Uruguay's Economy minister Azucena Arbeleche confirmed that the Inter American Development Bank had awarded the country a 1,7bn dollars soft loan to address the sanitary, social and economic emergency as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uruguayan students will be returning to face-to-face classes from June following a three-stage calendar and with voluntary assistance, the country’s president, Luis Lacalle Pou, reported on Thursday.
Uruguay on Thursday turned over to the United States a Mexican man wanted on drug and money laundering charges. Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia is the brother of Abigael González, the former head of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Cuinis” (The Squirrels). Gonzalez Valencia is also the brother-in-law of Jalisco cartel drug lord Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes.
Finally a month after passengers were rescued and medically evacuated to Australia from Uruguay, the 89 crew which remained trapped in the coronavirus infested “Greg Mortimer” cruise have started their long return home.
Uruguayan president Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou and his Argentine peer, Alberto Fernandez held a half-hour video conference Tuesday mid-morning to address the recent decision by the current Argentine administration to freeze Mercosur free trade negotiations with potential new partners and instead concentrate efforts in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and its sanitary, social, economic and employment consequences.
Brazil's giant meatpacker Marfrig Global Foods CEO, Miguel Gularte, said the company has resumed sales of fresh beef to the US following a decision by US authorities to open their market to Brazilian beef. American slaughterhouses have been closing amid coronavirus social distancing rules and this has led to unmet demand within the US.
In the midst of the chaotic situation caused by the pandemic, the Argentine government announced the abandonment of Mercosur negotiations to prioritize the country’s domestic economy and the struggle against the virus. The rest of the bloc members must evaluate legal, institutional, and operational measures emerging from the decision.
The last cruise of “Greg Mortimer” when it left Ushuaia on March 15th was an invitation to disaster, and now “we are asking for a humanitarian corridor to take us, as they did with passengers, to our home countries”, said Mauricio Usme, chief medical officer on board the Aurora Expeditions vessel.
After the departure from Montevideo of the last medical flight with passengers of the stranded Antarctic cruise Greg Mortimer, the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, sent a letter to Uruguay’s President, Luis Lacalle Pou, acknowledging the action of his government for its collaboration with Australian citizens.
The final leg of the humanitarian repatriation of passengers on board an Antarctic cruise, stranded in Uruguay and most of them testing positive for coronavirus, ended Wednesday afternoon when they boarded in Uruguay's Carrasco international airport a sanitary charter to Miami.