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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, March 15th 2026 - 03:09 UTC

Politics

  • Saturday, April 28th 2018 - 10:22 UTC

    Bees victory: EU votes for a near total ban on insecticides

    Campaigners dressed in black and yellow bee suits rallied outside the headquarters of the EC in Brussels ahead of the vote for a ban on three key pesticide chemicals.(Pic AFP)

    European Union countries voted on Friday for a near-total ban on insecticides blamed for killing off bee populations, in what campaigners called a “beacon of hope” for the winged insects. Bees help pollinate 90 percent of the world’s major crops, but in recent years have been dying off from “colony collapse disorder,” a mysterious scourge blamed on mites, pesticides, virus, fungus, or a combination of these factors.

  • Saturday, April 28th 2018 - 07:44 UTC

    The model of Western democracy is broken: unemployment stats questioned

    The model of Western-style democracy is now broken. Exhibit Number One is Donald Trump, but there's lots of other evidence too.

    By Gwynne Dyer - If the model is broken, should you try to fix it, or scrap it and get a new one? In questions of technology, increasingly the answer is: scrap it. Computer repair shops are dying out: if your laptop doesn't work, just buy a new one. What applies to consumer technology, however, does not necessarily apply to politics.

  • Saturday, April 28th 2018 - 07:30 UTC

    Koreas leaders in historic summit agree to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons

    After the talks at the border, Mr. Kim and Mr. Moon also agreed to push towards turning the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953 into a peace treaty

    Friday's summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was a “historic meeting” paving the way for the start of a new era, North Korea's media say. North's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agreed to work to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 13:34 UTC

    The Washington Post: The political rot in Nicaragua

    By the thousands, Nicaraguans have taken to the streets in protest, and Ortega has responded with demonizing propaganda, media censorship and police gunfire.

    Nicaragua is a volcanic nation, geologically and politically. Forty years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, a series of popular eruptions shook the entrenched regime of Anastasio Somoza, who fell from power on 19 July, 1979. Today, one of the revolutionary architects of that dictator’s ouster, Sandinista party chief Daniel Ortega, rules the country of 6.1 million as high-handedly and corruptly as Somoza ever did.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 13:09 UTC

    Taking action where we can to stop cybercrime

    A recent estimate put the global cost of cybercrime at 600 billion US dollars.said Yury Fedotov

    By Yury Fedotov is Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (*) - Cyber. It is the inescapable prefix defining our world today. From the privacy of individuals to relations between states, cyber dominates discussions and headlines – so much so that we risk being paralyzed by the magnitude of the problems we face.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 12:46 UTC

    Prince Louis Arthur Charles will be known as His Royal Highness Prince Louis of Cambridge

    Prince Louis’ name pays tribute to Prince of Wales’s great-uncle, Earl Mountbatten, who was murdered by the IRA

    The prince born on Monday morning at the London Lindo Wing hospital and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge third baby, --fifth in line to the throne after Princes Charles, William, George and Princess Charlotte--, has a name.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 12:36 UTC

    UK economy grows at its slowest since 2012 in Q1; pound falls to US$ 1.380

    Bank of England governor Mark Carney hinted that interest rates could rise more gradually than expected due to uncertainty over Brexit and economic “mixed data”

    The UK economy grew at its slowest rate since 2012 in the first quarter of the year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said. GDP growth was 0.1%, down from 0.4% in the previous quarter, driven by a sharp fall in construction output and a sluggish manufacturing sector.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 12:30 UTC

    Pompeo swears as Secretary of State and flies to meet leaders of “invaluable”

    Pompeo’s first meeting was with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, which said was “a great expression of the importance of the alliance.”

    Twelve hours after being sworn in U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went straight to NATO headquarters in Brussels in what European allies saw as strong support for an institution that U.S. President Donald Trump once called obsolete.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 12:24 UTC

    Brazil's Supreme Tribunal begins to address Lula's case on May 4th

    Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) has said he remains their candidate despite his legal troubles, which it claims have been politically motivated to keep him out of the race.

    Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) is to vote on a motion starting May 4 that could potentially release ex-president Lula da Silva from prison, the court said. Lula's defense team hopes to overturn a decision by Sergio Moro, a federal judge and head of a key corruption investigation that determined he had to begin serving a 12-year sentence for accepting bribes.

  • Friday, April 27th 2018 - 12:12 UTC

    Tories divided on the customs union and PM May on the brink

    Although the vote is not binding on the government, many politicians believe it will influence May's future thinking on a deal she wants with the European Union

    British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered her biggest Brexit blow so far when MPs on Thursday backed a call in the House of Commons for Britain to stay in a European customs union. A debate, promoted by the main opposition Labour Party, was agreed unanimously after a four hour discussion in the House of Commons.