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LatAm to reach 388 mln mobile lines by end-2008

December 7th, 2008 Posted in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Latin America, Mexico, Telecom, Uruguay

Latin America will reach over 388 million mobile lines in service at the end of this year, accounting for 9.6 percent of the overall mobile lines in service worldwide, according to the Information Society index (ISI) established by consulting firm Everis. Brazil is expected to end the year with 143.2 million phones, Mexico with 76.9 million and Argentina with 44.8 million, which together account for nearly seven of every ten mobile lines in the region.

Mobile networks cover the entire populations only in Uruguay and Chile, while in Ecuador and Colombia they reach 84 percent of the population. Bolivia has the lowest mobile coverage, reaching only 45.9 percent of the country’s population. Argentina registers a higher mobile penetration than population coverage, with 102.2 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants.

Technorati Tags: telecom, mobile, Latin America, teledensity

Popularity: 16% [?]

No corking Uruguay’s rising status as wine country

December 3rd, 2008 Posted in Tourism, Uruguay

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LATimes.com

Wind-tousled grapevines, marching in cornrow-straight lines and hung with pearl-like clusters of light-green fruit, stretch as far as the eye can see across gently rolling farmland near the village of Juanicó in the Canelones District. Flowering red rosebushes punctuate the ends of each row, and tiro-tiro birds, named for their unique call, nest on wooden fence posts. Stalwart pine trees shield the vines from unkind winds along the 34th southern parallel.

The Canelones District is home to the Juanicó wine region, just a 45-minute drive from the Río de la Plata, the broad, slow-moving river that flows between Argentina and its northern neighbor Uruguay.

Surprisingly, the Juanicó region is not part of Argentina, a well-known wine producer and exporter. It belongs to tiny Uruguay and serves as a gateway to the Wine Roads, a stretch of 15 bodegas where wine aficionados can stroll through vineyards, tour century-old cellars and sample fine wines and local cuisine.

Technorati Tags: wine, uruguay

Popularity: 6% [?]

Uruguay unveils US$4 bln Portucel investment

October 14th, 2008 Posted in Uruguay

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International Herald Tribune

Uruguay’s president says a Portuguese paper company will spend more than US$4 billion to build a pulp plant and port in Uruguay.

President Tabare Vasquez says the investment from Portucel Soporcel Group will stem contagion from the world financial crisis.

The company plans to build a paper and cellulose plant and a deep-water port in an as-yet undisclosed location.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Boom in beef returns opens the door to a bonus for Uruguay

October 14th, 2008 Posted in Agriculture, Commodities, Uruguay

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Scotsman.com Business

BEEF from South America has been traded on the international markets for the better part of a century with Argentina and Brazil the big players in this field. However, in recent years Uruguay has become an increasingly important source of beef for the European trade, especially in terms of quality.

The population of Uruguay at 3.2 million is significantly less than that of Scotland, but its beef industry is much larger. In the first six months of this year Uruguay exported 141,300 tonnes of fresh and frozen beef to a wide range of destinations.

The physical volume of exports was little changed on the previous year. However, the value of that trade increased by more than 50 per cent, reflecting the growing demand for beef.
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Popularity: 4% [?]

Uruguay Grants Land for ZAP Electric Vehicle Assembly Facility

September 24th, 2008 Posted in Engineering and Manufacturing, Investing, Uruguay

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MarketWatch

The government of Uruguay, in a move to expand investment in new industries and technologies, has set aside land for an electric vehicle assembly plant expected to begin construction next month by US electric car pioneer ZAP.

The State of Montevideo has granted an acre of land to ZAP within an industrial and technology park established for projects of national interest through CAPIT (Comision Administradora del Parque Industrial y Tecnologico del Cerro). According to Fernando Cancela, ZAP’s Director of International Affairs, ZAP plans to break ground by next month on a comprehensive facility for the assembly of light electric vehicles, including the Xebra brand, three-wheeled electric sedans and trucks, the ZAPPY3 scooter, and ZAP electric bicycles for distribution throughout South America.

