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Chile court freezes multi-million dollar lithium deal

AFP

A Chilean appeals court on Friday suspended a million-dollar state lithium tender issued two days earlier that had generated controversy for coming just two months before the end of conservative President Sebastian Pinera’s term. 

“Bearing in mind that the contested act is in full execution, it is agreed not to innovate, paralyzing the bidding and award process for the lithium, while this appeal is resolved,” said the court in Copiapo in the north of the country, according to documents seen by AFP.

China’s BYD Chile SpA and Chile’s Servicios y Operaciones Mineras del Norte S.A. were awarded the right to extract 80,000 tons of lithium each over 20 years, the minerals ministry said Wednesday.

Leftist president-elect Gabriel Boric’s team had asked the government to postpone the tenders and set up a “roundtable” to discuss various conditions to apply to the contracts.

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Mining minister Juan Carlos Jobet had said Wednesday the government would work with the successful companies to ensure that “a portion of the payments they must make be used to support local communities and to invest in research and development.”

And on Friday, the mining ministry said the tender has not been the subject of a “definitive cancellation” and that the process had been “open, informed, transparent and has complied with all current legislation.”

The court accepted an appeal for protection filed by the governor of Copiapo, Miguel Vargas, together with a group of Aymara and Diaguita Indigenous communities that inhabit a salt flat in the Atacama desert.

Although the government tender does not stipulate the place of extraction of the lithium, the salt flats of northern Chile are where the main deposits of the mineral are to be found. 

According to the mining ministry, the tender process seeks to restore Chile’s position in the world lithium market. Until 2016, the country was the world’s largest producer with 37 percent of the market, but today it ranks second behind Australia, with 32 percent. 

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If the country fails to increase its production, by 2030 its share would fall to 17 percent, according to official statistics.

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International

One Dead, Three Injured in Shooting at Cree Nation in Saskatchewan

One person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting reported early Tuesday in the Big Island Lake Cree Nation, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, according to local media.

Police said they were alerted to the incident in a remote area located approximately 392 kilometers northwest of the city of Saskatoon. Authorities issued a dangerous persons alert for two suspects, who were described as armed.

Saskatchewan police urged residents to seek shelter immediately, lock their doors, and avoid the area while the situation remains under investigation. Officers are working to determine whether the shooting was a targeted attack or a random act of violence.

As a precautionary measure, seven health-care facilities in the surrounding area were placed under lockdown, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a post on X.

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Mexico’s President Visits Victims After Train Derailment Kills 13 in Oaxaca

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visited on Monday the victims injured in a train accident that left 13 people dead in the southern state of Oaxaca and announced financial assistance for those affected by the derailment of the Interoceanic Train, which was inaugurated in 2023.

The train, carrying 241 passengers and nine crew members, derailed on Sunday while traveling along the Interoceanic Corridor, a major infrastructure project that connects the Pacific coast with the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The corridor was one of the flagship initiatives of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration (2018–2024).

Sheinbaum visited three hospitals in the neighboring towns of Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz, where around 20 injured passengers remain hospitalized. She also went to a funeral home to accompany the families of those who lost their lives in the accident.

According to Mexico’s Navy Secretary, Raymundo Morales, the accident occurred when one of the locomotives derailed, causing all four railcars to leave the tracks.

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Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador

Six people, including a baby girl about two years old, were killed on Sunday in an armed attack near a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said. The shooting, carried out with rifles, also left three people wounded.

The incident took place in the coastal town of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, a popular tourist destination known for whale watching. The attack occurred amid a surge of violence over the weekend that left at least nine people dead nationwide, according to local media reports.

“There are six fatalities and three injured,” Colonel William Acurio, the local police commander, told reporters on Sunday. He confirmed that one of the victims was a baby “approximately two years old.”

Authorities have not released further details about the motive behind the attack or whether arrests have been made.

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