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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, May 26th 2026 - 07:16 UTC

Stories for May 2026

  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 17:41 UTC

    London Stock Exchange rises 1.26% driven by oil and defense sectors

    Oil companies led the day, benefiting from the rebound of Brent crude, which at the close of the European stock market session surpassed USD 111 per barrel with an advance of close to 1.70%

    The London Stock Exchange closed on Monday with a gain of 1.26%, driven by the advance of oil and defense companies, in a session marked by the rise of crude oil amid the lack of progress in negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war. The main index, the FTSE 100, added 128.38 points to close at 10,323.75, while the secondary FTSE 250 advanced 0.07% to 22,611.70 points.

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  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 05:37 UTC

    The Falklands turn into a small South Atlantic economic power as the ghosts of 1982 return

    The Falklands have 3,662 inhabitants and a per capita income higher than that of the United Kingdom

    The Falkland Islands are going through their traditional “commemoration season,” the cycle of ceremonies that recall the 1982 war each year, culminating in Liberation Day on 14 June, at a moment defined by two overlapping realities: the consolidation of the archipelago as a small economic power in the South Atlantic and the reactivation of diplomatic tensions with the United States and Argentina. A feature published on Saturday by the British newspaper The Sunday Times, written by Matthew Campbell from Fitzroy, captures the contrast between growing economic prosperity and the anxiety generated by the recent leak of a Pentagon memorandum.

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  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 02:57 UTC

    Venezuela: Mother of political prisoner Víctor Quero dies days after identifying his exhumed body

    Carmen Navas had become a symbolic figure in the search for Venezuelan political prisoners subjected to enforced disappearance. Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez / EFE

    Carmen Teresa Navas, 83, the mother of Venezuelan political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero, died on Sunday in Caracas, days after she had identified the exhumed body of her son, who had been buried in secret nine months earlier. The octogenarian, who had been hospitalized in recent days, was seen this same week alongside her relatives at the large memorial mass for her son. Physicians have not officially reported the clinical causes of her death. Her passing closes one of the most disturbing episodes in the country's recent human rights record.

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  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 23:13 UTC

    Mid-air collision between two US jets at airshow ends without fatalities in Idaho

    The military base was locked down following the accident, and State Route SH-167 will remain closed for several days between Simco Road and SH-67 while investigators carry out their work

    Two US Navy EA-18G Growler jets collided in mid-air on Sunday during an aerial demonstration at Mountain Home Air Force Base in the state of Idaho, with no fatalities reported. The four crew members aboard the aircraft ejected in time and were evaluated by medical personnel at the scene, said Naval Air Forces Pacific Fleet spokesperson Amelia Umayam. No injuries were reported among base personnel or among spectators of the Gunfighter Skies airshow, during which the incident occurred.

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  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 13:53 UTC

    Argentine Air Force bought a used aircraft at double its market price, Clarín investigation finds

    Regional One Inc. won the bid with an ERJ-140LR for $4.085M and 33,516 flight hours, despite cannibalized parts, corrosion, leaks, and four fewer seats than the only other bidder's aircraft.

    The Argentine Air Force (FAA) acquired in 2025 an Embraer ERJ-140LR aircraft for USD 4.085 million, nearly double the price the same provider had quoted for an equivalent and better-conditioned plane to a private client just months later, according to an investigation published on Saturday by the newspaper Clarín. The transaction, awarded to the US firm Regional One Inc. in a tender resolved in record time and challenged by a competitor, displays irregularities in the design of the bidding terms, the technical evaluation, and the payment circuit, and forms part, according to the publication, of a pattern replicated in at least three other aircraft purchases by the force since 2021.

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  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 13:48 UTC

    Brazil leads South America's military spending and Uruguay posts one of the largest relative rises, SIPRI says

    The most striking data point in the region corresponds to Uruguay, which moved to a military budget of USD 577.2 million in 2025, an increase of nearly 80% in five years.

    Brazil consolidated its position as South America's leading defense spender during 2025, with a military budget of approximately USD 23.9 billion and a 13% year-on-year increase, while Uruguay recorded one of the steepest relative rises in the region, according to the annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released on Saturday. The region as a whole increased its military spending by 3.4% compared with 2024, in line with a global trend of armed forces modernization, open conflicts, and growing geopolitical tensions.

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  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 05:07 UTC

    Venezuela hands over to the United States former minister and Maduro frontman Alex Saab

    The United States sanctioned him in 2019 for allegedly paying bribes to obtain no-bid contracts with the Venezuelan state

    The Venezuelan government on Saturday deported to the United States the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered for years the main financial operator of former president Nicolás Maduro and minister of Industry and National Production until January 2026. The businessman landed at sunset at Opa-locka airport in Miami-Dade County, escorted by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), bringing to a close a judicial file that had turned Saab into one of the most visible symbols of the economic apparatus of Chavismo and into one of the most wanted figures by US justice over the past decade.

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  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 04:16 UTC

    Paz thanks Milei for sending Hercules aircraft to bring food to blockaded Bolivian cities

    “My deepest gratitude to President Milei for the invaluable support extended to Bolivia with the dispatch of the Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance tasks,” Paz wrote

    Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Friday thanked his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, for sending two C-130 Hercules military aircraft to reinforce the airlift aimed at supplying food and basic goods to the cities of La Paz and El Alto, affected by ten consecutive days of road blockades by peasant unions from the highlands. The regional gesture comes during one of the most critical weeks of the centrist leader's six-month tenure, against a backdrop of shortages and growing political tension with sectors aligned with former president Evo Morales.

  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 03:45 UTC

    Trump claims he will engineer a “turnaround” in Cuba and pull it away from China and Russia

    “I think we are going to turn it around,” Trump replied when asked about the possibility of Cuba leaning toward the United States

    US President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration will bring the Cuban government to align with Washington and pull away from the orbit of China and Russia, in his first public comments on the island since the unprecedented visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Havana on Thursday. The remarks, delivered during an interview with journalist Bret Baier on Fox News, come in a week marked by contradictory US gestures toward the Cuban regime: the humanitarian offer of USD 100 million accepted by Havana, the judicial pressure on former president Raúl Castro, and the opening of a direct channel between US and Cuban intelligence services.

  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 03:25 UTC

    Venezuela and World Bank agree to define technical cooperation areas after seven-year pause

    According to the official communiqué released after the meeting, both sides “agreed to continue working jointly to define the concrete areas of technical collaboration”

    The Venezuelan government and the World Bank agreed on Friday in Caracas to work jointly on identifying concrete areas of technical cooperation, in the first high-level encounter between the two parties since the resumption of relations announced last month, which ended a seven-year pause in institutional contacts. The meeting was led by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who received at the Miraflores Palace the World Bank's Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, Susana Cordeiro Guerra.