Chile to copper-plate social agenda

Chile will use income from its booming copper exports to advance a new social agenda by investing in health, housing and education, President Michelle Bachelet said in her first state-of-nation address.

The spending should create 130,000 jobs, Bachelet told Chileans in the speech, vowing to also maintain annual budget surpluses of at least 1% of gross domestic product.

Addressing congress in the port city of Valparaiso, Chile’s first female president also promised to seek “truth and justice” for the human rights violations during the 1973-90 military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, including the fate of hundreds of dissidents who remain unaccounted for.