LatinNews Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 10 December 2015

President Tabaré Vázquez will be hoping that the forthcoming holiday period and the congressional recess, which stretches from 15 December to 1 March, provides him with some respite after months of protests by trade unions have eroded his popularity. Vázquez has launched a counter-offensive, with an initiative called ‘Diálogo Social’, a fully participative programme designed to encourage wide-ranging debate and even to help draft future government policies to “drive the country’s future strategic development”.