
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.

Under the heading of The sage of Montevideo, The Economist visited the Uruguayan president at his farmhouse in the outskirts of Montevideo where they had a long chat.

Philip Morris International, the world's largest tobacco company, is prepared to sue the British government should it implement a law requiring plain packaging of cigarettes, a document showed.

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.

Inflation in Uruguay remains hard to break having reached 6.17% in the first seven months of the year, the highest since 2007 (6.38%) and over 9% in the last twelve months well ahead of the government's target of 3% to 7%, according to the latest figures from the stats office, INE.

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.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a 40.9 million dollars loan from its ordinary capital and 25 million from the Canada Climate Fund, which is administered by the Bank, to finance the private sector in Uruguay in the construction, operation and maintenance of a photovoltaic solar energy plant and its related facilities.

Uruguay's largest fishing and processing company FRIPUR, has requested administrative protection, or a voluntary concordat with creditors following financial problems with banks and other providers. Liabilities are over 70 million dollars of which 50 million with two banks, according to sources close to the request. The company employs 1.100 people.

Argentina’s debt problems threatens to worsen trade tensions in Mercosur, adding to the economic woes of Brazil in a tense election year and causing headaches in Uruguay as the Argentine economy looks likely to plunge deeper into recession.

The private sectors from Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia agreed to form a business lobby, Urupabol, with the purpose of actively combating protectionist policies and other obstacles implemented inside Mercosur, mainly by senior members Argentina and Brazil.