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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, June 25th 2026 - 23:32 UTC

Stories for 2026

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 16:38 UTC

    Paraguay aims for 10 million tourists by 2037 with megaparks and foreign capital

    Paraguay received 3.6 million international visitors in 2025 —2,029,678 tourists and 1,627,516 day-trippers— a 91.24% increase over the previous year

    The new minister of Paraguay's National Tourism Secretariat (Senatur), Jacinto Santa María, has announced a plan to turn the country into a regional tourism destination and draw up to 10 million annual visitors by 2037, a target that would almost triple the flow recorded in 2025 and which the official aims to reach by attracting major foreign investment to develop theme parks and megaprojects. Santa María, who took office two weeks ago, laid out the proposal in an interview with the EFE news agency and at his first press conference at the head of the agency.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 12:25 UTC

    Trump lands in Beijing for first summit with Xi in China since 2017

    US President Donald Trump landed in Beijing on Wednesday at 19:52 local time (11:52 GMT) to begin a three-day state visit to the Asian giant, his second trip to the country since the one made in 2017 during his first term and the first by a US president to the Chinese capital in nearly nine years. The summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will run Thursday and Friday and will tackle the fragile trade truce sealed in Busan last October, the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, the technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies, and the dispute over Taiwan.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 12:05 UTC

    Bolivian prosecutors confirm they will seek 20 years in prison for Evo Morales on trafficking charges

    Morales's followers plan to join the demonstrations called by the Bolivian Workers' Central toward La Paz

    Bolivia's Public Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday confirmed it will maintain its request for a 20-year prison sentence against former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) for aggravated human trafficking, in proceedings that are moving forward despite the former leader's absence and a fresh arrest warrant issued against him after his failure to appear at Monday's hearing. Prosecutors argue that Morales had a relationship during his second term with a 15-year-old girl, with whom he allegedly fathered a daughter, and that the minor's parents are said to have consented to the relationship in exchange for political favors and economic improvements.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 11:57 UTC

    White House “51st state” trolling tests Caracas's oil opening

    The “51st state” map had appeared in earlier posts by the US administration, alongside references to the annexation of Greenland

    The official White House account on Tuesday published a series of messages on social media platform X suggesting the annexation of Venezuela to the United States under the formula of the “51st state,” a discursive shift that strains the bilateral rapprochement built since the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January. The first post shows a map of Venezuela covered with the US flag and the caption “51st State”; eight minutes later, a video revives Secretary of State Marco Rubio's announcement of Maduro's capture, with footage of the former leader being flown to New York. The publication comes at a moment of apparent stagnation in the economic opening that acting President Delcy Rodríguez has pushed from Caracas to attract US investment.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 03:20 UTC

    The Trump-Xi summit in Beijing turns on five fronts: Iran, Taiwan, tariffs, rare earths, and AI

    Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian last week described the issue as “the core of China's fundamental interests and the political foundation” of the relationship

    The summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that begins on Wednesday in Beijing will unfold around an agenda concentrated on five main fronts: the US war against Iran, the Taiwan question, bilateral tariffs, Chinese exports of rare earths, and, according to The Wall Street Journal, an initial approach to managing the risks of artificial intelligence. It will be the first visit by a US president to the Chinese capital in nearly nine years and comes three days after China's Foreign Ministry released a propaganda video that revived the Soviet-era concept of “peaceful coexistence” to describe the bilateral relationship.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 01:17 UTC

    Why Retirement Healthcare Costs Are Becoming a Key Economic Issue

    Healthcare expenses in retirement are no longer just a personal concern for individuals; they are quickly becoming a major economic issue with wide-ranging consequences.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 01:08 UTC

    Crypto Wallets Are Replacing Bank Accounts Across the Americas — And Reshaping Cross-Border Payments

    Photo: Freepik

    A growing share of households across the Americas no longer treat a bank account as the default starting point for moving money. From Buenos Aires to Brooklyn, a quiet substitution is underway: self-custody crypto wallets and stablecoin balances are absorbing functions that, until recently, belonged to commercial banks alone. Cross-border payments — the most expensive and friction-heavy corner of consumer finance — are at the centre of the shift.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 00:14 UTC

    Reasons Why Bettors Should Take into Consideration Scheduling Fatigue Factors

    Nowadays, sports betting has become an area where there are a lot of factors to consider before putting money on a specific team. It seems like there are too many variables, but the thing is that if you are looking for an undervalued factor to gain an upper hand in the process, consider the fatigue generated by the schedule of teams you are betting on.

  • Tuesday, May 12th 2026 - 23:32 UTC

    Lula seeks his own security recipe to counter Brazilian right wing's tough-on-crime narrative

    The plan also includes investments to regain control of 138 penitentiary facilities through drones, scanners, and metal detectors

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday unveiled in Brasília a public security plan worth around USD 2.25 billion aimed at weakening the finances of organized crime, regaining control of prisons, curbing arms trafficking, and improving homicide investigations, five months ahead of October's presidential election. The package is designed to give the government a distinct identity on one of the issues where public opinion sees the ruling party at its weakest against the right wing's punitive narrative.

  • Tuesday, May 12th 2026 - 14:14 UTC

    Strait of Hormuz closure, FAO warns of fertilizer scarcity and calendar for new planting season

    FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said. “This is not only a geopolitical crisis, but also a disruption at the core of the global agri-food system.”

    The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, warned that the global fertilizer scarcity caused by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz will lead to lower yields and tightening food supplies in the latter half of 2026 and into 2027.