Four complaints in just one month for alleged abuse and alleged sexual assaults have shaken Chile, which this Thursday saw as the most notable of them, the former Undersecretary of the Interior Manuel Monsalve, one of the most powerful men in the country, was detained at his home in Viña del Mar, more than a month after the complaint was filed.

The so-called ‘Monsalve Case’, the first to explode, on October 17, was succeeded days later by the complaint with preventive imprisonment of the retired soccer player and former figure of the Chilean national team two-time champion of America, Jorge Valdivia, the complaint against Deputy Marcela Riquelme, member of the Frente Amplio, the coalition that supports President Gabriel Boric, and the arrest last weekend of an escort of the President of Vietnam, Luong Cuong, on an official visit to the country.

In addition, a woman accused the captain of the Colo Colo, league champion, and soul of the Chilean soccer team, Arturo Vidal, of sexual abuse in a case that is still in the air.

Monsalve case

The facts of Monsalve’s alleged rape of one of his advisors, according to the complaint, would have occurred on September 22 in a restaurant and hotel in downtown Santiago.

The woman reported that she got up in the undersecretary’s bedroom without remembering what had happened since they left the restaurant and that she discovered evidence that she was sexually forced, so she decided to report it.

Monsalve was arrested this Thursday and the Government has highlighted the facts under the umbrella of the Constitution that ‘in Chile there is no privileged person or group’.

‘Culture of rape’ in Chilean football

After the accusation against the former undersecretary, two new complaints appeared, but this time against the former Colo Colo footballer, Jorge Valdivia, who accused and formalized for rape against the first victim.

The second complainant claims to have suffered the abuse in the athlete’s apartment, after a date in a restaurant and continuing in a nightclub. The victim claims that he had “drugged” her to have sex, and claimed to have woken up in his own home without remembering what had happened.

The reformalization for this second complaint will continue next week, in the meantime, Valdivia will continue to comply with the precautionary measure of house arrest.

Colo Colo, the winning team of the Chilean Super Cup, also took more prominence after the accusation of drugging a woman and allegedly committing a crime and sexual nature by footballer Arturo Vidal and a group of teammates.

There are still no detainees and the name of all those involved is unknown, but Carabineros Colonel Gerardo Aravena confirmed that Vidal, 37, was the only one taken to the police station and subsequently released.
The events occurred in a bar in the capital commune of Vitacura, from where the complaint was also made and where Carabineros registered all those identified.

“Prohibition of returning to Chile”

This Monday, the Government of Chile reported on the complaint of sexual abuse by a member of the security device of the Vietnam delegation, who was on an official visit to the country.

According to local media, the Vietnamese official allegedly sexually abused a worker at the hotel where he was staying.

The subject went to detention and formalization control, and the conditional suspension of the procedure for two years was arranged as an alternative solution and the prohibition of entering the country and approaching the victim was determined.

The case of a deputy

In the fourth, the deputy of the Frente Amplio, Marcela Riquelme, is involved, who this week decided to denounce herself and renounce her affiliation to the progressive party despite the fact that she assures that she is innocent and that there is no formal complaint against her in the Prosecutor’s Office.

The parliamentarian made this decision after the information leaked to the press and the party announced the start of an internal investigation, hinting a possible conspiracy.

“I have been the subject of a complaint and it has been within the party, and that complaint was leaked to the press, causing serious damage not only to the alleged victim, but also to myself, my family, my friends and of course to my team,” said the legislator for the 15th district of the O’Higgins Region, in the center of the country.

“For that reason, I have decided that the complaint is where it has to be, which is in the Courts of Justice and today I have self-denounced. In the same way, and hoping to provide all the necessary means of proof to clarify the truth, with the same transparency that we have always had as a deputation, what we have done is renounce the Frente Amplio,” which he also accused of not supporting it.

The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, elected this Thursday the former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his conspiracy theories about vaccines, as the new Secretary of Health.

Trump stressed on his social network, Truth Social, that ensuring the health of citizens is the most important position of the Administration and stressed that “for too long Americans have been crushed by the industrial food system and pharmaceutical companies that have been involved in deception and misinformation with regard to public health.”

Elected Robert Kennedy Jr. to guarantee health rights

The future president promised that the Ministry of Health will play an important role in ensuring that the population is protected “from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis” in the country.

Kennedy Jr., in his opinion, will ensure that those agencies return to the mandates of science “to end the epidemic of chronic diseases and make the United States great and healthy again.”

At a rally in New York at the end of the election campaign, Trump had already advanced that if he won on November 5 to the vice president and Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, he would allow Kennedy Jr. to “go crazy” with health.

The son of the former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, both murdered in the sixties, is in Trump’s opinion “a fantastic guy” and with good knowledge about pesticides and the environment.

Alternative in the US elections.

Before giving his support to Trump, Kennedy Jr. began his failed presidential career on the Democratic side.

In April of last year he presented himself as the alternative to President, Joe Biden, and announced his aspirations to be the candidate of that party, but in October he pointed out that he was leaving that formation to run as an independent, something that he finally ended up failing.

Much of the Kennedy clan had turned its back on him for the conspiracy theories he began to spread during the pandemic about vaccines and COVID-19, such as that this virus aimed to attack Caucasians and blacks and that the most immune people are the Chinese and the Askenazi Jews.

Kennedy Jr. has also linked mass shootings in schools with antidepressants such as Prozac, has denounced that Democrats receive much more money from pharmaceutical companies than Republicans and is convinced that vaccines cause autism.

Trump had assured him that he would have a position related to Health in his future Executive: “Promise fulfilled,” said this Thursday in X the eldest son of the former president (2017-2021) and New York tycoon, Donald Trump Jr.

His appointment joins the controversial list with which Trump is supporting his second term, which includes as attorney general the far-right legislator Matt Gaetz, accused of sexual trafficking of a minor, the owner of X, Elon Musk, as head of government efficiency or Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth as head of the Pentagon.

Pope Francis met on Thursday at the Vatican with 16 Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza for months by the Islamist group Hamas, according to the official Vatican news website.

The group consisted of ten women, four men, and two children, as reported by the same source. Several of the former hostages showed the Argentine pontiff banners or photos of their loved ones who remain in captivity.

Francis had previously met with the families of hostages in April this year and November 2023, but this was the first time he had met with individuals who had personally endured captivity.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the pope has repeatedly called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, while also condemning the suffering of the Palestinian population.

The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Islamist militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died in captivity.

Of the kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, but the Israeli military estimates that 34 of them have died.

The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed at least 43,736 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed territory.