Stories for October 2026

Tuesday, October 13th 2026 - 14:52 UTC
Lubetkin warns Flávio Bolsonaro that “it is not easy to leave Mercosur”

Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin has warned Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro that “it is not easy to leave Mercosur”, in response to his criticism of the bloc during the campaign for the October 25 runoff. In the same interview, with the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, he said Uruguay would not restore diplomatic relations with Venezuela while Delcy Rodríguez governs.
Tuesday, October 13th 2026 - 09:13 UTC
“Falkland Islanders will is to remain British, and we will uphold it”, PM Burnham told Trump

“In my meeting with President Trump I raised the Falkland Islands and the clear and declared will of the Islanders to remain British”, revealed United Kingdom Prime Minister Andy Burnham in an oral statement to the House of Commons this Monday.
Tuesday, October 13th 2026 - 06:29 UTC
Brazil blames human action for the fires sweeping the Amazon

The Brazilian government has blamed deliberate human action for the wave of fires in Amazonas state, where 540 new hotspots were recorded in 48 hours, more than half of those detected in the whole of October 2025, according to the National Institute for Space Research. The situation has led to a state of emergency in 36 municipalities.
Tuesday, October 13th 2026 - 06:19 UTC
IMF trims Latin America’s outlook to 2.3% and sharply cuts Argentina’s

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its 2026 growth forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean to 2.3%, a tenth of a point less than in July, and sharply cut Argentina’s, from 3.5% to 2.1%. Chile and Uruguay are also among the region’s largest downward revisions, according to the World Economic Outlook presented on Monday in Bangkok, during the annual meetings of the Fund and the World Bank.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 22:09 UTC
Iguazú Falls closed as the river’s flow tops 12,000 cubic metres per second

Iguazú National Park, in Argentina’s Misiones province, closed access to the falls’ walkways on Monday because of an exceptional rise in the Iguazú River, whose flow exceeded 12,000 cubic metres per second. The flood is part of an episode of heavy rainfall linked to El Niño that has also caused the Uruguay River to burst its banks, with evacuations on both sides.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 21:57 UTC
Republican senators urge Trump to cancel the Putin diesel deal as unlawful

Four Republican and three Democratic members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee have urged President Donald Trump to “immediately reverse course” on his diesel supply deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing it contravenes the law banning Russian energy imports. It is the most direct Republican criticism of a Trump foreign policy decision in his current term.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 10:50 UTC
Lula takes to the streets of São Paulo to close the gap two weeks before the runoff

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led a large rally on São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista on Sunday to relaunch his campaign two weeks before the October 25 runoff, in which he trails Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. “This country cannot lose its democracy,” he told a largely young crowd.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 08:59 UTC
Pope Leo XIV to undergo surgery on a lung nodule a month before his tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru

Pope Leo XIV will undergo surgery in Rome this week to remove a lung nodule detected at an early stage, less than a month before the start of his first tour of South America, which will take him to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from November 6 to 17. The Vatican has announced no changes to the trip.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 08:56 UTC
Lawyers and opposition challenge Milei’s citizenship-by-investment scheme as unconstitutional

The citizenship-by-investment programme launched by Javier Milei’s government, which allows foreigners to obtain Argentine nationality in exchange for a US$350,000 contribution to the Treasury or the purchase of a US$800,000 bond, faces challenges from constitutional lawyers and from the opposition, which is trying to block it in Congress.
Monday, October 12th 2026 - 07:10 UTC
Brexit campaigner Daniel Hannan warns a US shift on the Falklands would wreck the Atlantic alliance

Daniel Hannan, one of the leading strategists of the Brexit campaign and director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), has warned in the Washington Examiner that a change in the US position on the Falklands would put the Atlantic alliance at risk. His column responds to one by economists Walter E. Block and Ege Fakkusoglu defending Argentina’s claim to the archipelago.