MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Breaking News.

Cruise season begins.

Next November 13th., with the arrival of "Switzerland" officially begins the cruise season in Montevideo, which this year includes 24 great ships, 66 schedules in Montevideo and Punta del Este and over 50.000 visitors. With this in mind local port and tourist officials together with the private organisation SurCruise Association are planning a celebration in the main square of the old City to welcome the first visitors of the coming season. This is expected to become an annual event. According to Uruguayan authorities the cruise industry, one of the fastest growing in the world (8% per annually), recorded eight million passengers last season of which "only 30.000 stopped in Montevideo", and "we're determined that number, and percentage keeps growing", said Emilio Cazalá an expert in maritime and tourism affairs. Among the vessels expected in the coming months are the 69.000 tons "Splendor of the Seas" ; "Mercury" with 76.200 tons displacement, "Saga Rose", "Silver Shadow", "Costa Allegra", "Costa Marina" and "Marco Polo".

Toothfish piracy network.

Punta Arenas press revealed this week details of the "Chilean chapter" of the toothfish piracy network that operates worldwide. According to "La Prensa", the list of vessels caught poaching during the last four years in the Indian Ocean by the French Navy operating from the Kerguelen and Reunion Islands, includes the "Antonio Lorenzo", belonging to Concar; "Ercilla" from Los Andes Fisheries; "Mar del Sur I" and "Mar del Sur II"; and the Spanish flagged "Amur" that ended in a tragedy with the loss and disappearance of several crewmembers, some of them from Punta Arenas. One of the most recent poaching actions involved the Argentine flagged "Vierirasa XII", belonging to the Spanish company Concar. Mr. Jorge Cofré, from the Officers and Crewmembers Union, Punta Arenas chapter, claims that Spanish companies are involved in the illegal trade together with Chilean partners, particularly a Mr. Roberto Verdugo, a former Fisheries Secretary during the Pinochet regime and owner of the notorious now extinct Mar del Sur company. Mr. Cofré also revealed that during the tragic sinking of the "Amur", the vessels that h