Venezuelan state television broadcast on Wednesday a video of captured American Luke Denman, in which he said he was instructed to seize control of Caracas' airport and bring in a plane to fly President Nicolas Maduro to the United States.
The novel coronavirus outbreak will likely mean the end of the Hex, the six-team World Cup qualifying format used by the CONCACAF region, said CONCACAF chief Victor Montagliani in an interview with OneSoccer.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied any involvement by the US government in what Venezuelan officials have called a failed armed incursion in the South American country that led to the capture of two American “mercenaries”.
Ecuador on Monday exceeded 30,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, while the government launched a plan to start gradually relaxing quarantine measures that have been in place since mid-March. Ecuador has confirmed 31,881 cases of COVID-19, with 1,569 reported deaths and a further 1,336 deaths likely as a result of the virus.
Venezuela's government said it foiled a marine incursion on Sunday by “terrorist mercenaries” who attempted to enter the country on speedboats from neighboring Colombia.
Environmentalists in Bolivia warned of a marked increase in forest fires this year that threatens a repeat of the environmental disaster that ravaged much of the Amazon in 2019.
Bolivia registered 15,354 forest fires in the first four months of the year - a 35% increase on the same period last year, the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN) said.
The U.S. State Department, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico are investigating at least two Mexican firms involved in an oil-for-food pact signed in 2019 with Venezuela’s government, U.S. officials said.
Mercosur member Paraguay has a high likelihood of bouncing back best once the novel coronavirus is contained, Rebeca Grynspan, head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), told Radio Nacional del Paraguay on Thursday.
The European Union and Mexico finalized a major upgrade to their free trade deal on Tuesday after the two sides agreed to grant reciprocal market access to each other’s tenders for public contracts.
Uruguayan president Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou and his Argentine peer, Alberto Fernandez held a half-hour video conference Tuesday mid-morning to address the recent decision by the current Argentine administration to freeze Mercosur free trade negotiations with potential new partners and instead concentrate efforts in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and its sanitary, social, economic and employment consequences.