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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, June 23rd 2026 - 11:55 UTC

Brazil

  • Friday, May 29th 2026 - 23:32 UTC

    Trump labels PCC and Comando Vermelho as terrorist organizations and Brazil fears intervention

    Lula da Silva accused Flávio Bolsonaro, his most likely rival in October's presidential elections, of having “betrayed the homeland by going to the United States to ask for an intervention in Brazil”

    Brazil's government on Friday issued an official note rejecting the decision adopted by the administration of US President Donald Trump to designate Brazil's two main organized crime groups, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho, as terrorist organizations. “We will not accept the use of arbitrary measures from abroad as a pretext to attack our sovereignty and our economy,” the statement warned, while avoiding explicit reference to the US administration. The measure, announced on Thursday, adds both organizations to a list that includes Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the main Mexican cartels, and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua.

  • Friday, May 29th 2026 - 06:31 UTC

    Capricorn Bioceanic Corridor advances to final stretch to connect Atlantic with Pacific

    For Paraguay, the corridor carries a particular strategic dimension

    The Capricorn Bioceanic Corridor, one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects underway in South America, is moving through its final stretch on the border between Paraguay and Brazil, with just twenty-one metres remaining to complete the physical link of the so-called Bioceanic Bridge, according to Paraguayan government authorities cited in late May 2026. The structure, built over the Paraguay River, will connect the cities of Carmelo Peralta, in the department of Alto Paraguay, and Puerto Murtinho, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, and constitutes one of the central pieces of a logistics corridor that will link the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific across four South American countries.

  • Thursday, May 28th 2026 - 07:26 UTC

    UK’s Royal College of Defense visited Brazil, Argentina and Chile

    The delegation at the Chilean Antarctic Institute

    A delegation from the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Defense Studies (RCDS) visited Chile the week of 18 May as part of its annual tour of Latin America, aimed at strengthening strategic analysis and global understanding of challenges related to security, defense and international cooperation.

  • Tuesday, May 26th 2026 - 08:29 UTC

    “I can take him as a slave”: Argentine tourist arrested in Brazil over messages about 7-year-old

    Passengers and train security personnel held the suspect in a compartment until the arrival of the Minas Gerais Military Police

    A 63-year-old Argentine tourist, identified as Eduardo Ignacio, was arrested on Sunday in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais on racial discrimination charges after photographing and filming a 7-year-old Black boy aboard a tourist train, and sharing the images in a messaging group with racist comments that included the phrase: “I can take him as a slave.” The case, recorded on the steam train that connects the municipality of São João del-Rei with the historic city of the same name, raises to three the racism episodes involving South American tourists in Brazil over the past five months.

  • Monday, May 25th 2026 - 21:39 UTC

    Lula receives preventive radiotherapy against skin cancer four months before Brazilian elections

    The president's medical team informed the Brazilian press that the procedure will not affect the presidential agenda

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday began a preventive radiotherapy treatment following the removal of a cancerous lesion from his scalp, in a medical intervention that places the spotlight on the health of the 80-year-old leader four months before the presidential elections in which he will seek a fourth term. The Sirio-Libanés Hospital, the private center where Lula receives care, confirmed the start of the treatment through a medical bulletin released mid-morning in Brasilia.

  • Friday, May 22nd 2026 - 11:48 UTC

    Air France and Airbus found guilty of manslaughter over 2009 Rio-Paris crash

    Flight AF447, an Airbus A330-200 carrying twelve crew members and 216 passengers, stalled during a storm in the middle of the ocean and plunged from an altitude of 11,580 meters

    The Paris Court of Appeals on Thursday found Air France and Airbus guilty of manslaughter in connection with the crash of flight AF447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009 on the Rio de Janeiro–Paris route with a death toll of 228 people. The ruling overturns the April 2023 decision in which both companies had been acquitted, and finds the airline and the manufacturer “solely and entirely responsible” for the disaster, according to the BBC news agency. Both Air France and Airbus rejected the charges and announced they would appeal.

  • Wednesday, May 20th 2026 - 23:49 UTC

    Brazilian Public Prosecutor's Office asks not to renew license of country's sole uranium mine

    The uranium extraction unit is located in the municipality of Caetité, in the northeastern state of Bahía

    Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday recommended that the Brazilian Institute of Environment (Ibama) not renew the environmental license of the country's only uranium mine, in operation since 1999, until the responsible company duly consults the quilombola communities potentially affected by the activity. The recommendation does not amount to a definitive closure of operations, but it does entail a suspension conditional on compliance with the requirement of prior consultation of the populations affected by the project, in line with the national and international norms in force.

  • Tuesday, May 19th 2026 - 01:42 UTC

    Chilean executive detained in Brazil for racist and homophobic insults to Latam flight attendant

    The executive refers to the cabin crew member as “mono” (monkey) and makes gestures imitating a primate

    Chilean executive Germán Naranjo Maldini has been held since Friday 15 May at the Guarulhos prison on the outskirts of São Paulo, charged with racial slur after directing racist and homophobic insults at a flight attendant of the airline Latam during a flight between São Paulo and Frankfurt on 10 May. The Chilean fishing company Landes, where he served as commercial manager, formally and preventively removed the executive from his position following the circulation over the weekend of a video showing the verbal attacks.

  • 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.

  • 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.