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Uruguay

Venezuela Expels Diplomats From Seven Countries After Blatant Interference

The Venezuelan Minister for Foreign Affairs Yván Gil, through a statement, announced that the Venezuelan government decided to withdraw all diplomatic personnel from its embassies in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. The announcement followed the unprecedented interventionist aggression and interference in Venezuelan internal affairs carried out by these seven countries. In addition, the minister requested that the governments of these countries immediately withdraw their representatives from Venezuelan territory. In diplomatic jargon, this essentially constitutes a complete diplomatic rupture.

50 Years Later, Families Demand Justice For The Disappeared In Uruguay

Excavations by forensic anthropologists at a notorious military base in Toledo, Uruguay have unearthed human remains. It is likely that the remains are those of one the many victims of the campaign of forced disappearance carried out by the state during the military dictatorship that began five decades ago. The remains are the first to be discovered in over a decade, and a painful reminder of the lengths the military went to permanently disappear dissidents and leftists in a campaign that lasted 12 years. For families of the missing, the news has brought a mix of emotions. This is only the seventh person recovered of the 204 victims who were forcibly disappeared from that brutal period during the Cold War.

Where The Danger Is, The Saving Power Also Grows

I have just returned from Latin America. I find myself a somewhat different person than the one that left a couple of weeks ago. What changed? During my visit I went to Colombia, on invitation from the UNDP (United Nation Development Programme) and to Uruguay to launch the first Latin American Ecosystems Leadership Program (ELP) for our u-school for Transformation. The launch of this regional ELP in Latin America opened what to many of us felt like a profound new space of collective possibility. It is intended as a 3-year collective cross-sector and cross-country journey to awaken all of the human intelligences — head, heart, and hand — in the service of regeneration, healing, and systems transformation.

Walking The Tightrope: Latin America’s Pink Tide

Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings, edited by economic historian and prominent Latin Americanist Steve Ellner, offers a critical ethical theoretical framework for assessing the performance of left and left-of-center governments in Latin America during the Pink Tide. The “Pink Tide” refers to the wave of progressive governments beginning with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. These progressive governments provided alternatives to the neoliberal economic model that had brought growing economic and social inequality, austerity, privatization of public resources, and political subordination to Washington to most of the region during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Pink Tide governments were brought to power by widespread disillusion with traditional political parties and were buoyed by social movements that sought economic and social justice and more democratic participation in the political life of their nations.

Does Uruguay’s Shift To The Right Mean Bad News For Mercosur?

Pagina 12 talked to analysts Atilio Boron, Hernan Patiño Mayer and Oscar Laborde about their views on what’s next in Uruguay following the victory of the National Party’s Luis Lacalle Pou in presidential elections; including its local political situation; its relationship with Argentina; Mercosur; the Rightward shift in the continent; and the results of 15 years of the leftist Frente Amplio or Broad Front. Thinking on the political scene unfolding in Uruguay with the victory of rightist Luis Lacalle Pou, Political Scientist Atilio Boron commented the contradictions of the alliance that is going to rule the country starting next March.

Our Strength Is In Struggle

Eleven men are competing for the job of president, but only two have the potential to be elected: progressive Frente Amplio candidate Daniel Martínez and Luis Lacalle Pou from the right wing National Party. Behind them are Ernesto Talvi from the Partido Colorado, which ruled the country nearly uninterrupted for 200 years. Polling in fourth place is Cabildo Abierto, a party created in April whose candidate, Guido Manini Ríos, was commander in chief of the armed forces for four years during the Frente Amplio governments. The remaining parties are much smaller, with support hovering around one percent.

Uruguay And The Threat Posed By Neoliberalism

As several nations in South America are going through their worst economic-political-institutional crises, Uruguay —which has survived the neoliberal wave in the region— is going to face elections on October 27 that might change a  system that has been benefiting most of its population. Unemployment, indebtedness, tax adjustments, inflation, decreased purchasing power, hunger, and poverty is the general scenario readably observable in countries which have opted for implementing neoliberal policies imposed by the United States and international financial organizations with the consent of the local domestic oligarchies.

Uruguay, Mexico Present Outline For Montevideo Conference

The conference will foster a platform for respectful negotiations between Venezuela and its opposition. The agenda for the “Montevideo Mechanism” being held in Uruguay on Thursday will be a four part process, foreign ministers said Wednesday. International delegates were directed to a press conference lead by Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrand where they presented a brief outline of the meeting. Held in hopes to mediate the domestic turmoil between Venezuelan opposition forces and the legitimate Nicolas Maduro administration, the conference will be broken into four segments, the foreign ministers said.

Why Is Former Guantánamo Prisoner On Hunger Strike In Uruguay?

