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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, August 5th 2026 - 15:37 UTC

Politics

  • 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.

  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 04:16 UTC

    Paz thanks Milei for sending Hercules aircraft to bring food to blockaded Bolivian cities

    “My deepest gratitude to President Milei for the invaluable support extended to Bolivia with the dispatch of the Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance tasks,” Paz wrote

    Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Friday thanked his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, for sending two C-130 Hercules military aircraft to reinforce the airlift aimed at supplying food and basic goods to the cities of La Paz and El Alto, affected by ten consecutive days of road blockades by peasant unions from the highlands. The regional gesture comes during one of the most critical weeks of the centrist leader's six-month tenure, against a backdrop of shortages and growing political tension with sectors aligned with former president Evo Morales.

  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 03:45 UTC

    Trump claims he will engineer a “turnaround” in Cuba and pull it away from China and Russia

    “I think we are going to turn it around,” Trump replied when asked about the possibility of Cuba leaning toward the United States

    US President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration will bring the Cuban government to align with Washington and pull away from the orbit of China and Russia, in his first public comments on the island since the unprecedented visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Havana on Thursday. The remarks, delivered during an interview with journalist Bret Baier on Fox News, come in a week marked by contradictory US gestures toward the Cuban regime: the humanitarian offer of USD 100 million accepted by Havana, the judicial pressure on former president Raúl Castro, and the opening of a direct channel between US and Cuban intelligence services.

  • Saturday, May 16th 2026 - 03:25 UTC

    Venezuela and World Bank agree to define technical cooperation areas after seven-year pause

    According to the official communiqué released after the meeting, both sides “agreed to continue working jointly to define the concrete areas of technical collaboration”

    The Venezuelan government and the World Bank agreed on Friday in Caracas to work jointly on identifying concrete areas of technical cooperation, in the first high-level encounter between the two parties since the resumption of relations announced last month, which ended a seven-year pause in institutional contacts. The meeting was led by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who received at the Miraflores Palace the World Bank's Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, Susana Cordeiro Guerra.