Uruguay

Wind-tousled grapevines, marching in cornrow-straight lines and hung with pearl-like clusters of light-green fruit, stretch as far as the eye can see across gently rolling farmland near the village of Juanico in the Canelones District. Flowering red rosebushes punctuate the ends of each row, and tiro-tiro birds, named for their unique call, nest on wooden fence posts. Stalwart pine trees shield the vines from unkind winds along the 34th southern parallel.

Over lamb chops and cuts of beef, President Bush chatted amiably Saturday at this presidential retreat with a former leader of a legendary band of leftist guerrillas known as the Tupamaros. "I respect you and I'm proud to be in your country," Bush told Jose "Pepe" Mujica, who is now Uruguay's minister of agriculture and livestock, according to a White House aide. Mujica, the aide said, was pleased to give Bush an expansive overview of this tiny nation's agricultural needs.

Uruguay's Senate voted to ease the country's tough abortion laws, although President Tabare Vazquez has vowed to veto any legislation that seeks to decriminalize the procedure. Women in the country are allowed to have an abortion only if they were raped or if the pregnancy endangers their lives.

Uruguay will legalize civil unions for homosexuals and heterosexuals next month, making it the first Latin American country with a nationwide law to treat gay and straight couples alike, a lawmaker said. The chamber of deputies passed legislation allowing gay and straight couples to form civil unions after living together for at least five years. The Senate has approved the measure but must consider deputies' revisions.

Every summer they line up on the sides of the stage, chewing their cud as sweet notes of jazz float over the tranquil countryside. But the cows aren't the only regulars at the Lapataia International Jazz Festival. Top U.S. and Latin musicians come to play year after year in the pastures of a Uruguayan dairy farm, making the festival the top stop in South America on the world jazz circuit.

The slender smokestack of the new paper mill rises from the shore of the Uruguay River like an all-seeing sentinel -- a beacon of hope for some, a cause of despair for others. The soaring chimney has become emblematic of the bitterest dispute in generations between the countries on either side of the river, Uruguay and Argentina.

Police have arrested former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry and his foreign minister in connection with four "dirty war" killings dating to 1976, officials said Friday. The arrest of Bordaberry, 78, and former Foreign Minister Juan Blanco marked a new chapter in efforts by this small South American country to grapple with the 1973-85 dictatorship and its legacy of disappearances, torture and exile of thousands of political dissidents.

Re "Pizza joint takes pesos -- and abuse," March 6 Some people need to get a life. I recently returned from a cruise in which we went to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and the Falkland Islands. Every one of those countries took our American money. It made us feel welcome (and was very convenient for us besides). EVE REAGAN \o7Van Nuys \f7

Tabare Vazquez, a leftist former cancer specialist, was inaugurated as Uruguay's president Tuesday, promising to bring help to the poor in a country still recovering from the worst recession in its history. Vazquez, who was raised in an impoverished neighborhood of Montevideo as the son of an oil refinery worker, said he would move quickly to implement a $100-million "social emergency" program to aid the indigent and unemployed.

I had been trying for days to get a mental fix on Punta del Este, to figure out just which place it reminded me of. St. Bart's, I had thought at first, choosing the obvious connections of sun, sea and sand, and snippets from the press about which celebrity had been seen where and with whom. But that wasn't entirely it.