MERCOSUR is a trade agreement established in South America to promote free trade and fluid movement of goods, people and currency. The region represents a population of over 250 million in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. MERCOSUR-certified products exported within the region enjoy little or no taxes.

Technorati Tags: electric vehicles

Popularity: 6% [?]

Argentina and Uruguay’s tango row

September 17th, 2008 Posted in Argentina, Arts, Culture and Society, Uruguay

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BBC NEWS | Programmes |

One of the great Argentine icons, alongside footballer Diego Maradona and the former first lady, Eva Peron, is the tango singer, Carlos Gardel.

Pictures of him with his slicked-backed hair and perfectly tailored suits adorn many Argentine bars and restaurants and you will often hear his songs played by Buenos Aires taxi drivers on the all-tango radio stations.

He was an early playboy, an international superstar who came to a tragic and premature end in a plane crash in Colombia in 1935. Gardel is to Argentina what Frank Sinatra is to the United States or Edith Piaf is to France.

So while driving through northern Uruguay recently, I had to take a second look when I saw a sign pointing to Carlos Gardel’s birthplace and museum.

How cheeky can you get? It is like Canadians saying that Sinatra was not really born in Hoboken, New Jersey, but in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Or the British claiming that Edith Piaf really hailed from Basingstoke in southern England.

Gardel is as Argentine as a big lump of juicy steak being barbequed by gauchos out on the pampas. But not according to the Uruguayans, and they have the evidence to prove it – or so they say.

[T]his dispute goes to the heart of Argentine and Uruguayan national identity.Tango is not just a style of music and dance – it is the beat to
which both nations evolved from their immigrant roots. It matters.

Popularity: 4% [?]

In South America, Gauchos Still Ride Tall in the Saddle — and So Can You

September 15th, 2008 Posted in Argentina, Arts, Culture and Society, Tourism, Uruguay

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WashingtonPost

Even Charles Darwin was smitten by gauchos.

Notes from his 1833 expedition to South America excitedly describe a rare breed of cowboys discovered riding the open plains, “long, black hair curling down their backs . . . daggers at their waists” and weather-beaten guitars in tow.

For centuries, the itinerant gauchos roamed the South American countryside, toiling on ranches, serenading small-town women and inspiring folk legends about their footloose way of life.

Now, growing numbers of working farms, known in Argentina and Uruguay as estancias, are offering modern-day explorers the chance to experience the gaucho lifestyle for themselves, with a few contemporary comforts thrown in.
“The original gauchos were just wanderers,” Castro explains in Spanish,
lifting a gate to let the cattle back out to pasture. “They didn’t have
a home.” The herd streams past and recedes into the plains. Beyond, a
sea of scruffy grass rolls to the horizon.

It was on lonely plains such as these that, in the early 1700s, the
gaucho was born, the progeny of Spanish colonists and local Indians.
The mixed-race gauchos played Spanish guitars but wore ponchos; they
smoked tobacco but also sipped mate, an indigenous tea brewed from a
pampas shrub.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

Focus on Potential trade pact – Canada and Mercosur

September 11th, 2008 Posted in Infrastructure, Investing, Uruguay

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Ottawa Citizen

A trade agreement between Canada and MERCOSUR is not just possible, it’s necessary, said Pedro Vaz Ramela, Uruguay’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

Mr. Ramela was in Ottawa this week for the third round of Canada-Uruguay bilateral foreign policy consultations. He met with Len Edwards, deputy minister of foreign affairs. The deputy minister said he’d consider the visit successful if he left with a clearer roadmap for future conversations under the same bilateral framework.

Uruguayan officials have, in the past, come to Ottawa to lobby for a trade deal between Canada and MERCOSUR, a regional trade agreement that involves Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay principally but also Venezuela, which is waiting to become a full member. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are associate members while Mexico is an observer.

