Under the Concertacion, Chile has been success by increasing democracy and welfare provision of the free-market economic policies. The poverty rate feel from 45% of the population to 13.7%. Eight out of ten youths now finish secondary school, four out of ten go on to higher education and of these 70% are the first in their families to do so.

Nowadays younger people don´t care about politics, but the ones that do, are convinced that Piñera is the solution for all of our problems.

Chilean people are facing a new problem: december elections. There are three candidates, Sebastian Piñera, a businesses candidate of the conservative opposition, Eduardo Frei, Christian Democrat who was Chile´s president from 1994-2000 and he is the official Concertación candidate and Marco Enriquez-Ominami, dissident Socialist congressman standing as independent.

The latest CEP poll shown that the leading candidate is Piñera with 37%, then Frei with 28% and finally, Ominami with 17%. Here in Chile when you register to vote, you cant never ever leave. It´s in the Constitution that the people who vote, need to do it all the time because it´s our right as a citizen.

Maybe all of the candidates think different, but they agree in one thing: Chilean society has changed faster than the state and the political system. The election will be in December of this year, and the most probable thing is that Eduardo Frei and Sebastian Piñera will certainly go through to a run-off election in January next year.

That´s why Felipe and Camila are the creators and founders of Powder, a company that includes all about skiing, snowboard, tubing, cross-country, skiing, snowshoeing. The idea came from Camila´s last visit to Snowshoe three summers ago,  a sky resort in West Virginia. After staying for almost 3 months, she decided to take new risks in her life: to create a mountain adventure experience, learning skills, team work and decision-making.

The company is focus on young students and independent  entrepreneurs that have small business. The main idea is not only that these small business gather up with also huge companies for contacts, it is also a need to Camila to provide the best service she can offer.

All employees are experts in mountain activities, and there is also psychologists trained for anything and never the less, business advisors. As you can see, FelipeVera didn´t waste any time, but not so fast. It is not known yet because Powder need more publicity: “We are hopping that people lose their fear and come to us, they don´t understand that they don´t even need to know how to do snow sports! We teach them, they learn, fun for me and for everyone!”, says the creator.

Every weekend, a bunch of students of 15 to 20 years old, met at Cantagallo to take shuttles and then, ride to Farellones. One of the students, Paola Passalacqua, tells about her experience: “It was amazing, the partnership was amazing, my skills were awesome too! I had an amazing time in there, people were so nice to me and I can assure you that they were interested in my learning. I will definitely visit Power any time soon”.

 In the future, they expect that Powder expand to summer activities such as tracking, bicycle rides, fly fishing or even  horse ridding: ” We want to expand so it just won´t be a seasonal company. We would like to profit for summer too”, says laughing Camila.

 Camila is very happy for the results, so we can only expects that the future will be bright and shiny for Powder. If you have the time, don´t doubt! come and visit this resort in Farellones.

With subtropical climate, Easter Island has volcanic origins. Modern botanists have identified 47 species of plants; grasses, ferns and sedges, but the most strange thing is that there are no trees left. Many scientist  reached an agreement: islanders cut all the trees for make canoes, and eventually they would have lack of materials for fire. 

The biggest attraction is huge stones statues, more than 200 all over the island wich once stood all over the coast. This statues are called “Moais”, with 33 feet heights and weights 82 tons.  

This island is perfect, some people call it “miniature paradise”, no problems in the best rest of the world, were you can bring your family or your couple. One of the most important things is the people who lives there, their kindness is above everything, they will give you a nice welcome with flower necklaces.

 You can chose from scuba diving to horse riding, even visit the typical show wich includes dancing men playing with fire, pure fun! Also you can camp in caves, relax at the white sand beach or trekking in the volcanos. How ever, because this island is so exclusive, be aware to bring money, it might be a little expensive, but does happiness have a price? We don´t think so.

Sernatur is always at your disposition, if you need flyers, information or just need to talk about travel prices, they will always help you. If you have free spirit and some adventure taste, make sure you make some time in your life to visit this piece of paradise.

“They biodegrade very slow. In fact, they photodegrade wich means they over time break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers wich eventually contaminate soils and waterways. As a consequence their microscopic particles can enter the food chain”, CNN article, November 16, 2007.

An article of National Geographic, published: “calculations extrapolated from data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 on U.S. plastic bag, sack, and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills—estimates range from less than one to three percent of the bags.”

Politicians in our country are trying to make a difference by creating new laws, a bill submitted to Chile’s congress that would ban the use of non-degradable plastic bags for packaging could come into force in January 2012, we hope that can minimize the issue.

Ana Lia Uriarte, Minister of environment, stated: “We can´t continue doing this anymore, this is our planet and we have to make changes if we want to keep living here. The Government will make new laws for supermarkets, no more contamination”.

That´s one opinion, and it is very different from Josefina Correa, Chief executive of Lider supermarkets: “Of course we would like to take care of our bags, but our company need the money”. Her opinion wasn´t appreciated for te eco-friendly community and yesterday, ecologists organized a rally in Santiago in front of Lider.

They werent any damages.

If al the people in the world contributes for this cause, we wont have this problem anymore. A small town called Modbury in Devon, UK gained much publicity when it banned plastic bags back in May 2007. This is an example of towns that are taking chances by changing our way of living. If we all kep trying, maybe someday, bags will just be a memory and or land will be free of polyethylene.

The in Barak Obama´s Government, science adviser John Holden is one of the most important persons in the USA and we as neighbors, expects that he never stop doing his job, he will help us by changing the world.

Margaret Chan is the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and in her opinion: “There is no doubt of the reality in the change of the weather”.

