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MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - One of South America's smallest countries proved on Sunday it can hold the biggest barbecue in the world. Some 1,250 Uruguayan grillmeisters sizzled up 26,400 pounds (12,000 kilograms) of beef Sunday, beating a 2006 record set in Mexico. "It's all so beautiful. It's a record," Guinness World Records judge Danny Girton said after the chefs, in white hats and aprons, smoked and barbecued their way into the record book with help of 6 tons of charcoal and 1,500 metal barbecue stands. The barbecue was so big that firefighters were called in to light the grills and make...

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Venezuelan government on Friday denied any link to a businessman who was stopped at an Argentine airport carrying a suitcase filled with nearly $800,000 in cash. The Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, carried the money from Caracas to Buenos Aires on a flight chartered by the Argentine government, and the undeclared funds were seized by customs agents last weekend. “We don't have anything to do with that plane or with that trip ... nothing to do with that businessman,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas told reporters. The incident has shaken the Argentine government, prompted one...

After fleeing poverty in his native Uruguay, Miguel Angel Ortiz settled in Hampton Roads and established himself as an expert welder. He formed his own business and obtained shipyard contracts worth more than $1 million. Married with three children, the youngest about 10 months old, he had been living in a stately waterfront home in Virginia Beach. Two full-size bronze lions were perched out front near a four-tier fountain. He drove a Hummer and had a spare in the driveway. Ortiz built this life using someone else’s identity and after racking up an extensive arrest record in this country.His case...

Jul. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Legislators in Uruguay have taken up discussion of a bill that would legalize abortion. A senate commission is considering a bill on sexual and reproductive health that would allow for legal abortion. The country's Catholic bishops have made an appeal to protect the current ban on abortion. Uruguay is governed by a center-left coalition, which includes the Christian Democratic Party.

Montevideo, Uruguay (LifeNews.com) -- Activists in the South American nation of Uruguay have begun another campaign in an attempt to legalize abortion there. Like most counties in the region that are strongly Hispanic and Catholic, Uruguay prohibits abortions in virtually all cases exception when a woman's life is in danger or she is a victim of rape. Abortion advocates launched their latest campaign after news surfaced that a 20 year-old woman was criminally charged for having an illegal abortion. Lawmakers who are sympathetic to their cause have introduced a bill removing the nation's pro-life protection for unborn children but it...

ESTANCIA ANCHORENA, Uruguay – Over lamb chops and cuts of beef, President Bush chatted amiably Saturday at this presidential retreat with a former leader of a legendary band of leftist guerrillas known as the Tupamaros. "I respect you and I'm proud to be in your country," Bush told Jose "Pepe" Mujica, now Uruguay's minister of agriculture and livestock, according to a White House aide. Mujica was pleased to give Bush an expansive overview of this tiny nation's agricultural needs, the aide said. This is the same Mujica who, in comments to media here, has acknowledged feeling odd about the notion...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: President and Mrs. Bush visited Uruguay today where they had lunch with that country's president and other dignitaries. GWB and the Uruguayan leader held trade talks before participating in a joint press conference. The following article presents a summary of President Bush's visit: Bush talks trade in Uruguay as Chavez stokes protests CNN.com, World, POSTED: 2:07 p.m. EST, March 10, 2007 ANCHORENA PARK, Uruguay (AP) -- President George W. Bush launched talks Saturday with Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez focused on expanding trade with this tiny coastal nation. It was the second stop on a five-country...

While President Bush did the talking, the first lady did the walking. Laura Bush played tourist Saturday on a foot tour of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ruins of a 17th century Portuguese fort with a view of the broad River Plate and Argentina on the opposite bank. As her husband met with Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez at a nearby countryside retreat, the first lady strolled in a violet-colored pantsuit down quaint cobblestone streets of the old town of Colonia de Sacramento. Uruguay’s first lady, Maria Auxiliadora Delgado, escorted her. They both smiled as tourists and residents applauded them....

