Santiago - Chilean conservatives won a majority of mayoral seats in weekend elections, narrowly beating the ruling centre-left coalition for the first time since 1990.

Right-wing mayoral candidates won in the key municipalities of Santiago, Valparaiso, Vina del Mar, Temuco, Concepcion, Iquique, Rancagua, Talca and Punta Arenas.

The Alliance for Chile won 40 per cent of the total mayoral votes to 38 per cent for the ruling coalition, which did manage to keep the overall lead in seats on municipal councils by a margin of 45 to 36 per cent.

President Michelle Bachelet acknowledged the mixed results as a wakeup call for the coalition.

Santiago  - Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America and the Caribbean reached a record 126.3 billion US dollars in 2007, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said Wednesday in the Chilean capital Santiago.

UNCTAD expected the figure to continue to rise in 2008.

Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina received a combined 67 per cent of the inflow, with Brazil alone claiming three out of every 10 dollars that arrived in the region.

Santiago  - Over 12,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in southern Chile due to a chain of storms and heavy rain that is thought to be the worst in 40 years in the area.

A further 10,000 people were left isolated in the Araucania Region alone. Of these, some 6,000 were in the area of Curarrehue, which remained out of bounds for police helicopters Tuesday due to difficult weather conditions.

"We cannot manage to assist everyone," said Mauricio Salas, mayor of the affected town of Nueva Imperial.

Santiago - The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has contacted Chilean police to look for th