Media abuzz about new California-Chile ties

Last week, the media devoted time and space to the California visit of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. On Thursday, she met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a number of bilateral scientific, agricultural and educational agreements.

A story in the Los Angeles Times said the two countries have become trading partners over the last four decades largely because of the work of an informal group of Chileans who studied agriculture at UC Davis in the 1960s and 1970s.

"They are the ones who sowed the seeds for what is today a multibillion-dollar agricultural operation in Chile," UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef was quoted in the story.

The article said UC Davis and other California universities have helped Chile develop a sophisticated agricultural export market that has taken advantage of the coincidence that Chile and California have similar topography and climates but opposite growing seasons.

The new agreements with the state of California, the University of California and California State University will help Chile create a new group of innovators, the LA Times paraphrased President Bachelet.

The agreements and meetings were covered by many other media outlets, including:

• The San Diego Tribune (Which called Schwarzenegger "President for a day)
• The Sacramento Bee
• The San Francisco Chronicle

It was interesting to see how the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio opened its piece on their president's meeting with the California governor. I will translate:

"President Bachelet first encountered Jackie Chan. Then Jack Nicholson and Muhammad Ali. All of them pictures, of course, while she walked the hallways to the office of the Hollywood star who was to receive her in the California capitol: the protagonist of "Terminator" and Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (60)."

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