Uruguay

• Friday, January 11th 2013 - 08:52 UTC

  President Mujica calls for unity and peace for ‘the day when Chavez is not with us’

  

  The shortest and most sober of a day of emotional speeches and promises was that from Uruguayan president Jose Mujica who asked the massive rally in support of President Hugo Chavez that if the Venezuelan leader “tomorrow is not with us”, then unity, peace and work must prevail.

• Friday, January 11th 2013 - 08:36 UTC

  Argentine tourists must pay 8 pesos for the US dollar in neighbouring countries

  

  Following on the climbing tendency since the beginning of the year, the ‘blue’ or ‘parallel’ US dollar traded in Buenos Aires at 7.25 Argentine Pesos with a 46% gap over the ‘official’ dollar that remained relatively stable at 4.95 Pesos.

• Thursday, January 10th 2013 - 12:57 UTC

  Venezuelan opposition leader accepts high court ruling but tells government ‘back to work’

  

  Opposition leader Enrique Capriles accepted Venezuela’s high court sentence endorsing the postponement of President Hugo Chavez inauguration on Thursday and the ruling that the cancer-stricken leader and his administration remained in office, since “as president re-elect there is no interruption of performance of duties”.

• Thursday, January 10th 2013 - 11:56 UTC

  In a highly political speech CFK appealed to the motherland and blasted hedge funds

  

  President Cristina Fernandez (CFK) as expected made the welcoming ceremony for the Argentine frigate ARA Libertad (retained in Ghana for 78 days) into a ‘sovereignty and dignity’ political rally including the support of 20.000 militants, mostly bused in by political organizations, in which she blasted hedge funds, ‘global social predators’ and warned that through extortion and force nobody is going to obtain anything from Argentina.

• Wednesday, January 9th 2013 - 05:26 UTC

  Mujica flies to Caracas “to support the government and people of Venezuela”

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica leaves for Caracas “to support the government and people of Venezuela” on Thursday 10 January, the date in which convalescent re-re-elected president Hugo Chavez is supposed to take the oath of office.

• Tuesday, January 8th 2013 - 07:14 UTC

  Falklands have become a nation that “shares with Uruguay common memories and times to come”

  

  By Dr. Jorge Stanham, MBE - The British Hospital in Montevideo has a long established relation with the Falkland Islands going back over a century.

• Tuesday, January 8th 2013 - 00:04 UTC

  Uruguay wants to become one of the world’s leading wind power producers

  

  The Uruguayan government has set its sights on becoming one of the world's leading wind power producers as part of plans to produce 90% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015, although much of the plan is still on the drawing board.

• Saturday, January 5th 2013 - 05:59 UTC

  Lowering the price of power, Uruguay ends 2012 with an inflation of 7.48%

  

  Consumer prices in Uruguay ended the year at 7.48% after recording the lowest December percentage in forty years: a negative 0.73%. However analysts and consultants anticipate that inflation in the first quarter of 2013 will remain above an annualized 8%.

• Thursday, January 3rd 2013 - 15:46 UTC

  Uruguay exports in 2012 reach 8.7bn dollars, a new numerical record

  

  Uruguay exports increased 9% last year over 2011 reaching 8.751 billion dollars a numerical historic record according to the primary figures released by the Instituto Uruguay XXI, a government funded organization to promote foreign trade. Soybeans, beef and rice remain as Uruguay’s main export items.

• Thursday, January 3rd 2013 - 06:02 UTC

  Record purchase of US dollars to keep Uruguayan Peso from further appreciation

  

  Uruguay’s Central bank on Wednesday made its largest purchase of US dollars on record totalling 120 million dollars following on the bank’s monetary committee decision in the last week of 2012 to increase the basic rate to 9.25% as the country struggles to contain inflation.