Thousands of protesters greeted Mr Bush's arrival US President George Bush has met his Uruguayan counterpart, Tabare Vazquez, as part of his five-nation Latin American tour to promote trade.Mr Bush arrived in Montevideo from Brazil - where he signed a deal to develop alternative fuel sources. Uruguay is keen to sign free trade deals with the US, even if it means leaving the Mercosur trade bloc. The tour attracted protests in Brazil and about 5,000 protesters gathered in Uruguay for Mr Bush's visit. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is conducting his own tour of the region and addressed 40,000 anti-Bush...

Brazilian ambassador in Chile described as mere “fantasy” alleged statements by President Lula da Silva particularly offensive towards Chile, Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and former Uruguayan president Jorge Batlle. “I can assure you it is all mere fantasy”, said Ambassador Mario Vilalva in Santiago adding that “I can back my words because I happened to be at the official dinner at the Brazilian Embassy in Tokyo”, when the alleged incident took place. In a book released this week titled “Travels with the President” two Brazilian journalists, Eduardo Scolese and Leonencio Nossa wrote that President Lula in the Embassy in Tokyo...

A runaway train killed seven people and injured at least 11, severing some of their limbs, during the filming of a TV show in Uruguay, police said. The accident occurred during a "test of strength" challenge to raise money for a hospital in Young, 380km (235 miles) west of the capital, Montevideo. Contestants were pulling a train and two carriages when the locomotive gained speed and ran them over. Local authorities have declared three days of mourning. Participants in the programme, called A Challenge to the Heart, raise funds for local charities by completing difficult tasks set by the network...

Judging from last week's jubilant, nearly identical headlines the press was having a picnic over the recent Bolivian elections: "Latin America Continues Drift To The Left." "Morales Victory Continues Leftward Drift." The consistent theme running through the reports was indistinguishable too and unmistakable: Socialism is on the march! Take that free marketeers! Apparently the election of Juan Evo Morales Ayma as Bolivian president makes it official. Free market capitalism is on the ropes. Like the proverbial Siamese dominoes Latin American countries -- Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela -- have fallen to the red menace. And 11 of the region's countries...

Uruguay roes its way to epicurean success BAYGORRIA, Uruguay (AFP) - Uruguayan caviar, once a local family's long-shot business venture, has swum its way onto the epicurean map and is poised to become the toast of the world's gastronomes. ADVERTISEMENT The idea was spawned just about a decade ago, when Russian satellite images showed that Uruguay could be an ideal place to breed sturgeon. Soon after, the Alcaldes became the first family in the southern hemisphere to produce caviar. Now they are trying to corner the world market through their company Black River Sturgeons -- ERN by its Spanish acronym.)...

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 29 - As he campaigned for the presidency in 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva boldly pledged to clean up the sordid politics of Brazil. His, he vowed, would be an ethical, honest and moral government the likes of which Brazil had never seen. That pledge helped him win the votes of more than 50 million Brazilians and a sweeping mandate. But now, in a gloomy echo of what has happened time and again across Latin America, Mr. da Silva's government is mired in the biggest, most audacious corruption scandal in his country's history. A congressional...

SUMMARY In early June, Bolivia's government, led by the interim president, Carlos Mesa, collapsed amid widespread popular protests. The trigger was the enactment of a controversial hydrocarbons law which, although it sharply increased levies on foreign companies, was seen by radical protestors as not going far enough. The effective royalty rate was raised from 18% to 50%. The increase will be contested by foreign oil companies which claim it contravenes the terms of existing contracts. However, Bolivia's more radical groups are pressing for outright nationalisation. The future management of the privatised hydrocarbons industry has become a bitterly divisive issue in...

MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY - One of 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash made famous by the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read has gotten his wallet and jacket back 32 years. Eduardo Strauch, who survived 72 days in mountain snows, got the aged wallet, drivers license and other personal items Wednesday, a week after they were found in the Andes by a mountain climber. Mr. Strauch, 57, was aboard a flight with fellow rugby players, relatives and friends when their plane crashed high in the Andes on Oct. 12, 1972.

