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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, April 21st 2026 - 07:10 UTC

Latin America

  • Wednesday, March 11th 2026 - 03:55 UTC

    Lula withdraws from Kast inauguration amid presence of Flávio Bolsonaro

    The reversal came hours after it emerged that Flávio Bolsonaro, a likely challenger to Lula in October’s presidential election, would attend the event as a guest

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has canceled a planned trip to Chile to attend José Antonio Kast’s inauguration on Wednesday and will instead be represented at the ceremony by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. Brazilian officials said the change was due to “scheduling reasons.”

  • Wednesday, March 11th 2026 - 03:49 UTC

    María Corina Machado arrives in Chile for Kast’s inauguration and meeting with Venezuelan migrants

    Beyond attending the inauguration, Machado has called Venezuelans in Chile to a Thursday afternoon gathering at Paseo Bulnes in downtown Santiago

    Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has arrived in Chile to attend Wednesday’s ceremony in which Gabriel Boric will hand over the presidency to José Antonio Kast, in a visit that also includes an event with Venezuelan residents in Santiago and several public appearances in the capital. She is among the international guests invited to the transfer of power, where Kast will formally take office at Congress in Valparaíso.

  • Monday, March 9th 2026 - 10:56 UTC

    Women’s Day rallies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay focused on femicide, austerity and public funding

    With banners reading “Not all of us made it” and “Not one more daughter, not one more broken mother,” they denounced the daily femicides in Mexico City

    International Women’s Day rallies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay this weekend produced a shared Southern Cone agenda: opposition to gender-based violence, demands for sustained public policies and warnings about the impact of economic strain and state cutbacks on women’s lives. In Brazil, the message centered on rising femicide; in Argentina, on a strike-backed protest against President Javier Milei’s austerity drive; and in Uruguay, on demands for more funding to enforce gender-violence laws and renewed attention to vicarious violence.

  • Monday, March 9th 2026 - 02:06 UTC

    Historic Pact and Democratic Center lead Colombia’s Senate race after legislative vote

    Petro's Historic Pact was taking 22.84% of the Senate vote, ahead of Uribe's Democratic Center’s 15.70%

    Historic Pact, the left-wing coalition linked to President Gustavo Petro, and the Democratic Center, led by former president Alvaro Uribe, were on Sunday emerging as the two main forces in Colombia’s Senate for the 2026-2030 term, according to preliminary pre-count results. Colombia’s electoral authority, the Registraduría, was publishing official real-time results on its election portal, while local media reported that Senate bulletin 25 showed Historic Pact with 3,599,411 votes and Democratic Center with 2,473,529.

  • Saturday, March 7th 2026 - 22:40 UTC

    Trump launches anti-cartel coalition, says Cuba regime “in its final days”

    Held at Trump National Doral Miami, the gathering brought together the leaders of 12 right-wing Latin American leaders

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday opened the first Shield of the Americas summit in Doral, Florida, bringing together a group of like-minded Latin American and Caribbean leaders to unveil a new regional security alliance focused on fighting drug cartels. In his remarks, he said Cuba was “very much at the end of the line,” claimed Havana wanted to negotiate with Washington, and said his administration had formally recognized the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela as diplomatic ties between the two countries were being restored.

  • Saturday, March 7th 2026 - 01:24 UTC

    Ecuador and U.S. Forces Destroy FARC Dissident Training Camp in Amazon Region

    The strike, carried out in the municipality of Cacales, marks the first officially announced joint military operation between the two countries on Ecuadorian soil

    Ecuadorian and U.S. military forces bombed and destroyed a training camp belonging to the Comandos de la Frontera, a dissident faction of Colombia's former FARC guerrilla organization, in the Amazon border province of Sucumbíos on Tuesday, both governments confirmed Friday.

  • Friday, March 6th 2026 - 15:31 UTC

    Trump says Cuba will “fall pretty soon,” but says Iran comes first

    Trump said Cuba “is gonna fall pretty soon” and added that Cubans “want to make a deal so badly”

    US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Cuba is going to “fall pretty soon,” while making clear that his immediate priority remains the campaign against Iran, in remarks that widened the White House’s confrontational language toward both the Middle East and Latin America. Trump made the comments in a phone conversation with CNN anchor Dana Bash.

  • Thursday, March 5th 2026 - 22:19 UTC

    Trump to gather 12 aligned Latin American leaders in Florida, with Mexico, Brazil and Colombia absent

    The summit follows a week in which senior Trump officials sharpened their rhetoric on Latin America

    U.S. President Donald Trump will host leaders from 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries in Doral, Florida, on March 7 for the so-called Shield of the Americas Summit, a meeting the White House is framing as a forum on security, migration and hemispheric cooperation. The gathering comes amid a broader U.S. diplomatic and military push in the region and just weeks before Trump is expected to travel to China.

  • Wednesday, March 4th 2026 - 17:43 UTC

    Bolivia jails 19 after people scooped up cash from crashed military plane

    The aircraft was carrying a total of 50 million bolivianos (approximately US$7.1 million), and authorities estimated that around 30% of the cargo was stolen at the scene.

    A Bolivian judge ordered the pre-trial detention of 19 people accused of taking banknotes scattered after a military Hercules C-130 aircraft skidded off the runway while landing at El Alto international airport, adjacent to La Paz. The suspects will spend four months in prisons in the La Paz department as investigators build the case, according to El Deber.

  • Wednesday, March 4th 2026 - 03:18 UTC

    Paraguay steps up intelligence and financial controls in the Tri-Border Area amid Middle East tensions

    Pereira said the focus is on tighter oversight of “illicit financing” and on preventing the “infiltration of extremist groups,” with counterterrorism and anti–money laundering efforts

    Paraguay’s government has activated intelligence, prevention and financial-control measures in the Tri-Border Area it shares with Argentina and Brazil amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, according to Internal Security Vice Minister Óscar Pereira.