Two British diplomats based in Latin America were visiting the Falklands this week, arriving on Sunday on the delayed LATAM flight after enjoying an unexpected one-night stopover in Punta Arenas. Making his second visit to the Falklands was His Excellency Ian Duddy, British Ambassador to Uruguay. He was accompanied by Richard Jones, Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires.
Uruguayan farmers are angry, and so is president Tabare Vazquez who was involved in a high tone incident, far removed from what is his normal style of an oncologist having to communicate bad news. On Monday afternoon Vazquez unexpectedly attended the first round of talks between disenchanted farmers’ lobbies with government officials to discuss a raft of measures to overcome some of the long standing complaints.
Representatives from Argentina and the United Kingdom formally delivered on Monday, to the Uruguayan foreign minister a letter jointly issued by the two governments requesting assistance in contacting local airlines and inviting them to communicate their interest in establishing a new weekly scheduled air service to and from the Falkland Islands.
The United Kingdom and Argentina, following on the September 2016 joint communiqué to establish additional air links with the Falkland Islands, jointly announced on Friday that third country airlines interested in such operations will be contacted. It is expected that by the end of February the commercial process will be initiated, led by the Falkland Islands, and sometime next October the new weekly air link, with a monthly call in Argentina, will become operational.
The United States Travel Advisory for Uruguay offered a not very encouraging description of the country for foreign visitors but anyhow is well distanced from most of the rest of Latin American, and neighbors.
Un-convened and unconvinced Uruguayan farmers again took to the roads of the country for a peaceful protest vigil in an estimated 300 posts, and which counted with spontaneous support from small business people linked to the rural sector.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing is willing to negotiate step by step, a free trade agreements with Uruguay and other countries in South America, particularly members of Mercosur.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi arrived in Uruguay on Tuesday night for a three-day official visit which includes meetings with his peer Rodolfo Nin Novoa, president Tabare Vazquez and holding a round of talks to promote trade and discuss the possibility of a bilateral agreement.
Enough is enough, an end to the bloated state and its fiscal voracity, so that Uruguayan farmers can recover competitiveness, was the clear message from tens of thousands who gathered in central Uruguay to express their disenchantment with president Tabare Vazquez administration attitude towards the rural sector.
Anywhere between 8.000 and 50.000 people are expected to convene on Tuesday to Durazno, central Uruguay, to protest and demand solutions to what is seen as an over bloated government, fiscal strangling, incompetent management of government companies and an overall dissatisfaction with the results of these policies and deaf political ears to the ongoing complaints.