Montevideo - Next year will be a big election year for Latin America, a region where democracy in many countries is only decades young, and where the shadow of corruption stretches wide and long.

Montevideo - Is frail health a get-out-of-jail card for Latin America's imprisoned dictators and autocrats?

Montevideo - As corruption goes in Latin America, it amounted to small beans, but the excess that ended the Uruguayan vice-president's career this month shows the region's politics are still locked in a cycle of sleaze.

Montevideo - Uruguay's new vice president is a 72-year-old formerly imprisoned ex-guerrilla who is also the wife of popular former president Jose Mujica.

Montevideo - Uruguay's vice president Raul Sendic resigned on Saturday over allegations he used public money for personal shopping.

Montevideo - Fugitive Italian mafia boss Rocco Morabito had split from his wife and was searching for a new apartment when he was arrested by Uruguayan police, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Montevideo - Uruguay's unique new marijuana industry has run into a hurdle as international anti-money laundering rules are forcing banks to close the accounts of pharmacies legally selling the drug.

Montevideo - The number of people registering to buy newly legalized marijuana in Uruguay jumped by almost 50 percent in the first week of sales, according to official figures released Wednesday.

Montevideo - Pharmacies in Uruguay started selling marijuana Wednesday under a four-year-old law that has made the small South American country the first in the world to legalize pot from production to sale.

Montevideo - Panama's diplomatic abandonment of Taiwan to start ties with China could ripple through other countries in Central America and the Caribbean that still support Taipei, experts say, reflecting Beijing's growing economic might.

Montevideo - Thousands of Venezuelans have fled their country to escape the hardship and violence of its economic and political crisis.

Montevideo - More than 500 people signed up to buy state-vetted cannabis in Uruguay on the first day of registration for the first such scheme in the world, authorities said Wednesday.

Montevideo - Pot-smokers in Uruguay on Tuesday became the first in the world to sign up to buy state-vetted cannabis for recreational use, as pharmacies aim to start selling it in July.

Montevideo - Uruguay, which in July will become the first country selling state-produced cannabis in pharmacies for recreational use, will open a user registry on Tuesday, authorities said.

Montevideo - Uruguay will become the world's first country to allow recreational marijuana to be sold in pharmacies starting in July, the president's office said Thursday.

Montevideo - Two Filipino sailors were rescued Saturday from a distressed South Korean freighter with 24 crew on board that had apparently sunk in the Atlantic Ocean, the Uruguayan navy said Saturday.

Montevideo - For years, Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht landed huge public works contracts by paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes.

Montevideo - Uruguay's last military dictator, General Gregorio "El Goyo" Alvarez, died Wednesday at age 91 of heart failure, a defense ministry official said.

Montevideo - Florencia was just 10 years old when her stepfather suffocated her with a plastic bag.Lucia was 16 when two men drugged her, raped her and fatally impaled her on a spike.

Montevideo - A former Guantanamo inmate resettled in Uruguay who went on hunger strike to demand relocation to another country has dropped his protest after receiving an offer, activists said Saturday.