CHILE MEDIA REPORT - JANUARY 29

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 000089

SIPDIS

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TAGS: KMDR KPAO PGOV ECON PREL SNAR EFIN CI
SUBJECT: CHILE MEDIA REPORT - JANUARY 29

Leading Stories
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1. The Cencosud conglomerate stopped the construction of its US$600
million, three-tower Costanera Center project (located near the
Embassy). The construction project employed thousands of workers
who were building the highest tower in South America. Dailies also
highlighted a 40-peso increase in the transportation fare starting
in February.

U.S.-Related News
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2. Wal-Mart CEO for Latin America Craig Herkert will attend his
first board meeting today in Santiago as Vice President of D&S,
which the American company owns by 58%. Wal-Mart Corporative
International Affairs Director Kevin Gardner meanwhile told a news
agency, "Chile has one of the most sophisticated markets in the
Americas and provide opportunities for growth." He also justified
the commercial embargo on Cuban products. "We must comply with the
law that bans American companies and their affiliates from selling
Cuban products," said Gardner (El Mercurio, conservative,
influential newspaper-of-record, circ. 129,000; Diario Financiero,
business and financial, circ. 30,000, 1/29).



3. At the American-Chilean Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in
Santiago, Kellie Meiman, president of the Chamber's counterpart in
Washington, D.C., said that one of the U.S. President's priorities
in the region is to strengthen commercial ties with Chile and Brazil
and reform multilateral organizations such as the G-8
(Government-owned, editorially independent La Nacion, circ. 4,200,
1/29).


4. During the Clinton administration, the United States made an
outstanding effort to strengthen external markets and must now do
the same, said Kellie Meiman, Managing Director of McLarty
Associates at an AmCham breakfast (Estrategia, business and
financial, circ. 30,000, 1/29).


5. Editorial entitled, "First Steps of the Obama Administration."
"On Monday the President announced a wide-ranging environmental plan
to reduce drastically gas emissions... and decrease U.S. dependence
on supplies controlled by 'hostile' states.... He also said that
research and production of alternative energy sources should be one
of the pillars of the economic recovery plan.... The U.S.
automobile industry -- whose survival now depends on the
government's bailout and not on the market -- seems to have few
tools to stop this change.... This 'green revolution' that Obama
has designed could have a worldwide effect in the mid-term, because
it could result in the transformation of the foundations of the
industrial process that characterizes modernity and globalizations.
If the United States is able to place itself at the forefront of
this global change, the world will be different" (La Nacion, 1/29).


6. Column by law professor Leonardo Aravena: "Judging from the
first 48 hours of the new U.S. President in office, there are
reasons to celebrate: He ordered the closing of Guantanamo and of
CIA detention centers, and he also banned torture and ill treatment
of detainees during interrogations.... Obama is lifting the dignity
of people, and we welcome this. But can so much beauty be true?"(La
Nacion, 1/29).

Terrorism
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7. The prosecutor investigating the 63 bombings in the Metropolitan
Region since 2005 indicated there are two types of
anti-establishment organizations operating in Chile. One is formed
by individuals who belong to social marginal groups such as punks or
"hardcore" with ties to criminal organizations and former members of
subversive organizations. They usually have a criminal record and
label themselves "anarchists," but with a "k." The other major
group is more conventional and its members have ties to left-wing
political organizations in universities. Both groups, however, have
a "social action" plan to fight "capitalism" (El Mercurio, 1/29).

SIMONS