Weekly Report - 18 March 2010 (WR-10-11)

Uruguay's new president, José Mujica, paid his first official visit abroad to Bolivia last week where, unsurprisingly, he met with a warm reaction from his left-wing Bolivian peer, Evo Morales, who proved more than forthcoming in extolling his credentials as a model leftist ideologue. Amid the mutual backslapping and accolades, a notable outcome of the encounter was the very real prospect of reviving Urupabol, the now-defunct triple strategic association alliance between Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, conceived in the 1960s as a geopolitical counterweight to Argentina and Brazil.