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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, May 26th 2026 - 07:27 UTC

Stories for May 2026

  • Monday, May 11th 2026 - 03:40 UTC

    Paraná waterway: Milei's largest privatization advances amid tailored-bid suspicions

    The process has drawn controversy. A group of opposition lawmakers requested the tender's suspension after alleging that a technical report attributed to the United Nations had been forged

    The tender to concession Argentina's Paraná-Paraguay waterway for 25 years —the country's main fluvial artery, through which roughly 85% of foreign trade is shipped— has entered its final stretch with two Belgian finalists, Jan de Nul and DEME, and mounting political questions over the tender's design, the local partners involved, and the integrity of the supporting technical documentation.

  • Sunday, May 10th 2026 - 17:08 UTC

    British paratroopers drop onto Tristan da Cunha to treat suspected hantavirus case

    3.3 tonnes of medical equipment were airdropped in three batches, including bottled oxygen, the island's supplies of which had fallen to critical levels

    A British military team parachuted onto Tristan da Cunha on Saturday, the United Kingdom's most remote overseas territory, to assist a British national suspected of contracting hantavirus, in the first humanitarian operation of its kind carried out by the British Armed Forces. The island, home to 221 residents, has no airstrip and is normally accessible only by sea.

  • Saturday, May 9th 2026 - 22:32 UTC

    Nahuel Gallo describes torture and a sardonic “you're off to Disney” during Venezuela detention

    Gallo remained virtually incommunicado for more than a year. He was freed on 1 March 2026, three weeks after Maduro's capture

    Argentine gendarme Nahuel Gallo, who spent 448 days detained in Venezuela under the regime of Nicolás Maduro, described in a televised interview the torture inflicted on him at the El Rodeo I prison and revealed the phrase his captors used to announce his confinement: “You're off to Disney.”

  • Saturday, May 9th 2026 - 14:59 UTC

    US removes 13.5 kilos of highly enriched uranium from Venezuela's RV-1 reactor

    The material, enriched above the 20 percent threshold separating low-enriched from highly enriched uranium, had been considered surplus since the reactor ceased operations in 1991

    The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has completed the removal of 13.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the former RV-1 research reactor at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), in Miranda state, in an operation coordinated with the United Kingdom, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Venezuela's transitional government.

  • Saturday, May 9th 2026 - 06:43 UTC

    Tenerife braces for race-against-time operation to evacuate 140 from MV Hondius

    The operational window is narrow. Canary Islands government spokesman Alfonso Cabello warned that the evacuation must be completed between Sunday and Monday

    Spain faces a complex international operation in Tenerife on Sunday to evacuate the passengers and crew of the cruise ship MV Hondius, struck by a hantavirus outbreak that has left three dead and five laboratory-confirmed cases among the eight identified by the World Health Organization. The Dutch-flagged vessel, carrying more than 140 people and one body still on board, will anchor off the port of Granadilla between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. local time.

  • Saturday, May 9th 2026 - 05:49 UTC

    Argentine court reinstates full force of Milei's labor reform

    On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a per saltum appeal filed by the national government seeking to fast-track a definitive ruling

    An Argentine court on Friday lifted the precautionary injunction that had suspended 82 of the 218 articles of the labor reform pushed by President Javier Milei, restoring the full force of one of the most contested laws in the libertarian program.

  • Friday, May 8th 2026 - 15:40 UTC

    Ushuaia landfill scrutinized in cruise ship hantavirus outbreak probe

    Several of the roughly 150 tourists who set sail for Cape Verde on 1 April had visited the landfill, which is frequented by birdwatchers from around the world, drawn by scavenger species

    Seven kilometers from downtown Ushuaia, the municipal landfill serving Argentina's southernmost city has become one of the focal points of the epidemiological investigation into the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship. Health teams are searching the site for traces of infected rodents. The landfill is frequented by birdwatchers from around the world, drawn by species such as the white-throated caracara, a scavenger bird endemic to the region.

  • Friday, May 8th 2026 - 15:37 UTC

    Venezuela confirms death of political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero, ten months after he died

    His mother, 82-year-old Carmen Teresa Navas, had submitted multiple petitions to the prosecutor's office and the Ombudsman's Office.

    Venezuela's Ministry for Prison Services confirmed on Thursday the death of political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, a 51-year-old merchant, nearly ten months after he died in state custody and following more than a year of forced disappearance complaints filed by his family.

  • Friday, May 8th 2026 - 05:08 UTC

    Lula and Trump declare bilateral relationship reset after three-hour meeting at the White House

    “We discussed many subjects, including trade, specifically tariffs,” Trump wrote at the conclusion of the encounter

    The presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the United States, Donald Trump, held a meeting of close to three hours at the White House on Thursday in which both leaders declared an end to one of the most severe bilateral crises in two centuries of relations between the two largest economies in the Americas. The encounter, formalized as a working meeting, unfolded in a climate of personal fluency and allowed for the agreement to establish bilateral channels to address commercial, security, and regional cooperation matters.

  • Friday, May 8th 2026 - 02:14 UTC

    United States imposes new sanctions on Cuban military conglomerate GAESA amid escalating pressure

    US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday a new package of sanctions against the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), the conglomerate linked to the Cuban Armed Forces that controls approximately 40% of the island's economy, in a fresh escalation of the economic pressure deployed by the Trump administration against the Havana regime. The measure is part of the implementation of Executive Order 14404, signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, which authorizes sanctions against those responsible for political repression and threats to US national security.