Uruguay - Page 2

A Syrian refugee in Uruguay doused himself in gasoline in protest when told Uruguay could not strong-arm other countries into giving his family a visa, and later attacked both government and UN officials, ending the meeting.

The small Latin American nation of Uruguay has agreed to accept 72 Syrian refugees from Lebanon, relaunching a program for relocating refugees and giving them dramatically new lives that was shut down in part due to the government’s apprehension that Syrians were culturally incompatible with Uruguayans.

Contents: Pope Francis in Paraguay alludes to 1860s War of the Triple Alliance; Distrust of Greece dominates indecisive Eurogroup meeting on Saturday; France and Italy welcome Greece’s proposals

Uruguayan authorities removed what is being described as an “incomplete” explosive device left near the Israeli Embassy in that country. While the artifact itself was deemed harmless due to faulty construction, it is the third such bomb scare for that nation’s Israeli Embassy this year.

Five of the six former Guantánamo Bay detainees being hosted by Uruguay are refusing to sign an accord with the local United Nations body that would pay for their rent and utilities for one year, demanding that the United States subsist their lives and claiming they were promised three years of free living in the Latin American nation.

The government of Uruguay has closed its doors to former Guantánamo detainees “definitively” and halted its program to accept refugees from the Syrian civil war for at least another year, according to Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa.

The nation of Uruguay is struggling to properly integrate the six former Guantánamo Bay prisoners they accepted from the United States into society. Two of the men were forced into hotel housing after a heated “political and religious dispute,” while a third has traveled to Argentina to demand that the Southern Cone nation take in more prisoners from Gitmo.

Multiple groups of people believed to be Syrian refugees have been detained and rejected from Montevideo, Uruguay, after using falsified Israeli passports to book their flights into the nation.

Uruguay’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Almagro has ordered extra security protection for the Israeli embassy in Montevideo, as well as for individual Jewish diplomats and at specific Jewish community events, in response to the discovery of an explosive device last week by the embassy and subsequent mystery regarding an Iranian diplomat believed to be involved.

An Iranian official at the Islamic Republic’s embassy was indeed a suspect in a plan to bomb Israel’s embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, the country’s government confirmed with Israeli media outlet Haaretz. However, he fled the country before the diplomat was officially declared persona non grata, so the bomber was never technically expelled from Uruguay.

Uruguay has reportedly declared a senior Iranian diplomat persona non grata after he was involved in a bomb plot against Israel’s embassy in early January, according to senior Israeli officials who told Haaretz.

The government of Uruguay received international acclaim for its decision last year to accept a high number of refugees from the Syrian Civil War, citing the need for countries across the world to participate in saving the lives of those attempting to escape. It is now reneging on its promise, at least in part: only women and children will be allowed to relocate to Syria, with the government citing a need to quell domestic violence.