The cruise season in Uruguay is in full swing and according to local authorities, some 241 calls are expected this summer. On one day three cruises docked in Montevideo, the MSC Preziosa with 4,300 passengers, the Azamara Pursuit with 379 passengers, and the Oosterdam with 1,200 passengers.
Brazil and Uruguay have been quite active in their combat against the drug trade. In Brazil in the northeast of the country, the state of Pará, Federal Police seized 2,75 tons of pure cocaine bound for Europe, which has been considered one of the largest drug seizures in a port.
After the strong reduction in visibility registered in the country this Monday due to fog and mist, which according to the Uruguayan Institute of Meteorology (Inumet) will persist until next Thursday, the ports of Montevideo, Colonia, and Buenos Aires decided to close, reported the Uruguayan newspaper El Observador.
Recurrent labour strife in the port of Montevideo is not only frustrating but is also seriously limiting activities, and only this week did the Union of Uruguayan exporters make public a release regretting the fact that several vessels abandoned the port given what is known as pearled stoppages.
Uruguay has received over 200 requests for cruise vessels to call in Montevideo and Punta del Este for the coming 2021/22 season, (October/March), according to reports in the local media. Of the 200, 140 requests are for Montevideo and 60 for the international seaside resort of Punta del Este.
In 2020, the Uruguayan government agreed on a framework agreement for the dredging and widening of the access channel to the port of Montevideo, which provoked criticism from neighbouring Argentina. Now the Argentine government has informed Uruguay that it has authorized the dredging of the access channel to the port of Montevideo to only 13 meters, and not 14, as announced by the current and previous Uruguayan governments.
Uruguayan authorities have pledged to respond to complaints from the Spanish fleet fishing in the South Atlantic and which normally operates from the port of Montevideo where they call for supplies and cargo transshipments.
Uruguayan authorities seized a record haul of 4.4 tons of cocaine at the port of Montevideo in what the navy described on Friday as “the biggest blow to drug trafficking in the country's history.”
Uruguayan authorities this week confiscated over three tons of cocaine from an Africa-bound rice container in the port of Montevideo. The container was originally from Paraguay and was set to stop in Tenerife, the largest of Spain's Canary Islands off West Africa, before finally arriving in Cotonou, in southern Benin, the National Customs Directorate said in a statement.