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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, November 9th 2026 - 06:08 UTC

Politics

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 21:50 UTC

    Trump drops his new press secretary after a week of controversy

    She admitted that, although she graduated in law, she had not passed the bar exam, despite presenting herself as a lawyer for years

    Katie Zacharia will leave her post as White House press secretary just five days after taking it up, according to advisers to President Donald Trump quoted by several US media outlets, following a widely criticised first briefing and the revelation that she had presented herself as a lawyer without passing the bar exam.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 21:50 UTC

    Rodrigues-Birkett, UN leadership hopeful: “Not choosing a woman would send a very negative message”

    Guyana’s ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, one of the best-placed candidates to succeed António Guterres at the head of the organisation, has warned that not choosing a woman “would send a very negative message to the world”, in an interview with the newspaper El País published on the day the Security Council holds its first informal colour-coded straw poll, which reveals whether any of the five permanent members opposes each candidate.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 21:50 UTC

    Kast and Paz open the way in La Paz to normalising Chile-Bolivia relations

    “President Paz, today we stop turning our backs on each other. We did not come just for a gesture, we came to begin making history,” Kast said after the bilateral meetings

    Chilean President José Antonio Kast and his Bolivian counterpart Rodrigo Paz pledged on Friday in La Paz to move towards normalising diplomatic relations “at the highest level”, broken off since 1978, during a visit the Chilean government described as historic as the first official bilateral visit by a Chilean president to Bolivia in more than seven decades. The two governments signed economic integration and border security agreements, although they did not announce the restoration of embassies.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 13:59 UTC

    Royal Navy urged to replace defective Ice Patrol HMS Protector

    HMS Protector role helped to maintain a sovereign, reassuring, and versatile presence in the South Atlantic and the British Antarctic Territory

    The Royal Navy's only ice patrol vessel has been towed into Devonport, reportedly with a double engine failure, raising fresh concerns over how the news will be interpreted by Argentina. HMS Protector fulfils an icebreaking role to monitor the demilitarized Antarctic and support safe navigation for scientific research in challenging conditions.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 10:07 UTC

    The Falklands dispute threatens Argentina’s bid to join the trans-Pacific trade pact

    The possibility was raised in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Wendy Morton, who urged the government to prepare to oppose Argentina’s application if threats over the islands continue

    The escalating dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Sea Lion oil project north of the Falklands has spilled into trade: London, a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, has not ruled out using its position to stall Argentina’s bid to join the pact, which requires the consensus of all its members. The British government says Buenos Aires’s conduct raises “very serious questions about its reliability as a partner”.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 09:59 UTC

    Inter-American Court hears case over the April 11, 2002 killings in Caracas

    The only people convicted over the events were Metropolitan Police officers, released this year, and police commissioner Iván Simonovis, who escaped house arrest in 2019 and lives in exile

    The Inter-American Court of Human Rights held this week in San José, Costa Rica, the first public hearing in the case over the killings of April 11, 2002 in Caracas, when an opposition march came under gunfire near the Miraflores Palace. Nineteen people died and dozens were wounded that day, in the run-up to the coup that removed then-president Hugo Chávez from power for two days.

  • Friday, October 16th 2026 - 09:40 UTC

    Argentina abstains on a Russian UN resolution on colonialism and draws criticism

    Several speakers questioned Russia’s credibility in presenting it given its invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico were among the countries that voted in favour

    Argentina abstained on Thursday in a vote by the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on a Russian-sponsored draft on “contemporary forms of colonialism”, a decision that Buenos Aires province’s government minister, opposition figure Carlos Bianco, linked to President Javier Milei’s alignment with the United States and to Argentina’s strategy over the Falklands.

  • Thursday, October 15th 2026 - 20:59 UTC

    Argentina’s bill toughening sanctions over Sea Lion stalls in Congress

    The bill, sent to Congress in September, has 133 articles. The first 40 repeal the 2011 law penalising hydrocarbon exploration not authorised by Argentina and create a broader regime with fines

    The National Sovereignty Defence bill, with which Javier Milei’s government seeks to toughen sanctions against those involved in exploiting resources in the Falklands, failed to secure committee approval in the Chamber of Deputies and will not reach the special session planned for October 21, according to the Argentine press. The opposition is demanding that the text, which besides sanctions reforms security, defence and intelligence, be split.

  • Thursday, October 15th 2026 - 20:54 UTC

    Brazil approves a 40-hour week and two days off ten days before the runoff

    Lula’s campaign hopes the reform will help him overturn the nearly two-point deficit with which he ended the first round

    Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday approved, by 75 votes to one, a cut in the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours with no reduction in pay, ending the so-called 6x1 schedule of six working days and one day off and extending to two the days off for formal-sector workers. The reform, which according to Reuters benefits some 37 million people, comes ten days before the presidential runoff between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro.

  • Wednesday, October 14th 2026 - 22:05 UTC

    Badenoch accuses Farage of trading Chagos for Trump’s silence on the Falklands

    “There is no pride in our country in the way he talks about us. This is careless, loose talk from a man who wants to be responsible for Britain’s national security,” added Badenoch

    British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called “humiliating” a proposal by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to offer US President Donald Trump the Chagos archipelago in exchange for him to stop talking about the Falklands. “Giving away British territory in return for someone keeping quiet is not a deal. It is humiliating,” she told The Telegraph.