Chilean president-elect names senator as mining minister

SANTIAGO: Chile's conservative President-elect Sebastian Pinera on Tuesday named Senator Baldo Prokurica as incoming mining minister, a key post in the world's top copper exporter. Pinera, who won the presidency last month, governed the country from 2010 to 2014. He named his former finance minister, Felipe Larrain, to fill the same spot again in his new cabinet. Writer Roberto Ampuero will be foreign minister. Pinera's election last month was broadly in line with Chile's longstanding free-market economic model. But his victory underscored an increasing tilt to the right in South America following the rise of conservative leaders in Peru, Argentina and Brazil. (Reuters)