COLONIA, Uruguay - In his opening weeks as Uruguay's first socialist president, Tabare Vazquez has mirrored the economic orthodoxy of his centrist predecessor while making populist political gestures, especially to labor unions and the poor. Mr. Vazquez, 65, an oncologist, heads the leftist coalition Frente Amplio (Broad Front, in Spanish). He was sworn in March 1, ending 180 years of two-party rule. His election in October produced an epidemic of euphoria in this town and throughout the tiny nation of more than 3 million. It also bolstered the so-called "pink tide" of leftist governments taking power in several Latin American...

China's Latin influence is growing, general says China is taking advantage of a U.S. influence vacuum in Latin America because of aid cuts, the commander of the Southern Command says. By PABLO BACHELET pbachelet@herald.com WASHINGTON - The head of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command Wednesday warned that China was increasing its influence among Latin American militaries, and partly blamed a policy that cuts military aid to countries that refuse to exempt U.S. citizens from International Criminal Court jurisdiction. In his first testimony before a House panel, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, who heads the United States Southern Command, offered an unusually...

Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises reminded in 1932 that the socialist movement takes great pains to frequently circulate new labels for its "ideally constructed state." Seventy-three years later, socialists still are playing that game. Just as socialists masquerading as liberals in the United States now call themselves "progressives," apologians for this particularly odoriferous political philosophy in Latin America now call themselves "pragmatists." Sadly, some in the media have become willing accomplices. Uruguay last week became the sixth South American nation to install a socialist president. He's Tabare Vazquez, 65, a former cancer doctor who rose to power as so many...

BUENOS AIRES, March 4 (RIA Novosti correspondent Yury Nikolayev) - Russia and Uruguay have agreed to draw up a cooperation program for the period from 2005 to 2010. The parties reached this agreement at a meeting between Russian Central Election Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov and Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez on Thursday, reported the Russian embassy in Uruguay. Veshnyakov heads the Russian delegation at the inauguration ceremony of the new president of Uruguay Tabare Vazquez. Mr. Veshnyakov handed over President Vladimir Putin's message to his Uruguayan counterpart. Mr. Veshnyakov updated President Vazquez on prospects and areas of cooperation in the energy...

(AP) Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez opens his arms to supporters from the balcony of the Government... MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - A doctor took office as Uruguay's first socialist president Tuesday, joining the ranks of left-leaning leaders in Latin America - now six in all - governing a majority of the region's people with a cautious approach to U.S.-backed free-market policies. In one of his first official acts, Tabare Vazquez restored full diplomatic ties with communist Cuba, more than two years after a diplomatic row divided the countries. Thousands of Uruguayans - many waving flags and chanting "Ur-u-guay!" - filled Montevideo's...

URUGUAY, once South America’s most prosperous country, plays host to an unlikely gathering of left-wing leaders tomorrow as it prepares to break with 170 years of history and swear in its first socialist President.Tabaré Vázquez, a 65-year-old professor of medicine who was elected last October with 50 per cent of the vote, will be inaugurated as head of the Broad Front coalition, whose biggest component is a party founded by the former Marxist Tupamaro guerrilla movement. The new head of the country’s Senate is José Mújica, a former Tupamaro leader who was held in a deep well for seven years...

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) -- One of 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash made famous by a book and movie has gotten his wallet and jacket back 32 years after leaving them in the mountain snows. Eduardo Strauch, who survived 72 days in high mountain snows, received the aged wallet, drivers license and other personal items Wednesday, a week after they were found in the Andes by a mountain climber. Strauch, now a 57-year-old architect and father of five, was aboard a flight with fellow rugby players, relatives and friends when their plane crashed high in the Andes on...

The U.S. Commitment to Uruguay and Latin America John B. Taylor Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs Remarks at Embassy of Uruguay on Receipt of the “Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay” Washington, DC February 14, 2005 Thank you very much for inviting me here today and for this honor. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work with Ambassador Fernández-Faingold, Minister Alfie, and other members of the Uruguayan government to help Uruguay through the difficult period in 2002. President Batlle and his economic team deserve high marks for their achievements in putting Uruguay back on...

