Uruguay announces its biggest drug seizure so far

September 30th, 2009 US, Colombian, Mexican officials seize $41 millionWASHINGTON — U.S. and Colombian authorities seized $41 million in suspected drug money over the past two weeks — one of the largest seizures in the history of the countries' joint efforts, law enforcement officials said Monday.

September 21st, 2009 Uruguay says pulp mill is not polluting riverTHE HAGUE, Netherlands — Uruguay denied Argentina's claims at the United Nations' highest court that a pulp mill on a river separating the two countries is polluting the air and water, saying Monday it meets environmental protection standards. Argentina argued last week at the World Court that Uruguay breached a 1975 treaty by authorizing construction of the mill on the River Uruguay without consulting its neighbor.

September 9th, 2009 Uruguay clears way for gay adoptionsMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay is clearing the way for homosexual couples to adopt children. The Senate's final approval Wednesday makes Uruguay the first country in Latin America to allow gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to adopt.

August 28th, 2009 Uruguay lawmakers OK gay adoptionMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Lawmakers in Uruguay have approved a bill allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt. Despite opposition from Uruguay's Roman Catholic Church and some of the political opposition, the 99-seat Chamber or Representatives on Thursday passed the bill 40-13, with the remaining members absent.

August 28th, 2009 Uruguay: Remains not disappeared dissident'sMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — DNA testing has determined that skeletal remains found last year in an Uruguayan cemetery do not belong to the daughter-in-law of Argentine poet Juan Gelman. A forensic examiner had recommended that the remains be examined.

August 26th, 2009 Myanmar reports major drug bust near Thai borderYANGON, Myanmar — Police in Myanmar seized more than 100 blocks of heroin and nearly 3 million methamphetamine tablets near the border with Thailand in one of the military-ruled country's largest drug seizures, a state-run newspaper said Wednesday. An anti-drug squad confiscated two guns and ammunition and arrested four people in the raid Monday on two houses in the northeastern town of Tachileik, the Myanma Ahlin newspaper said.

August 21st, 2009 Venezuela helps US seize cocaine-laden shipCARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela says its collaboration with U.S. authorities led to the seizure of about a ton of cocaine aboard a ship in the Caribbean Sea.

August 14th, 2009 Uruguay Senate OKs millions for dirty war victimsMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay's ruling party wants to pay $17.4 million in reparations to victims of state oppression during its dictatorship. A reparations bill passed the Senate on Wednesday and now goes to the lower house of the legislature, where the ruling party has a comfortable majority, and leftist President Tabare Vazquez is expected to sign it.

August 7th, 2009 Uruguay: Ex-dictator's son says quit MercosurMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — A former dictator's son who's running for president suggested Thursday that Uruguay should give up on the Mercosur trade bloc and follow the Chilean model of establishing bilateral trade deals with as many countries as it can. Pedro Bordaberry, leading the Colorado Party into October's elections, said Mercosur — which counts Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay as full members — "has not complied with its first article, which is the free movement of people and goods within its membership." He also referred to Argentine demonstrators' three-year blockade of a river-border bridge in protest of potential pollution from a paper factory in Uruguay, saying the neighbors' relations "are at their worst since 1953, when (Argentine) Gen.

July 23rd, 2009 LONDON - The US Coast Guard and British Royal Navy in a joint operation seized 55 million dollars worth of cocaine from a speedboat off the coast of South America. A Coast Guard law enforcement boarding team from Miami, aboard the Royal Navy Frigate HMS Iron Duke, found the drugs on a go-fast vessel off the coast of Venezuela.

July 15th, 2009 BANGKOK - Myanmar authorities intercepted nearly one tonne of heroin in Shan state in one of the biggest drug busts in recent history, Thai media reports said Wednesday. The massive seizure, netting 950 kg of heroin and 340,000 methamphetamine pills, was made Monday in Tachilek, in northeastern Myanmar, the Bangkok Post reported, citing anti-narcotics officers who spoke on condition of anonymity.

June 16th, 2009 Guatemala seizes 9.9 million pseudoephedrine pillsGUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million on Tuesday — the country's biggest seizure of the methamphetamine precursor, police said. The 9.9 million pills were seized from a shipping container at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala's main port on the Pacific coast, said police spokesman Donald Gonzalez.

May 13th, 2009 Uruguay to lift ban on gays in the militaryMONTEVIDEO — Uruguay is moving to lift a ban on homosexuals joining the armed forces. The defense ministry confirms that Minister Jose Bayardi has signed a decree lifting the ban imposed by the 1973-85 military dictatorship.

May 13th, 2009 Biggest meth seizure in eastern US made in AtlantaATLANTA — Federal authorities in Atlanta on Wednesday announced the biggest seizure of Mexican crystal methamphetamine ever recorded east of the Mississippi River. Federal drug enforcement agents seized about 351 pounds of meth from two houses in Duluth, in suburban Atlanta, in an operation that began Sunday and extended into Monday morning.

April 27th, 2009 2 men plead guilty in Kenya to possessing ivoryNAIROBI, Kenya — Two men pleaded guilty in a Kenyan court Monday to illegally possessing 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) of elephant tusks in what was believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in recent years, a Kenyan official said. The two were charged with illegal possession of ivory and failure to report their ivory stock, said George Osuri, the senior warden of Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya, where the seizure was made.