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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, June 20th 2026 - 17:55 UTC

Politics

  • Tuesday, May 19th 2026 - 02:06 UTC

    Musk loses USD 150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

    The decision clears the way for OpenAI's stock market debut, an operation expected to rank among the largest in financial market history, with a valuation close to one trillion dollars

    A federal jury in Oakland, California, on Monday unanimously rejected the lawsuit that magnate Elon Musk had filed against OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and the company's president, Greg Brockman, in which he sought USD 150 billion in damages and the reversal of the artificial intelligence firm's transformation into a for-profit entity. The verdict, reached by all nine jurors, found that the lawsuit is barred by the statute of limitations and amounts to a sharp setback for the founder of Tesla, who has already announced his intention to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

  • Tuesday, May 19th 2026 - 01:45 UTC

    Royal Navy Type 31 program hit by £140M cost adjustment amid rework challenges

    HMS Active was floated off at Rosyth in March 2026. (Pic Babcock)

    Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigate program has been hit by a £140 million cost adjustment, after contractor Babcock International identified higher-than-expected rework and productivity issues during construction of the vessels, points out The Center for National Interest, a US Public Policy Think Tank.

  • Tuesday, May 19th 2026 - 01:42 UTC

    Chilean executive detained in Brazil for racist and homophobic insults to Latam flight attendant

    The executive refers to the cabin crew member as “mono” (monkey) and makes gestures imitating a primate

    Chilean executive Germán Naranjo Maldini has been held since Friday 15 May at the Guarulhos prison on the outskirts of São Paulo, charged with racial slur after directing racist and homophobic insults at a flight attendant of the airline Latam during a flight between São Paulo and Frankfurt on 10 May. The Chilean fishing company Landes, where he served as commercial manager, formally and preventively removed the executive from his position following the circulation over the weekend of a video showing the verbal attacks.

  • Tuesday, May 19th 2026 - 01:37 UTC

    Alex Saab appears in Miami charged with money laundering tied to bribery in Chavismo's food programs

    Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello declared that Saab's Venezuelan identity documents are fraudulent and that his nationality was never valid, despite defending him during years

    Colombian-Venezuelan businessman Alex Saab, regarded for years as the main financial frontman of former president Nicolás Maduro, appeared on Monday before a federal court in Miami, where he was formally charged with one count of money laundering linked to a bribery scheme used to enrich himself through contracts of Venezuela's state food import program. The hearing took place two days after acting President Delcy Rodríguez handed him over to the United States in what the Venezuelan government described as a deportation but which, in legal terms, amounts to an extradition.

  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 18:31 UTC

    Bolivia: Ten thousand Evo Morales supporters descend on La Paz as government warns of armed groups

    The march, described by its organizers as a “pro-Evo and coca-grower” mobilization, is made up of peasant, indigenous, and labor sectors

    The Bolivian government on Monday denounced the presence of “armed groups” in the march of peasant farmers and supporters of former president Evo Morales that descended on the city of La Paz, the seat of the executive and legislative branches, after a six-day walk from the highlands, demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz. Deputy Interior Minister Hernán Paredes estimated at “somewhat more than ten thousand people” the column of protesters that entered the capital from the neighboring city of El Alto, in what authorities described as an attempt by the former leader to destabilize the executive six months into his term.

  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 05:37 UTC

    The Falklands turn into a small South Atlantic economic power as the ghosts of 1982 return

    The Falklands have 3,662 inhabitants and a per capita income higher than that of the United Kingdom

    The Falkland Islands are going through their traditional “commemoration season,” the cycle of ceremonies that recall the 1982 war each year, culminating in Liberation Day on 14 June, at a moment defined by two overlapping realities: the consolidation of the archipelago as a small economic power in the South Atlantic and the reactivation of diplomatic tensions with the United States and Argentina. A feature published on Saturday by the British newspaper The Sunday Times, written by Matthew Campbell from Fitzroy, captures the contrast between growing economic prosperity and the anxiety generated by the recent leak of a Pentagon memorandum.

  • Monday, May 18th 2026 - 02:57 UTC

    Venezuela: Mother of political prisoner Víctor Quero dies days after identifying his exhumed body

    Carmen Navas had become a symbolic figure in the search for Venezuelan political prisoners subjected to enforced disappearance. Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez / EFE

    Carmen Teresa Navas, 83, the mother of Venezuelan political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero, died on Sunday in Caracas, days after she had identified the exhumed body of her son, who had been buried in secret nine months earlier. The octogenarian, who had been hospitalized in recent days, was seen this same week alongside her relatives at the large memorial mass for her son. Physicians have not officially reported the clinical causes of her death. Her passing closes one of the most disturbing episodes in the country's recent human rights record.

  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 13:53 UTC

    Argentine Air Force bought a used aircraft at double its market price, Clarín investigation finds

    Regional One Inc. won the bid with an ERJ-140LR for $4.085M and 33,516 flight hours, despite cannibalized parts, corrosion, leaks, and four fewer seats than the only other bidder's aircraft.

    The Argentine Air Force (FAA) acquired in 2025 an Embraer ERJ-140LR aircraft for USD 4.085 million, nearly double the price the same provider had quoted for an equivalent and better-conditioned plane to a private client just months later, according to an investigation published on Saturday by the newspaper Clarín. The transaction, awarded to the US firm Regional One Inc. in a tender resolved in record time and challenged by a competitor, displays irregularities in the design of the bidding terms, the technical evaluation, and the payment circuit, and forms part, according to the publication, of a pattern replicated in at least three other aircraft purchases by the force since 2021.

  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 13:48 UTC

    Brazil leads South America's military spending and Uruguay posts one of the largest relative rises, SIPRI says

    The most striking data point in the region corresponds to Uruguay, which moved to a military budget of USD 577.2 million in 2025, an increase of nearly 80% in five years.

    Brazil consolidated its position as South America's leading defense spender during 2025, with a military budget of approximately USD 23.9 billion and a 13% year-on-year increase, while Uruguay recorded one of the steepest relative rises in the region, according to the annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released on Saturday. The region as a whole increased its military spending by 3.4% compared with 2024, in line with a global trend of armed forces modernization, open conflicts, and growing geopolitical tensions.

  • Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 05:07 UTC

    Venezuela hands over to the United States former minister and Maduro frontman Alex Saab

    The United States sanctioned him in 2019 for allegedly paying bribes to obtain no-bid contracts with the Venezuelan state

    The Venezuelan government on Saturday deported to the United States the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered for years the main financial operator of former president Nicolás Maduro and minister of Industry and National Production until January 2026. The businessman landed at sunset at Opa-locka airport in Miami-Dade County, escorted by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), bringing to a close a judicial file that had turned Saab into one of the most visible symbols of the economic apparatus of Chavismo and into one of the most wanted figures by US justice over the past decade.