The weather will change in our country, first the south will have more storms, all the forests in Chile will reduce into nothing, the animals will die because they won´t have anything to eat and they will be new diseases and epidemics all around us. The minister of enviroment in Chile Ana Lía Uriarte is always traveling the world in the name of our country, she thinks that is important for us to take care of our world: “We can´t let this continues”.

What everyone need is to be careful in such a small things like throwing the garbage in the trash cans, recycle paper and planting trees. If you think about it, in not so difficult to keep our planet save and clean.

One the students of journalism in the University del Desarrollo, Fernanda Millas tells how she feels about this topic: “We will be very stupid if we let this happened to us, we see everything that is happening and no one is doing nothing”. And she has a point, everything we do will bring consequences.

Now is clear that the future of our world, county and even children, is in our hands. There are campaigns in Chile were you can always join and became part of this new projects that we would always need. Is you need more information, you can make a change by searching in the net or call Sernatur, that is a part of the government.

The police rushed into the scene but it was too late, none of them survived. Such a tragedy for this girls, it was Macarena´s birthday and she just turned 18. Her friends were in the back seat but Catalina Moraga and Camila Urbina weren´t using the seatbelt and they flew through the glass. Both of the body’s were found 10 mts. from the car.

Tha ambulance and also the fireman tried to save this 3 teens, but Macarena Rodriguez broke her legs and it was impossible to take her out of the car or rescue her. After 30 minutes, the new toyota yaris started to burn, the flames burned this girls body in seconds.

All of the parents were crying in the sidewalk heartless, they couldn´t understand how this young girls died because of a text message.

Almost 60% of teenagers in Chile text while they are driving, this issue has killed over 6,000  last year. In todays news, the Government explained that this issue shoud not go on, even the president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet will attend to the funerals on Friday morning at 10 am. in the cemetary Parque del Recuerdo in Huechuraba.

The school of the girls, Saint George´s College will also made a big ceremony in the church of the school, they are expecting over 3,000 people; friends, parents, teachers, etc.

If the trouble of accidents because of cellphones continues, the government will fine the phone companies such as Entel, Movistar and Claro. According to the president of Entel, Ricardo Gonzalez said: “We will create a new plan for all the teenagers that are in our company, they will be a new kind of texting that doesn´t envolved typing. Is a new project from Germany and it is about talking and the cellphone will write it”.

Michelle Bachelet expects a conference in Germany next week for new trades of commerce: “this plan will continue, and as a Government we will not fail”, said the president this morning.

Some superficial pro-capitalist journalists have attempted to dismiss this re-awakened interest in Che. They have falsely attempted him,  because they think that his image is very permissive  and also associated with the 1960s.

“Che Guevara undoubtedly has a romantic and cultural appeal to many young people who associate with his image as a “rebel”,  says the britain journalist Tony Saunois.

Che Guevara is popular because he wanted to change the society and end the exploitation of capitalism and imperialism. We can even say that he is a symbol of resistance.

He wasn´t a sell out, he always fought for the cause and for freedom by helping a nation that wasn´t his own; Cuba. For many years, his image has been used for protests, books or freedom signs, and that´s why he wasn´t a sell out, cause all this time since he died, all kinds of generations,  begun the search for revolutionary socialist ideas which offer a viable alternative society to capitalism.

Even when he was alive, he talked in the ONU against U.S.A, he lived in the Sierra Maestra (Cuba´s jungle), and he never stoped helping the cubans. So Im asking you now, did he was a sell out? of course not.

He is an special case, of course there´s gonna be someone who´s ideals don´t mean anything, and sure! he could be a sell out! Is not hard to stop fighting and to change side, but all of them, are worthless.

My name is Catalina Grez and Im a student at Universidad del Desarrollo and I would like to talk about a new problem in our society: young kids that while they are driving, they text. Im writing to you because this issue is actualy killing a lot of innocent people, I saw an articule and a video that I think you should consider for publicity. Been such a popular newspaper, you should consider this idea, you can change the kids mind today and maybe, save a million of them.

The Gwent Police Deparment  in the U.S. produce this film for campaign and it has been viewed more than four million times, the video is on youtube and it shows a couple girls that are driving and the car crashes with another. The girl that was driving, screams all the video while she´s watching her girlfriends dying. Then, many people get of their cars and try to hep them, then came the fire deparment, police and ambulance. But its too late, two of the girs are dead and the other car that they crashed, has a family. The parents are dead and one little child is screaming “daddy daddy wake up plis”. I felt so sick afther I saw it, Im traumatized.

“We asked young people what was the thing that they thought was now the most dangerous for their age group, and they said mobile phones and, in particular, texting”, aid Mick Giannasi, chief constable of Gwent police.

Today the New York Times publish an articule about this, many experts had made they opinion, and the final thought was to send it to police deparments, schools and families. Here in Chile there´s also a campaign created by CONACE, a national corporation that helps our people but it didn´t made an impact like it has made this video of the Gwent Police Deparment.

These days, almoust all adolescents have cars in there power, toyota yaris, renaulgt clio, corsa and others. Everyone loves driving and hang out with there friends, and that´s not bad, but been this younger, doesn´t  necessarily made them intelgent. They dont know the efects of driving with alcohol or not paying attention. What this country needs it this video, this shocking piece of death for the kids.

That´s why I think you should use this video for security, if you can save millions, maybe this would be the only way for saving them. I ask to you, to reconsider the idea, you can also talk to politics or tv stations for publish this video national. Or even you can talk to our president, Michelle Bachelet if the publishing is expensive.  

Well, Thanks for you time, and hope you understand that this problem i afecting not only chilean people, but also is afecting the human raze.

Catalina Grez