by the El Reportero’s wire services
Sebastán PiñeraPresident of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, showed his willingness to receive outside the La Moneda Palace former presidential candidate of the Venezuelan right-wing Henrique Capriles, who will arrive in this southern country today.
During an interview on the 24 hours public channel El Informante,Piñera said that Capriles has not yet requested the meeting, but is very likely to receive him.
Several social organizations and political movements have expressed their opposition to the Head of the Chilean State receives Capriles, who lost the election last April and ignored the results issued by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela.
Venezuelan authorities blame him for the post-electoral violence prompted after elections by extreme-right-wing groups that killed 11 people.
Last May 29, the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, received Capriles in his private office of the Nariño House, an attitude that was rejected by the Government of Venezuela and many social sectors.
Political organizations in Chile and other groups fear that Capriles reception by Piñera will generate a similar climate of tension between the two nations.
The president of the Allende Movement towards Socialism, Esteban Silva, along with other political and social leaders, delivered a letter Wednesday in La Moneda, asking the Chilean president not to receive the former presidential candidate.
In his two-day visit to Chile, Capriles is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Christian Democrats and Venezuelan citizens resident here.
Colombia among the most corrupt countries, survey says
Colombia is among the countries with the highest rate of corruption in the world, according to a report of the NGO Transparency International (TI) released here.
According to the Global Corruption Barometer 2013, Colombia was placed 5th among the seven countries whose citizens realize that Congress is one of the most corrupt public bodies.
In this regard, 79 percent of those polled consider that the legislative branch is corrupt and 71 percent have the same opinion about the bureaucracy.
Moreover, 64 percent think corruption is also evident in the judiciary, in a spectrum ranging from judges to other court officials.
About 19 percent of respondents even admitted that they or someone in their immediate family had bribed a justice official in the last 12 months.
According to expert Armando Montero, another worrying fact is that 61 percent of respondents feel that the police have a high rate of corruption.
Regarding the government management to address this problem, 30 percent of respondents said the government is doing very little.
Founded in 1993 and based in Berlin, Germany, the IT has 100 branches and operates in 70 countries.
