low-tech, outdated industry was barely profiting. In fact, 6% of the country's gasoline is imported.

Nevertheless, over the last year, Iran has worked diligently to expand relations with a host of Latin American countries, most of which have populist leaders who harbor a strong distrust of the United States and are looking for a powerful friend to help them rebuff Washington's influence.

Read the rest of "Iran's Latin America push" here.

— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Brazil's Lula takes center stage in Latin America

Chris Kraul and Patrick J. Mcdonnell report from São Paulo on the growing popularity of Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

"Buoyed by a robust economy and his ability to work with leaders across the ideological spectrum, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has emerged as the chief power broker and mediator in South America.

"Lula's rise has paralleled the decline of U.S. influence in its 'backyard,' analysts say, a result in part of Washington's plummeting global prestige and the Bush administration's unremitting focus on the Middle East.

"A moderate with an unassailable leftist background, Lula has become the point man for healing regional crises such as the current turmoil in Bolivia and the recent escalation of tensions among Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador."

Click here for more about Brazil.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, second from the right, with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa at the meeting in which they talked about regional integration in Manaus, Brazil. Credit: Antonio Lacerda / European Pressphoto Agency

Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticizes U.S. over financial crisis

As his popularity has surged and his nation's booming economy has lifted thousands from poverty, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has largely refrained from the angry criticism of the United States that can be heard nearly any day from other South American leaders.

Not this time, reports Joshua Partlow for the Washington Post.

Last week, Lula told the U.N. General Assembly that the "boundless greed" of a few should not be shouldered by all, and on Monday, he said emerging economies had done their best to have "good fiscal policy" and "can't be turned into victims of the casino erected by the American economy."

"This crisis belongs to the American bankers, to the European bankers. It doesn't belong to the Brazilian bankers," Lula said Monday. "It's not fair for Latin American, African and Asian countries to pay for the irresponsibility of sectors of the American financial system."

Earlier this week, Chris Kraul reported from Ecuador on why Latin America should worry about the economic crisis in the United States.

Read the rest of the report from the Washington Post here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Latin America has reasons to worry about U.S. financial crisis

After being lectured for 20 years about the superiority of the free market, officials in Latin America see no small irony in the effort to bail out the U.S. banking system, writes Chris Kraul from Ecuador.

Latin America has several reasons to worry about the U.S. economic meltdown. Ecuador, for instance, fears the possible loss of duty-free export markets for its coffee, fish and flowers.

People here are also worried the crisis will cut into the $2 billion in annual remittances sent home by Ecuadoreans living in the U.S., and wonder whether the nation's use of the dollar as the national currency, a move made in 2000 to curb inflation, still makes sense.

But there is an undercurrent of schadenfreude when it comes to America's pain. Commentator Boaventura de Sousa Santos scolded the United States for its "ironhanded evangelizing" that free markets, privatization and deregulation were innately more virtuous than "corrupt and efficient" state-run economies.

"Millions were thrown into unemployment, lost their land and labor rights and had to emigrate," the Portuguese-born Santos wrote in an article widely distributed over the Internet.

Read more about how the United States woes are also Latin America's problems.

Click here for more on business.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Stock traders negotiate at the Mercantile & Futures Exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, last week. Credit: Mauricio Lima / AFP / Getty Images

Chile passes blanket ban on whale hunting

Chile is making its entire Pacific Ocean territorial waters a whale sanctuary, according to The Times' World Briefing this morning.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill submitted by President Michelle Bachelet that bans whale hunting off Chile's 3,400-mile coast. Chile has not hunted whales since the 1970s. But Bachelet says the nation wants to send a clear sign of its will to protect whales in its waters.

The Times' Patrick J. McDonell reported in April, with video below, on whales that were coming back to Chile's southern waters where they were once close to extinction.