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#UPDATE Chileans have emphatically rejected a proposed new constitution to replace the one adopted during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.With more than 72% of votes counted, the camp rejecting change led with over 62% compared to just under 38% for those in favour pic.twitter.com/Erd2isMTV7— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 5, 2022Note: See Jazz Shaw’s analysis from earlier today. Read More From AFP

Wild celebrations have been seen across Chile after the country voted to rid itself of its dictatorship-era constitution left behind by Augusto Pinochet's regime. Chileans voted overwhelmingly in a landmark referendum on Sunday to replace the constitution, long seen as underpinning the nation's glaring economic and social inequalities. The result sparked celebrations across the capital and other cities after voters threw out the constitution left by the regime of 1973-1990 dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Prince Andrew has hired Britain’s “most formidable” extradition lawyer to protect him against an FBI inquiry into his late pedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein, according to reports. The Duke of York was publicly slammed by US authorities in January for repeatedly failing to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring. He is still so worried about being forced to talk, he is now hiring an “eminent team of lawyers” to “fend off” the FBI, according to the Daily Telegraph. The 60-year-old royal’s legal team is led by Clare Montgomery, one of the UK’s leading extradition lawyers who...

Born in Valparaiso, Chile, on November 25, 1915, the great Latin American leader, General Augusto Pinochet. The very idea of referring to a Latin American ruler as “great” is a rarity. So many of the rulers south of the United States have been vicious, not just recently, but since ancient times. From the Incas and Aztecs of old to the Fidel Castros and Nicholas Maduros of the present, Central and South American rule has traditionally resulted in permanent poverty, usually awash in blood. Augusto Pinochet is the exception. He ruled from the date of his coup d’état, September 11, 1973,...

That Castroite Cubans not only influence the relevant power centers in socialist-destroyed Venezuela (i.e. military & secret police,) but staff and control these power centers, must be old- hat to Townhall readers by now.It’s been the catastrophic state of affairs for years by now: “Venezuela today is a country that is practically occupied by the henchmen of two international criminals, Cuba's Castro brothers,” declared Luis Miquilena who served as Hugo Chavez’s Minister of Justice for three years before finally resigning in disgust. “They (the Cubans) have introduced in Venezuela a true army of occupation. The Cubans run the maritime ports,...

The results are finally in regarding the death of Nobel-Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda — he was not murdered. Friends of the poet launched an investigation based on the testimony of his former driver Manuel Arayas in 2011. According to Arayas, Neruda had been poisoned in September 1973 by agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship and the official documents, which claimed he died from cancer, were hiding the truth. Judge Mario Carroza picked up the case, ordering the exhumation of Pablo Neruda in April of this year. After a long list of tests and forensic procedures, including those conducted...

Chilean poet was long thought to have succumbed to cancer but driver claims he was murdered by Pinochet regimeThe remains of the Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda are to be removed from his grave in Chile as part of an investigation into his death nearly 40 years ago. A team of forensic specialists will remove bones from the casket where he lies near his seaside home on Monday morning. Neruda, who died suddenly 12 days after the 11 September 1973 military coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, had suspected prostate cancer and for decades it was assumed that...

Our left-wing media's somber, mourning coverage of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez once again demonstrates the double standard journalists reserve for dictators. Seven years ago, the left's greatest South American hate object, Augusto Pinochet, passed away. Never mind how he used free-market reforms to modernize Chile. Never mind that after 15 years of rule, he allowed a national plebiscite to vote against him, and he stepped down peacefully. The left-wing outrage pulsed on the front pages. The Washington Post headline for Pinochet in 2006 was "A Dictator's Dark Legacy." Reporters Monte Reel and J.Y. Smith stated his government "murdered and tortured...

If there was any question which side of the ideological blogosphere a lot of the inside-the-beltway media establishment go to regularly, Politico may have just cleared that up. In an Oct. 11 Politico story headlined "Think Progress makes its mark," which was the top story on its Web site that evening, Daniel Libit paid reverence to the left-wing Center for American Progress' Think Progress blog. "Can a liberal blog launched in the midst of the Bush era - a blog that once obsessed over Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and the outing of Valerie Plame - still make its...

Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy... Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted...

If you do a Search in Yahoo News for photos with the term "Former dictator" who do you think comes up? You get 4 pages dating back to Nov 25 2004 all of Pinochet. Saddam gets other titles - like "former president" - since Reuters, AFP and AP all know that he was duly elected. (\sarcasm off) - http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=news_photos&p=saddam

The Kerry campaign is looking for a way to ease Sen. Edward Kennedy out of their regular rotation of officially sanctioned surrogates after a series of embarrassing incidents involving the senior Massachusetts senator. First, Kennedy was caught by Boston reporters mocking Kerry at a private, supposedly closed-to-the-press fundraiser in Boston, where Kennedy was doing a poor imitation of Kerry begging Kennedy for help and support. Then Kennedy and his Senate staff leaked word that Kennedy was being asked by Boston officials to help bail out the troubled Democratic convention in Boston, where local unions are protesting their lack of financial...

SANTIAGO, Chile — The bodies of 400 to 500 Chileans who "disappeared" under ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet's bloody rule were dumped into the ocean strapped to pieces of railroad track to make them sink, according to new court testimonies published yesterday in La Nacion newspaper. According to the paper, 12 retired helicopter mechanics, breaking decades of silence, recounted macabre details of the operation to Judge Juan Guzman, who is investigating charges of human-rights abuses under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule. La Nacion's report was based on leaks of confidential testimonies provided to Guzman and his team of detectives. The mechanics, who all admitted...

Filed at 6:15 p.m. ET SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Chile's highest court ruled Monday that Augusto Pinochet can't be put on trial because of his mental problems, a decision that will likely end the 85-year-old former dictator's legal troubles. Voting 4 to 1, the Supreme Court reaffirmed a stay of proceedings ordered a year ago by an appeals court. The court cited the mental health problems of Pinochet, who suffers from dementia, an irreversible mental illness, as the reason for its decision. The four judges supporting the stay ordered lower court judge Juan Guzman to halt a criminal case brought...