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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, July 8th 2026 - 07:59 UTC

Current Edition

  • Saturday, July 4th 2026 - 07:26 UTC

    Petro says he asked Trump to lift his OFAC sanctions in a phone call

    Petro, his wife, his eldest son and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti were placed on that list in October 2025

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he held a phone conversation on Friday with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in which he asked for support in removing the sanctions on him and his family under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list, known as the Clinton List. According to the Colombian leader and a statement from the Presidency, Trump replied that he “will do his best” to review the case. The White House did not officially confirm the call.

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  • Saturday, July 4th 2026 - 06:43 UTC

    Argentina survives a scare from debutant Cape Verde to reach the World Cup quarterfinals

    Lionel Messi put the world champions ahead in the 28th minute, controlling the ball with his left foot and firing a precise shot after an assist from Lisandro Martínez

    Argentina beat Cape Verde 3-2 on Friday, in a match settled in extra time, to reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup being held in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The side coached by Lionel Scaloni had to dig deep to overcome a debutant that pushed the tie to the limit at the Miami stadium.

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  • Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 23:29 UTC

    Six months after Maduro's capture, Rodríguez's interim mandate expires after the quake

    Maduro's capture led to a reconfiguration of power headed by Rodríguez and her brother Jorge

    Six months after the capture of former president Nicolás Maduro by the United States, Venezuela faces an institutional crossroads: the 180-day interim mandate of acting President Delcy Rodríguez —granted after Maduro's removal in January— was set to expire on Friday, with no clarity on what would come next. The uncertainty is compounded by the June 24 twin earthquake, which left more than 2,500 dead according to the official toll and has become the government's biggest test of competence.

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  • Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 09:58 UTC

    Mercosur backs Argentina days after Islanders' UN appeal for self-determination

    Mercosur's 68th Presidential Summit in Asunción issued a Special Declaration reiterating their support for Argentina's “legitimate rights” in the sovereignty dispute over the Falklands

    Within the span of a week, the two opposing positions in the Falklands dispute were laid out clearly in two separate arenas: South American governments' backing for Argentina's sovereignty claim, and the defense of self-determination that two representatives of the Islanders took to the United Nations. Neither pronouncement was a reply to the other, but together they illustrate the distance between two hard-to-reconcile logics.

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  • Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 08:55 UTC

    In Uruguay, Kast urges harsher penalties for crime leaders and total prison isolation

    Kast held that security is the main condition for economic development and described organized crime as a “cancer” affecting all of Latin America

    Chile's President José Antonio Kast argued on Wednesday in Montevideo that the region's countries must toughen their laws to combat organized crime, with life sentences for those who lead gangs and a regime of total isolation in prisons to stop them from continuing to operate from behind bars. The president laid out his position after meeting with Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, as part of an official visit to Uruguay.

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  • Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 07:53 UTC

    Milei abolishes the Interior Ministry, expanding Santilli's role ahead of Congress talks

    President Javier Milei had anticipated the reform after appointing Santilli to replace Manuel Adorni, who resigned last week amid a judicial investigation into alleged illicit enrichment

    Argentina's government abolished the Interior Ministry and transferred its functions to the cabinet chief's office, headed by Diego Santilli, through an emergency decree published on Thursday in the Official Gazette. The measure places the political relationship with governors, provinces, municipalities, the City of Buenos Aires and Congress under the coordinating minister's remit, along with powers over the electoral system and political parties. With the change, the national cabinet is reduced to eight ministries.

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  • Friday, July 3rd 2026 - 07:47 UTC

    Snow blankets Mar del Plata as a record polar cold wave grips Argentina

    Hundreds of residents and tourists took to the streets to photograph the beaches, squares and parks turned white, and the images quickly went viral on social media

    The seaside city of Mar del Plata, one of the main tourist destinations on Argentina's Atlantic coast, woke up covered in snow on Thursday, an unusual sight for a temperate-climate city that became the most widely shared image of the intense polar cold wave sweeping the country. Thermometers read around 1 degree below zero, with a wind-chill close to -3 °C, and snow and sleet were recorded from the early hours in various parts of the General Pueyrredón district, with heavier accumulation in the Sierra de los Padres area.

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  • Thursday, July 2nd 2026 - 22:12 UTC

    Argentine ex-official Insaurralde seeks to bar the cash-stacks video from his graft case

    Last week, federal prosecutor Sergio Mola had requested the detention of Insaurralde and Cirio, arguing there was a risk they might alter or hide evidence

    The former cabinet chief of Buenos Aires province and ex-mayor of Lomas de Zamora, Martín Insaurralde, asked the courts not to use as evidence the video in which his ex-wife, television host Jesica Cirio, appears alongside stacks of dollars in the closet of the house they shared, as part of a case for alleged illicit enrichment and money laundering. The motion, filed before federal judge Luis Armella, mirrors the one Cirio herself had made days earlier; she also faces a pending order to give testimony.

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  • Thursday, July 2nd 2026 - 15:32 UTC

    A multinational rescue frees Hernán, trapped eight days under Venezuela's quake rubble

    Gil, who worked as a guard in the underground parking garage of a shopping mall, survived by sheltering under the desk of his booth when the building collapsed

    A 43-year-old Venezuelan security guard, Hernán Gil, was rescued alive on Thursday after eight days trapped under the rubble of a building that collapsed in Catia La Mar, in La Guaira state, during the twin earthquake that struck the country on June 24. The Costa Rican Red Cross, which took part in the operation, confirmed the rescue, considered one of the most complex and prolonged of the disaster, which has left at least 2,295 dead and more than 11,000 injured, according to the official toll.

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  • Thursday, July 2nd 2026 - 09:55 UTC

    A Spanish investigation tracks how Asia's squid fleet is upending the South Atlantic market

    Spain controls much of the world's Loligo squid catch, mainly through the roughly 16 licences granted by the Falklands to fish in their waters, with catches close to 50,000 tons a year

    An international investigation published by the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, with an extensive interactive report, describes how the expansion of Asian fishing fleets in international waters —mainly Chinese— has transformed the global market for frozen squid, with a direct impact on the European fleet and consequences for fishing in the South Atlantic, one of the main sources of income for the Falklands.

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