Lower prices for food and beverage were not enough to impede Uruguay's October consumer price index from increasing 0.33% pushed by a stronger US dollar and weaker local currency.
Uruguay has resumed live animal sales to Egypt with a first shipment of 12.000 cattle and 40.000 sheep in late October. Egypt for years was an important client of Uruguayan beef and live animals but for several years the market had remained closed.
The campaign for the re-election of Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez has triggered a controversy inside the ruling coalition with, for the first time, a serious public exchange between the leader and a member of Congress.
Ramifications of the suitcase scandal involving Venezuela, Argentina and a Miami federal court have reached Uruguay, where a local judge has requested information from the Central Bank on accounts from some of the characters named in the trial.
Uruguay's ruling coalition 2009 presidential candidate dispute has extended to the Senate where President Tabare Vazquez has been unable so far, to garner the sufficient votes to support the nomination of Central Bank members which is currently headless.
United Nations ordered a contingent of 600 Uruguayan blue helmets to take over the defence of the Congolese city of Goma --and its airport--, devastated by combats between the Congolese Army and rebel forces under the command of Laurent Nkunda.
An estimated 700.000 Uruguayans are overseas residents according to a report from the Uruguayan Foreign Affairs ministry based on the recompilation of data from communities in 32 countries and 28 cities.
The Uruguayan government admitted it expects growth to slow down as a consequence of the international financial crisis which is spreading to the real economy as demand retracts in the main world blocks.
Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez is reconsidering the proposal for his re-election next year if the ruling coalition, Broad Front, can't agree on a 2009 consensus presidential ticket during the coming movement's congress.
A lightning killed 52 steers during an electric night storm earlier this week in a Uruguayan farm in San Jose, approximately a hundred kilometres from the capital Montevideo. Apparently the open range cattle were stunned to death as the lightning struck a metal fence.