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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, April 30th 2026 - 07:52 UTC

Latin America

  • Monday, April 20th 2026 - 04:10 UTC

    Bolivia runoff consolidates fragmentation: ruling party keeps two regions, opposition governs the rest

    Voters in five Bolivian departments went to the polls on Sunday to complete the regional elections that began on March 22, in a runoff that consolidated a fragmented political map: President Rodrigo Paz's Patria coalition retained just two of nine governorships, while seven went to different opposition forces.

  • Sunday, April 19th 2026 - 23:23 UTC

    Peru elections: Sanchez rules out expropriations, seeks to calm markets as he secures second place

    Sánchez presented his candidacy as the voice of the “popular, communal, Andean and Amazonian movement” and is proposing a new Constitution for the country

    Left-wing presidential candidate Roberto Sánchez, who with 93.48% of ballots counted holds second place in Peru's election and is headed for a June 7 runoff against Keiko Fujimori, ruled out expropriations as part of his governing program and accused economic elites of spreading “financial panic” around his candidacy.

  • Friday, April 17th 2026 - 11:06 UTC

    Chile launches deportation flights under Kast with 40 migrants expelled to Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia

    The operation is not unprecedented in Chile. Under the government of Gabriel Boric (2022-2026), more than 20 deportation flights were carried out and roughly 4,500 people were expelled

    The government of Chilean President José Antonio Kast carried out its first deportation flight of irregular migrants on Thursday, expelling 40 people on a Chilean Air Force (FACh) Boeing 737 that made stops in Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. The 19 Colombians, the last group to disembark, arrived in Bogotá shortly after 8:00 p.m. local time. The 17 Bolivians and four Ecuadorians were dropped off previously in La Paz and Guayaquil, respectively. Each deportee traveled accompanied by an officer from Chile's Investigative Police (PDI).

  • Wednesday, April 15th 2026 - 23:55 UTC

    Rural vote upends Peru count: leftist Sanchez overtakes Lopez Aliaga and advances to runoff

    “Because it's the popular movement and the highland areas, it has to be fraud. Show the evidence. No vote is worth more than another, Mr. López Aliaga,” Sánchez said

    The count in Peru's presidential election produced a dramatic reversal on Wednesday. With 91% of ballots processed by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), leftist Roberto Sánchez (Juntos por el Perú) surged from sixth to second place, displacing ultraconservative Rafael López Aliaga (Renovación Popular) and positioning himself for the June 7 runoff against Keiko Fujimori (Fuerza Popular), who holds first place with 16.99% of the vote.

  • Wednesday, April 15th 2026 - 10:00 UTC

    Bukele bets on Google to build “world's best health system” as medical sector decries layoffs

    “The 30,000 daily appointments are human doctors treating patients with AI support. But AI agents will be doing this separately and in parallel,” he specified.

    El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced on Tuesday in a national broadcast the launch of the second phase of Dr. SV, a public health application developed with Google Cloud that incorporates artificial intelligence based on the Gemini model to detect, diagnose and monitor patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney conditions.

  • Tuesday, April 14th 2026 - 10:28 UTC

    Peru reaches 72% of vote count with Fujimori ahead and second place disputed among three candidates

    The quick count, based on 95.7% of the vote tallies, revealed an even closer race: Fujimori with 17.1% and a three-way tie between Sánchez (12.4%), López Aliaga (11.3%), and Nieto (10.7%)

    The count in Peru's presidential election is advancing slowly and without resolution. With 72% of ballots processed by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) early Tuesday morning, Keiko Fujimori (Fuerza Popular) holds first place with 16.94% of the vote. Second place, which grants entry to the June 7 runoff, remains open: Rafael López Aliaga (Renovación Popular) stands at 13.0%, Jorge Nieto (Buen Gobierno) at 12.0% and leftist Roberto Sánchez (Juntos por el Perú) at 9.73%, with the gap narrowing as ballots from the country's interior are added.

  • Monday, April 13th 2026 - 10:55 UTC

    Peru extends voting to Monday as Fujimori and Lopez Aliaga emerge as runoff contenders

    The official ONPE count, with 47% of ballots processed at the time of publication, showed Fujimori in first place with 17.05%, followed by López Aliaga at 15.36%

    Peru will hold an unprecedented supplementary voting day on Monday: more than 52,000 citizens unable to cast ballots on Sunday due to logistical failures will vote at 187 polling stations in Lima and in the overseas jurisdictions of Orlando, Florida, and Paterson, New Jersey. The National Elections Jury (JNE) authorized the extension and urged polling firms to suspend the release of surveys to avoid influencing remaining voters.

  • Monday, April 13th 2026 - 00:27 UTC

    Uruguay hosts DEA summit that warns of new drug trafficking routes in South America

    Uruguayan Interior Minister Carlos Negro opened the conference and stressed that regional security requires coordinated action beyond national borders

    Uruguay hosted the 2nd Regional Coordination Meeting of the US Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Southern Cone Division, a conference held on April 9–10 in Montevideo that brought together representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and the United States to strengthen cooperation against drug trafficking and transnational organized crime.

  • Sunday, April 12th 2026 - 23:49 UTC

    Peru closes a troubled election day and begins a lengthy count with outcome uncertain

    Photo: Angela Ponce / Reuters

    More than 10,000 polling centers closed in Peru on Sunday after a ten-hour voting day disrupted by logistical failures that forced authorities to extend the schedule by one hour, to 6:00 p.m. local time. The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) reported that 99.8% of polling stations were installed, but 15 voting centers in Lima — containing 211 stations — could not be set up, leaving 63,300 voters unable to cast ballots.

  • Thursday, April 9th 2026 - 21:36 UTC

    Chilean Air Force conducts first-ever aerial refueling of US F-35 fighters

    The maneuver was carried out on April 4 in international airspace, as the fifth-generation fighters were en route to Santiago to participate in FIDAE 2026

    The Chilean Air Force (FACh) completed for the first time an aerial refueling operation involving two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II fighters, in a milestone that demonstrates growing interoperability between the two countries and the level of modernization achieved by Chile's military aviation.