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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, July 31st 2026 - 11:41 UTC

International

  • Wednesday, December 7th 2016 - 11:05 UTC

    Argentina excluded from OECD PISA academic tests: information deemed “insufficient”

    In the 2015 PISA, 7,500 Argentine students participated from 238 different schools, but the results won’t be counted, the country has been excluded.

    Argentina has not been included in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s ranking of education quality because the information provided by the country was deemed insufficient. The OECD-designed PISA test evaluates the academic performance of 15-year-olds in 71 countries around the world in math, science and reading comprehension. It’s been conducted every three years since 2000.

  • Wednesday, December 7th 2016 - 10:49 UTC

    Merkel U-turns on immigration as she launches reelection campaign

    Angela Merkel is suprisingly not so open to immigration as she launches her reelection campaign

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a public ban on the full-face veil as her political party gears up to back her for a fourth term in office. “Here we say 'show your face'. So full veiling is not appropriate here. It should be prohibited wherever legally possible,”

  • Wednesday, December 7th 2016 - 10:31 UTC

    Italian model plans to go ahead with referendum promise to “No” voters

    Italian model says she will deliver her promise to “No” voters, unlike Madonna

    Following up on Madonna's example in offering sex acts for political votes, Paola Saulino, an Italian model who works in Los Angeles and had promised to perform oral sex on all those who voted “No” in last weekend's referendum in her home country, has realeased a schedule for her pledge-honoring ‘Pompa Tour.’

  • Wednesday, December 7th 2016 - 10:22 UTC

    Cazeneuve new French PM after Valls resigns to focus on presidential campaign

    Bernard Cazeneuve becomes France's new prime minister as Manuel Valls quits job to focus on presidential bid

    Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve will replace Manuel Valls as prime minister of France, following the latter's resignation aimed at “giving his best” to the Socialist Party's presidential campaign for 2017. Valls announced Monday he would run after the incumbent and unpopular President Francois Hollande declined last week to seek a second term in office.

  • Tuesday, December 6th 2016 - 11:28 UTC

    LATAM Airlines to launch its longest nonstop flight ever between Santiago and Melbourne

    The nonstop`flight will take 15 hours approximately

    LATAM Airlines Group today announced it will operate a new, non-stop service between Santiago and Melbourne, Australia, from 5 October 2017. The westbound Santiago-Melbourne leg – measuring more than 11,000 km in distance with a flight time of approximately 15 hours – will become the longest non-stop flight in LATAM´s history.

  • Tuesday, December 6th 2016 - 09:15 UTC

    Renzi told to remain until budget law is passed; calls for quick elections in Italy

    In a decision widely expected, president Sergio Mattarella told Renzi ”to delay his resignation until that task (of the budget law) is completed.”

    Calls mounted on Monday from populist and other opposition leaders for quick elections in Italy, seeking to capitalize on Premier Matteo Renzi's humiliating defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms. But President Sergio Mattarella told Renzi to stay in office a bit longer until a critical budget law is passed. Some officials say Parliament could pass that law as soon as the end of the week.

  • Tuesday, December 6th 2016 - 08:33 UTC

    Human Freedom Index: Chile, Costa Rica lead in Latin America

    On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 represents more freedom, the non-weighted average rating for 159 countries in 2014 was 6.93.

    The Human Freedom Index 2016, (HFI), was released on Monday, the second annual report that represents the state of overall freedom in the world based on a broad measure of personal, civil and economic freedom. Co-published by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute (Canada) and the Liberales Institut (Germany) from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, it looks into 179 distinct indicators in 159 countries on issues ranging from freedom of speech and association to women’s freedoms, the extent of voluntary exchange, safety and security, the rule of law and more.

  • Tuesday, December 6th 2016 - 08:16 UTC

    On the 75th anniversary, Japan's Abe will honor Pearl Harbour war dead but not apologize

    PM Abe will pay his respects to those who died in Japan's surprise 1941 attack at the US naval base in Hawaii, which triggered World War II in the Pacific

    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honor war dead but won't apologize when he becomes the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor this month, a top government spokesman said on Tuesday.The move follows Barack Obama's historic May trip to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president, where he spoke of victims' suffering but offered no apology for dropping the world's first nuclear bomb.

  • Tuesday, December 6th 2016 - 08:09 UTC

    South Georgia coin to celebrate centenary of Endurance Expedition

    The reverse design shows the tall ship Endurance stuck in the ice in the background, with the crew pulling the sled on the ice pack in the foreground.

    The government and treasury of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands issued a new Crown coin that pays tribute to and celebrates the centenary anniversary of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Endurance Expedition. The expedition was named after its ship and is considered by some to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

  • Monday, December 5th 2016 - 21:36 UTC

    Italian “No” wave hits Euro in Japanese markets

    Political uncertainty in Europe brings Euro closer to the US dollar in Asia

    The euro tumbled on Monday in Tokyo following the results in a referendum held in Italy on Sunday to decide whether Prime Minister's Matteo Renzi's plan to reform the Constitution should be carried out. After conceding defeat, Renzi announced he would be submitting his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella on Monday. The referendum results raised political uncertainty at continental level.