Elections Next Door

Millionaire Sebastián Piñera from the right-wing Coalición por el Cambio (Coalition for Change) won the second round of elections today in Chile. He faced off against Eduardo Frei, center-left candidate of Concertación. This win is historic, marking the first time since 1958 that the right has won democratic elections. (Pinochet's dictatorship from 1973-1990, of course, accounts for many of those years.) Early results attribute 51% of the vote to Piñera against Frei's 48%. This is the first time since 1990 that the center-left Concertación has lost elections.

Flooding in San Antonio

Recent severe floods in San Antonio de Areco have been attributed to multiple canals illegally created by agricultural producers to drain their fields. According to Página 12, one of these canals was made by Hugo Biolcati, president of the Sociedad Rural Argentina, one of the agricultural groups laying political pressure on the government. Producers deemphasize the importance of these illegal canals and their role in recent flooding.

For more, in Spanish, see this.