By Aisha Maniar for Truthout - Adapting to life after lengthy imprisonment and as a refugee in a strange land are challenges. Coupled with the trauma of years of torture and the stigma of Guantánamo, the challenge is colossal. Nearly two years after being released to Uruguay with five others in December 2014, Syrian refugee Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, also known as Abu Wa'el Dhiab, 45, has faced all of these problems. Dhiab spent more than 12 years at Guantánamo after he was sold to the US military by the Pakistani police in 2002.

The US Returns To Latin America

By Vijay Prashad for the Hindu and Counterpunch. The financial crisis of 2007-08 dented China’s economy and saw the slow deterioration of commodity prices. It took a few years for the economic impact to strike Latin America with ferocity. A sharp tumble in oil prices in the summer of 2008 put the brakes on many of the social programmes that had become essential to the Bolivarian dynamic. It signalled the weakness in the experiment against Western domination. President Barack Obama’s administration focussed intently on Latin America. Opportunity struck with the 2009 coup in Honduras against the Left-wing government of Manuel Zelaya. Mr. Obama recognised the new military-backed government. It opened the door to a more aggressive stance vis-à-vis Latin American states. The presidency of Peru’s Ollanta Humala (2011) and the second presidency of Chile’s Michelle Bachelet (2014) — both ostensibly of the Left — hastily drew in cabinet members vetted by the bankers and made their peace with the hegemony of the U.S. Chávez’s death in 2012 meant that the Bolivarians lost their most charismatic champion. The impact of the Honduran coup and Chávez’s death had made itself felt along the spine of Latin America. The U.S., it was being said, is back.

José Mujica, Former President Of Uruguay: What Makes Us Human?

José Mujica, nicknamed Pepe Mujica, is one of the most interesting presidents in recent memory. He was President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. He was a former urban guerrilla fighter with the Tupamaros in the 1960s and the 70s, a group inspired by the Cuban Revolution. In total Mujica was captured by the authorities on four occasions. He was among the more than 100 Tupamaros who escaped Punta Carretas Prison in September 1971 by digging a tunnel from inside the prison that opened up at the living room of a nearby home. Mujica was re-captured less than a month after escaping, but escaped Punta Carretas once more in April 1972. On that occasion he and about a dozen other escapees fled riding improvised wheeled planks down the tunnel dug by Tupamaros from outside the prison.

Uruguay Withdraws From TISA, Symbolic Blow To Trade Deal

By Glyn Moody in Tech Dirt - Techdirt first mentioned the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) last year, when "The Really Good Friends of Services" -- the self-chosen name for about 20 members of the World Trade Organization -- could no longer keep their plans locked behind closed doors, and word started to spread. Essentially, TISA completes the unholy trinity of global trade agreements that also includes TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. Between the three of them, they sew up just about every aspect of trade in both goods and services -- the latter being TISA's particular focus. They share a common desire to liberalize trade as much as possible, and to prevent national governments from imposing constraints on corporate activity around the world. One particularly blatant reflection of this desire is the inclusion of something called the "ratchet clause."

When Bolivia Tried To Murder A US Folk Legend

His name was Victor Jara, and not only did he have the popularity of Presley and the political passion of Che, he also had the topical-folk style of Phil himself. But Víctor was part of something much more powerful than the Greenwich Village folk scene — Nueva Cancion. Rising alongside and within the social movements of Latin America, Nueva Cancion was political, personal, revolutionary, and exciting. Realizing their similarities, Víctor invited Phil to perform alongside him that evening for a group of students and workers in the copper mines a few hours drive from the city. Phil had come to Chile to find hope. At the time, the region was bursting with it. In Chile, Salvador Allende had become the first democratically elected socialist president in the world, and had begun restructuring the country’s economy to benefit the poor and dispossessed.

OAS Election Indicates Waning US Influence In Latin America

Today’s election of Luis Almagro as the new Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) is “another indication of declining U.S. influence in Latin America,” Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Mark Weisbrotsaid today. As foreign minister of Uruguay from 2010—2015, Almagro was involved in strengthening regional integration through organizations such as the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Almagro finished the race unopposed, but he previously had been running against the former foreign minister of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein. Stein received the backing of countries such as Honduras, Panama and the Dominican Republic prior to withdrawing his candidacy, while Almagro received strong support from South American nations, including Colombia.

Freed Guantánamo Detainees Adjust To Life In Uruguay

The group of four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian is still bound by the silence imposed by Washington regarding their experiences in the prison. IPS met with them for the second time Dec. 30 in the house where the Syrians are living in downtown Montevideo. A few are already speaking some Spanish and struggling to adjust to their new reality. Contacts with relatives have been established and the men are now looking for ways to reunite with their families, with the support of the Uruguayan government. After the shock of liberation, the six men are still struggling to fully understand where they are and to match as much as possible their beliefs and expectations for a new life with Uruguay’s social norms. Difficult, but necessary, is to reconcile the diverse social and political expectations and interests surrounding the group since the government of José Mujica decided to host them as refugees on humanitarian grounds.
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