“We (MERCOSUR) proposed to have four or five conversations in the near future, one is with Canada. We think Canada-MERCOSUR should have priority. In the present situation, it’s time to move, to try to reach some new levels with some countries, or international actors, and one of them is Canada,” Mr. Vaz Ramela said.

Mr. Vaz Ramela said the economic cooperation between the two countries is already strong, but “it could be better.” Uruguay, he pointed out, has recovered from an economic crisis in 2002 and has seen growth of seven per cent per year recently.

“This is, for us, key because Uruguay has probably one of the best environments for investment in the region. For Canada, it’s a chance to use Uruguay as a platform for the sub-region. We are, in a way, a gateway for the sub-region of MERCOSUR. It could be interesting for Canadian businessmen to take a look at Uruguay, because of the legal framework for investment, the political decisions of the government, the geopolitical situation and our expertise in terms of services and logistics, as well as our growing ports and transport system.
…Uruguay is an attractive and safe place. Canada could take profit of our vision for a better relationship in various areas.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

Los jueces y la justicia

September 4th, 2008 Posted in Philosophy and Culture, Uruguay

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Hana Fischer – Libertad Digital

La función de los jueces consiste en aplicar el Derecho a casos concretos, pero a menudo se habla del Poder Judicial como “la justicia”. Esa confusión en las palabras conduce a extravío en las ideas. Uno de los mayores peligros estriba en que los jueces confundan su labor y lleguen a convencerse de que deben imponer su particular visión de “justicia”, cual modernos Robin Hoods.

Este desvarío funcional pudo observarse recientemente en Uruguay. En una sentencia que causó conmoción, un Tribunal de Apelaciones dictaminó que “el derecho fundamental a la salud”, previsto en la Constitución, obliga a las instituciones relacionadas con la salud a cumplir las “indicaciones médicas” que sean prescritas a los pacientes, sin considerar limitaciones económicas o patrimoniales.

En este caso, una persona con un seguro médico ofrecido por un hospital privado lo demandó para obtener un medicamento extraordinariamente caro. El fallo argumenta que “existe una indicación médica que debe ser cumplida, pues, en caso contrario, se vulnera gravemente un derecho humano protegido por la Constitución de la República”. Y concluye que el derecho a la protección del goce de la vida y la salud, “son bienes de rango superior” que “no pueden ceder” frente a “consideraciones patrimoniales”.

Esta argumentación permite constatar cómo intenciones nobles pueden conducir a la tiranía porque lo que caracteriza al despotismo es la arbitrariedad. Se considera que una orden es abusiva cuando se obliga a alguien, que no hizo ningún daño, a realizar algo en beneficio de terceros. La violencia de la medida se ve agravada por su irracionalidad, al exigirse que se realice determinada acción aunque esta conduzca a la ruina al ejecutor.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Salto and Guaviyú – Taking the Waters in Uruguay’s Gaucho Corner

September 3rd, 2008 Posted in Tourism, Uruguay

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NYTimes.com

Of the 1.8 million visitors to Uruguay in 2006, more than half were Argentine. But quietly, Uruguay is developing a second vacation spot that may help uncouple its tourism fortunes from Buenos Aires. It has found its best hope 3,000 feet underground, in the hot springs along the Uruguay River, a once-isolated region that even Uruguayans lump in with the rest of the “interior” — anywhere outside Punta del Este and the capital, Montevideo.

Since the discovery of the hot springs in the 1940s, by an oil exploration team wildcatting along the Argentine border, Uruguay has developed an impressively varied string of private resorts, public campgrounds, water parks and dude ranches. All tap the Guaraní Aquifer, the largest in the continent, funneling its toasty and mineral-rich water into indoor and outdoor baths.

…discovering in the hot springs an authentically Uruguayan experience
that comes without sacrificing the comforts of the coastal resorts.

Popularity: 4% [?]