Politics

• Monday, May 25th 2026 - 01:06 UTC

  Spanish police investigate Plus Ultra bailout scheme, linking Zapatero with Maduro's circle

  

  The Spanish National Police's Economic and Tax Crime Unit (UDEF) considers that former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero may have exercised “non-visible leadership” in an alleged influence network that facilitated the EUR 53 million bailout of airline Plus Ultra during the covid-19 pandemic. The report, comprising more than 300 pages and submitted to National Court judge José Luis Calama, was disclosed on Saturday by the outlet Infobae España and forms part of the judicial file investigating the maneuvers to obtain the public aid from the State Industrial Holdings Company (SEPI) in 2021.

• Monday, May 25th 2026 - 00:51 UTC

  Trump administration anticipates imminent agreement with Iran to reopen Strait of Hormuz

  

  The administration of US President Donald Trump took it for granted on Sunday that within the coming days it will be able to announce an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime route through which approximately 20% of the world's oil flows and which has remained practically closed since the start of the US and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic on 28 February. Three months after the attack that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei —replaced by his son Mojtaba— Washington and Tehran are negotiating a two-phase scheme that would ease pressure on the global economy without immediately resolving the underlying nuclear questions.

• Monday, May 25th 2026 - 00:44 UTC

  Paraguayan Prosecutor's Office maps Marset drug route from Bolivia to European ports

  

  The Paraguayan Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment against Gianina García Troche, the former partner of Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, that reconstructs in detail the criminal structure operating from Paraguay that for years moved cocaine from Bolivia to major European ports. The document, cited by the Uruguayan newspaper El País, lays out a three-pronged organization, nearly a thousand clandestine flights inside the Paraguayan Chaco, and a verified export volume amounting to 17,340 kilos of cocaine seized in Belgium and the Netherlands, valued at up to USD 434 million on the European market.

• Monday, May 25th 2026 - 00:38 UTC

  Evo Morales demands elections in Bolivia in 90 days “to avoid deaths” and warns against militarization

  

  El expresidente boliviano Evo Morales (2006-2019) elevó este domingo la presión sobre el Gobierno de Rodrigo Paz al exigir la convocatoria de elecciones generales en un plazo de 90 días “para que no haya muertos, para que no haya heridos”, en una nueva escalada del pulso político que mantiene paralizadas a las ciudades de La Paz y El Alto desde hace tres semanas. El líder cocalero, prófugo de la justicia boliviana por un caso de presunta trata agravada de menores, advirtió que cualquier decisión del Ejecutivo de “militarizar” el país para desbloquear las rutas constituiría una alternativa “suicida”.

• Saturday, May 23rd 2026 - 02:34 UTC

  Uruguay captures 63% of Mercosur's annual rice quota to the European Union

  

  Uruguay this week filled 63% of the annual zero-tariff rice quota granted by the European Union to Mercosur, in the first significant trade milestone since the provisional entry into force, on 1 May, of the association agreement between the two blocs. The total quota of 6,667 tons for the current year was covered within a few weeks of activity, according to Acting Foreign Minister Valeria Csukasi, in what amounts to one of the first operational tests of the treaty signed on 17 January in Asunción.

• Friday, May 22nd 2026 - 22:40 UTC

  Four French frigates for Swedish navy, in a plus US$ 3.5 billion deal

  

  The Swedish government this week announced a deal to purchase four new frigates for its navy from France’s Naval Group. Sweden neutral throughout the Cold War, applied for NATO membership in May 2022 alongside Finland, following on Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

• Friday, May 22nd 2026 - 03:20 UTC

  Caracas authorizes overflight of two US aircraft for embassy evacuation drill

  

  The Venezuelan government on Thursday authorized the holding, on Saturday 23 May, of an evacuation drill requested by the US Embassy in Caracas, which will include the controlled overflight of two aircraft over the Venezuelan capital and landing operations at the premises of the diplomatic compound. The activity, announced in an official statement by the Ministry of People's Power for Foreign Affairs, was framed by the administration of acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of “the regular protocols of diplomatic security and protection.”

• Friday, May 22nd 2026 - 00:03 UTC

  UN C 24 previous seminar in Nicaragua; main meeting in New York 15/26 June

  

  The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization will hold the Caribbean Regional Seminar in Managua from 25 to 27 May within the framework of the fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2021-2030).

• Thursday, May 21st 2026 - 23:36 UTC

  Reader's letter: a Head of the Bay farmer recalls the 1982 British landing

  

  MercoPress this week received a letter from reader Michael (“Ted”) Jones, a farmer at Head of the Bay —a settlement located in the immediate vicinity of the site where British forces landed on 21 May 1982—, in response to the Landing Day ceremonies led on Thursday by the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly. Both Jones and his wife Shelia were at Green Beach Port San Carlos during the war between the United Kingdom and Argentina over sovereignty of the archipelago. We publish his message below.

• Thursday, May 21st 2026 - 20:07 UTC

  Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly pays tribute to 1982 British landing

  

  The Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly on Thursday issued an official statement commemorating Landing Day, the date that recalls the arrival of British forces at San Carlos Bay on 21 May 1982, during the war between the United Kingdom and Argentina over sovereignty of the archipelago. The institutional declaration pays tribute to “the courage and sacrifice of those who came to restore our freedom and right to self-determination” and emphasizes that “the service of all who supported the liberation of our Islands will never be forgotten.”