Uruguay is less than four days away from Sunday 26 October general election with opinion polls unable to forecast a clear winner, and a strong possibility that the left wing coalition could lose its legislative majority enjoyed in the last ten years and even the Executive.
The strong economy and the good image of the incumbent presidential candidate Tabare Vazquez are not sufficient for Uruguay's ruling coalition Broad Front to ensure a third consecutive mandate next Sunday 26 October, according to the country's main pollsters, who underlined that the election result at this stage is too close and 'unpredictable'.
Uruguay president Jose Mujica believes that the next parliament to emerge from the 26 October general election will have a difficult conformation, complicating the government's performance and that is the reason why he accepted to run for a Senate seat.
Finland's UPM, one of the largest forestry groups in the world, does not intend for the moment to build any new pulp mills in Uruguay, said Jaakko Sarantola, vice president of the cellulose division of the company, who also pointed out that Uruguay needs to improve infrastructure to facilitate logistics.
Uruguay's president Jose Mujica said the latest world events show that Europe 'has lost clout' in global affairs, and has lost strength as 'peace mediator', and this role could be “much better performed by Latin America”.
Uruguay officially inaugurated on Monday a second pulp mill, Montes del Plata, on the River Plate, belonging to Chile's Arauco and Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, which is considered the largest single investment in the country and will have an annual production of 1.3 million tons.
US ambassador in Montevideo, Julissa Reynoso said that Washington does not impose a date for the transfer and arrival of the Guantanamo prison detainees to be accepted by Uruguay, but admitted that the ideal would be for this to happen before the end of President Jose Mujica's mandate next March first.
Uruguay will be receiving very soon six men who have spent more than a decade locked up without charge at the US base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. The prisoners have been offered a refuge in Uruguay, where President José Mujica agreed as a humanitarian gesture to accept men that the U.S. has decided do not pose a threat but cannot return to their homelands.
Uruguay will ask fellow members at the Unasur summit to be held in Montevideo later in the month to discuss the Gaza Strip situation, said Foreign minister Luis Almagro who next week will be meeting a delegation from the Palestine Authority. Almagro and president Jose Mujica have been questioned for using the words 'genocide' and 'massacre' to describe the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Israel is disappointed and concerned with Uruguayan president Jose Mujica statement that described the Israeli offensive in Gaza as’genocide’, pointed out Jerusalem's new ambassador to Montevideo, Nina Ben-Ami. These are not words to be used by a friend; we're friendly countries going through a difficult moment.