Communism's Resurgence By William F. Jasper The New American, January 24, 2005 Communism is not dead in Latin America. In fact, the dominoes are falling south of the border, but no one seems to be noticing. "It's a new day. Communism is dead. It's even dead in Cuba." So declared Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in May 2002. "I hate to say it," she continued, "it's dead." The senator's proclamation was a surprise, no doubt, to Fidel Castro, whose regime was (and is) alive and as Red as ever. It also must have come as...

Communism is not dead in Latin America. In fact, the dominoes are falling south of the border, but no one seems to be noticing. “It’s a new day. Communism is dead. It’s even dead in Cuba.” So declared Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in May 2002. “I hate to say it,” she continued, “it’s dead.” The senator’s proclamation was a surprise, no doubt, to Fidel Castro, whose regime was (and is) alive and as Red as ever. It also must have come as welcome news to the people of Cuba, still suffering, after nearly half...

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Uruguayans elected Tabare Vazquez as the nation's first leftist president, vote tallies showed Monday, breaking a 170-year lock on power by two traditional parties and strengthening Latin America's shift to the left. Sunday's vote highlighted a dramatic change for this longtime U.S. ally. Relations with the United States blossomed under outgoing President Jorge Batlle, a centrist, at a time when leftists took power in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, emphasizing greater distance from Washington on a range of economic, trade and foreign policy issues. Uruguay's vote coincided with elections in three other South Americans that saw wins for...

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (Reuters) - The left made more inroads into Latin America in four elections this weekend as crisis-weary voters tired of decades of U.S-backed market reforms warmed to pragmatic platforms of economic growth with better distribution of wealth. Tiny Uruguay became the latest South American nation to elect a leftist leader in a historic shift while the left notched up victories in local elections that could set the tone for future presidential votes in Brazil, Chile and Venezuela. Tabare Vazquez, who will be Uruguay's first leftist leader, won the presidency in his third attempt after toning down some earlier...

Seven U.N. peacekeeping troops from Uruguay who are under investigation for stealing from a church in northeastern Congo will be transferred to the capital, Kinshasa, the United Nations said Thursday. The soldiers could be repatriated to Uruguay for disciplinary action by their national military authorities if the allegations are found to be true by military investigators, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. A priest informed U.N. military officials in the northeastern town of Bunia that Uruguayan soldiers broke into a Roman Catholic chapel, drank communion wine and stole items used in the celebration of Mass, the deputy commander of U.N. forces...

Montevideo, Uruguay (LifeNews.com) -- The Uruguay senate on Wednesday voted down a proposal that would have made the South American nation the first Latin American country other than Cuba to legalize abortion. Following passage of a bill to allow abortion by the House in December 2002, the Senate voted against the measure 17-13. If approved, the legislation would have legalized abortion for any reason during the first three months of pregnancy, define abortion as a "medical act,' limit conscientious objection by health professionals, and require all health facilities to provide abortions. In case the Senate would pass the bill, pro-life...

Nelson's great love found at the bottom of the ocean ADMIRAL Horatio Nelson’s favourite ship, on which he is said to have seduced Lady Hamilton and lost an eye in battle, has been found off the coast of Uruguay. International treasure-divers said yesterday that they had found HMS Agamemnon, a 64-gun vessel which was the pride of Britain’s naval fleet when it went down in 1809. Plans are now being made to lift the ship from its watery grave following the multi-million-pound deep-sea exploration. Uruguayan millionaire Hector Bado, the operation’s backer, hailed the find as "akin to finding the Holy...

WASHINGTON - It was a phone call Ed Koch will never forget. In 1976, then-Rep. Koch, the future mayor of New York City, says he was informed by CIA Director George H. W. Bush that he was the target of an assassination plot. Koch had earned the wrath of Uruguay's military government by pushing legislation to cut off $3 million in military aid to the South American country. "I was scared to death," Koch recalled Friday in an interview. "How would you feel if the director of the CIA said there was a contract out on your life." Koch, who...

Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004, 18:05 GMT Bad weather delays Graf Spee dive The Graf Spee wrought havoc among allied merchant vessels An operation to raise the German World War II battleship Graf Spee from the mouth of the River Plate in Uruguay has been postponed due to high winds. Divers now do not expect to be able to begin the long and complicated project until Sunday at the earliest. The vessel was scuttled more than 60 years ago after sustaining damage in a confrontation with allied forces. The recovery effort is reported to be privately funded and will...

Divers aim to raise the Graf Spee Feb 4 2004 Divers will begin this week raising pieces of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, scuttled off Uruguay in the early days of the Second World War to avoid being sunk by a British armada. The Battle of the River plate that led to pride of the German fleet's humiliating end rapidly become nautical folklore ... and a film. Hector Bado, a spokesman for the salvage team, said work on the Graf Spee was scheduled to begin tomorrow but high winds and choppy waters on the broad waterway separating Uruguay...

CIA Fact book on Uruguay and Puerto Rico site there, too. The story of the Puerto Rican flag. I'm wondering where is Hugo Chavez?

<p>HAVANA, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Argentina will pressure Uruguay to drop its opposition to offering Cuba membership in a key regional trade bloc.</p> <p>Known as Mercosur, the association is a South American common market that has long excluded Cuba.</p> <p>Raul Taleb, Argentina's ambassador to Cuba, said Wednesday his country would work to "persuade Uruguay to rise to the circumstance", since integrating Cuba into Mercosur "means acknowledging reality; the worst thing we could do is isolate Cuba."</p>

Two candidates fighting for lead in Ecuador's presidential Election GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador - Two candidates were fighting for the lead in Ecuador's presidential race Sunday, setting the stage for a second round in the closest election since democracy was restored in 1979, early results showed. With 53.6 percent of the votes counted, Lucio Gutierrez, 45, a dismissed army colonel who is an admirer of Fidel Castro and Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, led with 19 percent of the vote. Banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, 51, was close behind with 17.6 percent, and the two appeared headed for a runoff election on Nov....

IN URUGUAY, A WEIRD MONEY GAME INVITES U.S. BROKERS by Mark Scheinbaum American Reporter Correspondent August 7, 2002 LAKE WORTH, Fla., Aug. 7. 2002 -- I'm not an investment banker in Uruguay nor do I play one on television. But what if - just what if, I'm on to something here? I literally shook my head upon awakening at my usual 4 a.m. the other morning to check international markets, to clear the cobwebs and my ear drums when I heard that U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was enroute to the capital of Uruguay with a $1.5 billion bailout check...

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - Uruguay's president announced Tuesday that his country was breaking diplomatic ties with Cuba, days after Uruguay sponsored a U.N. human rights vote targeting Fidel Castro's government. The surprise announcement by President Jorge Batlle came as the Uruguayan leader charged Cuba with a series of insults against this South American nation. Cuban President Fidel Castro, who was speaking live on a government television program in Havana when the announcement was made, characterized Batlle as "a lackey." Uruguay sponsored a resolution targeting Cuba that was passed Friday by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The vote was...

<p>Montevideo, June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle accused his neighbors in Argentina of being a ``bunch of thieves'' and said Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde may be forced to leave office at any moment.</p> <p>Argentina's economic and financial crisis has sent shock waves across South America, threatening its neighbors with financial instability. No country has been hit harder than Uruguay, whose $20 billion economy has depended on Argentina for almost a fifth of its exports and about half of the tourists drawn to attractions such as its Punta del Este sea-side resort.</p>

Filed at 7:29 p.m. ET MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) -- Uruguay's president announced Tuesday that his country was breaking diplomatic ties with Cuba, days after Uruguay sponsored a U.N. human rights vote targeting Fidel Castro's government. The surprise announcement by President Jorge Batlle came as the Uruguayan leader charged Cuba with a series of insults against his small South American nation. Uruguay sponsored a resolution targeting Cuba that was passed Friday by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The vote was a tight 23-21 with nine abstentions. The resolution invited the communist-run country to provide its people with greater civil...