
Spanish shipyard Cardama did not file an appeal against the Uruguayan government’s decision to terminate the contract for the purchase of two offshore patrol vessels for the Navy, meaning the measure is now final and the Ministry of Defence will move ahead with a claim for damages. The confirmation came on Thursday from Presidential Secretary Jorge Díaz.

Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi and Economy Minister Gabriel Oddone said the government will send a competitiveness and innovation bill to Congress on May 31, focused on foreign trade, competition policy, innovation and administrative simplification. The initiative was launched alongside a call for unions, business chambers and academia to submit proposals by April 24.

Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is in Uruguay, according to Uruguayan government sources cited by Montevideo daily El País. His presence prompted criticism from the opposition, while the government said that, for now, no formal meetings with executive branch authorities were planned.

Suspected Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset was captured on Friday in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, in an operation that ends one of the Southern Cone’s longest and most visible manhunts. Paraguayan authorities confirmed the arrest and said Marset had been secured after a raid carried out by Bolivian forces.

Uruguayans continue to identify security and crime as the country’s main problem, but when the question shifts to everyday life, the dominant concern becomes the cost of living, according to a new survey by University of the Republic academics analysed in a report by El Observador. The poll also found that about one-third of respondents believe such problems stem from “longer inheritances” or broader trends that no government has managed to solve.

A team of researchers from the Marine Sciences Laboratory at the Faculty of Sciences of the Uruguayan national university (Universidad de la República) is working in the Falkland Islands on the UK sponsored project “Biodiversity Assessment of Sandy Beaches in the Falkland Islands”.

International Women’s Day rallies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay this weekend produced a shared Southern Cone agenda: opposition to gender-based violence, demands for sustained public policies and warnings about the impact of economic strain and state cutbacks on women’s lives. In Brazil, the message centered on rising femicide; in Argentina, on a strike-backed protest against President Javier Milei’s austerity drive; and in Uruguay, on demands for more funding to enforce gender-violence laws and renewed attention to vicarious violence.

Local authorities in Uruguay’s Maldonado department are reviewing a proposal by Brazil’s Stehling Racing Team to develop a racetrack built to Formula 1 standards in the Punta del Este–Laguna del Sauce corridor, a plan still at an early stage and without any confirmation that it would translate into hosting a world championship round.

Uruguay’s Central Bank cut its benchmark policy rate by 75 basis points to 5.75%, from 6.5%, in a unanimous decision and the seventh consecutive reduction, as it weighed the market impact of the renewed Middle East conflict and a rebound in the U.S. dollar.

A court in Uruguay’s Flores department convicted three foreign nationals —a Russian, a Kazakh and a Mexican woman— after authorities said they attempted to begin identification procedures using false documentation at the National Civil Identification Directorate (DNIC) office in the city of Trinidad.