Chile wildfires kill seven people and displace thousands

Workers at the world's biggest copper mine, Chile's Escondida, have approved a strike after rejecting the final contract offer proposed by multinational owners BHP. The workers are asking for a one-time bonus to recognize their work during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as education benefits for their children. Escondida workers staged a 44-day strike in 2017, the longest in the history of Chilean mining. The strike caused $740 million in losses for the company.

A wildfire rages through the village of Afidnes, north of Athens - a blaze that firefighters had hoped to control but which regained strength after already destroying large areas of pine forest. Dozens of blazes have torn through Greece this week in the country's worst heatwave for over three decades.

At a children's hospital in Santiago, Chile there is a flurry of excitement over a delegation of special visitors: a four-legged quartet has arrived to offer some reprieve from sickness and pain with their wagging tails and soulful eyes.

A forest fire in France's Var region, near the glitzy Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez, has left at least two dead and forced thousands of residents and tourists to flee. The flames have scorched some 5,000 hectares in a region known for its forests, vineyards and fauna since it broke out in the Plaine des Maures nature reserve on Monday evening.

Firefighters continue to battle a large wildfire in Juqueri State Park in Brazil, which caused soot to rain over Sao Paulo.

Chilean senate head and centre-left candidate, Yasna Provoste, meets with supporters in Santiago as the countdown to the presidential election in November begins. A handful of other rallies were also held in the capital.

The blaze continues to rage close to a popular Costa del Sol resort, fanned by strong winds and late summer temperatures.

Chile's opposition moves to impeach the country's president, Sebastian Pinera, for the controversial sale of a mining company through a firm owned by his children, which appeared in the Pandora Papers leaks, Congressman Tomás Hirsch says.

The first solar thermal power plant in South America hopes to reduce reliance on fossil fuels while maintaining jobs for the coal industry's workers.

President Sebastian Pinera was involved with the controversial sale of a mining company in 2010, as revealed in the Pandora Papers. If impeached, he could have faced five years in prison.

On 19th December, Chile heads to the polls to choose a new president. The run-up to the elections have been deeply polarising, and the country's feminists fear that the unexpected frontrunner - far-right lawyer José Antonio Kast - could set women rights back by decades.

Some 30 countries around the world have already legalised gay marriage, but just a handful of them are in Latin America. They include Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and now Chile can be added to that list. People there celebrated this week as the Chilean Congress voted to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption. The decision now needs to be signed by the president, who backs the law.