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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, June 18th 2026 - 23:21 UTC

Politics

  • Friday, May 15th 2026 - 02:58 UTC

    Cuba accepts USD 100 million in US humanitarian aid amid energy collapse

    The US energy blockade has aggravated the structural crisis the island has been dragging since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the resulting interruption of the Venezuelan supply

    The Cuban government on Thursday accepted the United States' offer of USD 100 million in humanitarian aid for food, fuel, and medicines, in a significant political shift after weeks of public rejection and hours after authorities on the island acknowledged the complete exhaustion of their fuel reserves. The aid will be channeled through the Catholic Church, according to the official statement issued by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who only the day before had described the US offer as “inconsequential and paradoxical.”

  • Thursday, May 14th 2026 - 16:52 UTC

    UK ‘Zero Net’ Miliband’s policy questioned as a threat to British security, ‘China dominates all the green technology’

    Ed Miliband has been accused of handing Beijing a “kill switch” over the UK economy after claiming that green energy will end reliance on Vladimir Putin’s Russia 

    The UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband has been accused of handing Beijing a “kill switch” over the British economy, after claiming that green energy will end the UK's reliance on Vladimir Putin’s Russia for its fuel needs.

  • Thursday, May 14th 2026 - 09:21 UTC

    Orsi prepares for Washington visit after months of overtures to the Trump administration

    “I am the president of Uruguay and I do not conduct foreign policy representing a political force. I do it thinking about what suits Uruguay,” the president argued

    Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi will travel to Washington “in the coming months” to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump, in a meeting that national authorities describe as agreed and awaiting only the coordination of calendars, according to Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin's confirmation on Wednesday before the Senate International Affairs Committee. The summit would crown a series of overtures by the Broad Front government toward the Republican administration, initiated in the early weeks of Orsi's term, which began in March, and which have generated controversy within the ruling coalition itself.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 23:41 UTC

    Falklands representative meets Starmer at State Opening of UK Parliament

    The Falkland Islands Representative to the UK & Europe, Richard Hyslop, with the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, after the State Opening of Parliament

    The Falkland Islands Government Representative to the United Kingdom and Europe, Richard Hyslop, attended the formal opening of the British parliamentary year on Wednesday, 13 May, and held talks with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the Minister for the UK Overseas Territories, Stephen Doughty, at the reception held after the ceremony. The meeting reaffirms the political alignment between London and Stanley at a moment of international diplomatic tension over the sovereignty of the archipelago.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 20:00 UTC

    Warsh to succeed Powell at the Fed with inflation at three-year high

    Warsh takes office with US inflation at a three-year high

    The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed economist Kevin Warsh as the 17th chair of the Federal Reserve in a 54-45 vote, in a transition that hands control of the world's most influential central bank to President Donald Trump's pick at a moment of strong inflationary pressure. Warsh, a former Fed governor during the 2008 financial crisis and a former Morgan Stanley banker, will formally take office on Friday 15 May, following the departure of Jerome Powell, whose eight-year term has been marked by successive economic crises and a prolonged clash with the White House over the central bank's political independence.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 12:25 UTC

    Trump lands in Beijing for first summit with Xi in China since 2017

    US President Donald Trump landed in Beijing on Wednesday at 19:52 local time (11:52 GMT) to begin a three-day state visit to the Asian giant, his second trip to the country since the one made in 2017 during his first term and the first by a US president to the Chinese capital in nearly nine years. The summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will run Thursday and Friday and will tackle the fragile trade truce sealed in Busan last October, the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, the technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies, and the dispute over Taiwan.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 12:05 UTC

    Bolivian prosecutors confirm they will seek 20 years in prison for Evo Morales on trafficking charges

    Morales's followers plan to join the demonstrations called by the Bolivian Workers' Central toward La Paz

    Bolivia's Public Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday confirmed it will maintain its request for a 20-year prison sentence against former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) for aggravated human trafficking, in proceedings that are moving forward despite the former leader's absence and a fresh arrest warrant issued against him after his failure to appear at Monday's hearing. Prosecutors argue that Morales had a relationship during his second term with a 15-year-old girl, with whom he allegedly fathered a daughter, and that the minor's parents are said to have consented to the relationship in exchange for political favors and economic improvements.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 11:57 UTC

    White House “51st state” trolling tests Caracas's oil opening

    The “51st state” map had appeared in earlier posts by the US administration, alongside references to the annexation of Greenland

    The official White House account on Tuesday published a series of messages on social media platform X suggesting the annexation of Venezuela to the United States under the formula of the “51st state,” a discursive shift that strains the bilateral rapprochement built since the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January. The first post shows a map of Venezuela covered with the US flag and the caption “51st State”; eight minutes later, a video revives Secretary of State Marco Rubio's announcement of Maduro's capture, with footage of the former leader being flown to New York. The publication comes at a moment of apparent stagnation in the economic opening that acting President Delcy Rodríguez has pushed from Caracas to attract US investment.

  • Wednesday, May 13th 2026 - 03:20 UTC

    The Trump-Xi summit in Beijing turns on five fronts: Iran, Taiwan, tariffs, rare earths, and AI

    Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian last week described the issue as “the core of China's fundamental interests and the political foundation” of the relationship

    The summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that begins on Wednesday in Beijing will unfold around an agenda concentrated on five main fronts: the US war against Iran, the Taiwan question, bilateral tariffs, Chinese exports of rare earths, and, according to The Wall Street Journal, an initial approach to managing the risks of artificial intelligence. It will be the first visit by a US president to the Chinese capital in nearly nine years and comes three days after China's Foreign Ministry released a propaganda video that revived the Soviet-era concept of “peaceful coexistence” to describe the bilateral relationship.

  • Tuesday, May 12th 2026 - 23:32 UTC

    Lula seeks his own security recipe to counter Brazilian right wing's tough-on-crime narrative

    The plan also includes investments to regain control of 138 penitentiary facilities through drones, scanners, and metal detectors

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday unveiled in Brasília a public security plan worth around USD 2.25 billion aimed at weakening the finances of organized crime, regaining control of prisons, curbing arms trafficking, and improving homicide investigations, five months ahead of October's presidential election. The package is designed to give the government a distinct identity on one of the issues where public opinion sees the ruling party at its weakest against the right wing's punitive narrative.