International

Workers strike at world’s largest copper producer, Chile’s Codelco

AFP

Workers at Chile’s state mining company Codelco, the largest producer of copper in the world, went on an “indefinite” strike on Wednesday, unions said, protesting the closure of a foundry in one of the country’s most polluted regions.

Codelco announced last week that it would close the Ventanas foundry in the towns of Quintero and Puchuncavi.

The Copper Workers Federation (FTC) released a statement saying there was “full support for this paralyzation in solidarity with the workers at the Ventanas division” from Codelco’s other divisions.

FTC president Amador Pantoja told a local television station the strike will cost Codelco $20 million a day.

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The FTC represents around 14,000 Codelco workers and another 40,000 external contractors, Pantoja added.

Unions described the closure of the Ventanas foundry, located around 140 kilometers west of Santiago, as “arbitrary” and are demanding the government invests $54 million to bring the plant up to the highest environmental standards.

The entrance to Ventanas was blocked by burning roadblocks and dozens of workers waving Chilean flags on Wednesday.

“No to closure, yes to investment,” read one banner.

Codelco’s decision comes after an incident on June 9 when 115 people, mostly school children, suffered sulphur dioxide poisoning released by heavy industry, provoking the closure of schools in the area.

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It was the second such incident in a matter of just three days.

Sulphur dioxide is a classic air pollutant usually linked to the burning of fossil fuels.

Greenpeace described the area around the Ventanas plant as “Chile’s Chernobyl” following a serious incident in 2018 when around 600 people in Quintero and Puchuncavi received medical treatment for symptoms such as vomiting blood, headaches, dizziness, paralysis of their extremities and strange red marks on children’s skin.

Last week, President Gabriel Boric hit out at Chile’s record on polluting the environment.

“We don’t want any more areas of (environmental) sacrifice,” he said.

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“There are now hundreds of thousands of people who live in our country exposed to severe degradation of the environment that we have provoked or allowed and, as a Chilean, that makes me feel ashamed.”

Pollution accumulated in the area of Quintero and Puchuncavi, home to around 50,000 people, after the government decided in 1958 to convert it into an industrial center that now hosts four coal-fired power stations and oil and copper refineries.

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.

International

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.

International

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.