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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, June 30th 2026 - 15:15 UTC

United States

  • Saturday, March 21st 2026 - 22:08 UTC

    US bolsters military presence in the Gulf with thousands of Marines and amphibious ships

    Trump, for his part, said Thursday he was not considering sending troops “anywhere,” though he added that if he did, he would not announce it.

    The United States is deploying roughly 5,000 Marines and half a dozen warships toward the Persian Gulf in the largest force expansion since the war against Iran began on February 28. The buildup comes as American aircraft intensify strikes against Iranian positions along the coastline and islands of the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime chokepoint through which approximately 20% of global oil transits and which Iran has effectively closed since the start of the conflict.

  • Friday, March 20th 2026 - 18:55 UTC

    Trump ally asked ICE to detain mother of his child amid custody dispute

    Zampolli's name also appears multiple times in recently released Epstein case documents published by the Department of Justice

    Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent and special envoy to President Donald Trump, contacted a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in June 2025 requesting that his Brazilian ex-girlfriend, Amanda Ungaro, be placed in immigration custody while she was being held in a Miami jail on fraud charges. Zampolli and Ungaro were locked in a custody battle over their teenage son.

  • Friday, March 20th 2026 - 16:26 UTC

    Two US federal prosecutors investigating Colombian President Gustavo Petro over alleged narco ties

    The probes, led by Manhattan and Brooklyn offices, are in early stages and it remains unclear whether charges will follow

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro is the subject of a criminal investigation by at least two US federal prosecutors over alleged links to international drug trafficking, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.

  • Friday, March 20th 2026 - 16:16 UTC

    Trump brands NATO allies “cowards” for refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz

    US military officials confirmed to international media that thousands of additional marines and three warships were heading toward the Middle East

    US President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against NATO allies on Friday, lambasting them as “cowards” for refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that has remained effectively closed since the start of the war with Iran. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump declared that without the US military, NATO amounts to nothing more than “a paper tiger,” and warned that Washington would not forget the alliance's stance.

  • Thursday, March 19th 2026 - 22:52 UTC

    Trump jokes about Pearl Harbor in front of Japan’s prime minister during White House meeting

    During the exchange in the Oval Office, Takaichi did not respond publicly to the remark and listened through an interpreter

    U.S. President Donald Trump made a joke about Pearl Harbor on Thursday during an Oval Office meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, while answering a question about why Washington had not informed some allies in advance about its decision to strike Iran. The bilateral meeting was part of the White House’s official schedule for March 19.

  • Thursday, March 19th 2026 - 22:43 UTC

    Netanyahu hints a ground phase may be needed as Iran war hits Gulf energy infrastructure

    Netanyahu made the remarks at a press conference in Jerusalem, where he also said Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium or produce ballistic missiles, although he offered no evidence

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested on Thursday that an air campaign alone would not be enough to bring down Iran’s regime, as the conflict entered a new phase marked by strikes on Gulf energy facilities and renewed warnings over the Strait of Hormuz.

  • Thursday, March 19th 2026 - 12:57 UTC

    Western Democracies backsliding, with U.S. decline “unprecedented”

    Professor Staffan Ingemar Lindberg, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg (Pic: Markus Marcetic)

    Democratic backsliding is now happening in well-established democracies. Democracy in the USA is deteriorating at unprecedented speed, and media and journalists are increasingly targeted across the world. This, and more, is reported in the latest Democracy Report from the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg.

  • Thursday, March 19th 2026 - 02:12 UTC

    Russian diesel shipment bound for Cuba challenges US blockade

    Although limited in scale, the cargo —estimated at around 200,000 barrels of diesel— could cover roughly 10 days of national consumption

    A Hong Kong-flagged tanker that could be carrying fuel to Cuba has resumed navigation in the Atlantic after remaining halted for several weeks, in a move that could offer limited relief to the island’s deepening energy crisis. According to ship-tracking available on Vessel Finder, the Sea Horse loaded fuel in a ship-to-ship operation earlier this year and then resumed course with Cuba as a possible destination. The Financial Times reported that the vessel was part of two Russian energy shipments headed to the island and could arrive within days.

  • Wednesday, March 18th 2026 - 21:00 UTC

    Venezuelan National Assembly speaker meets US Senate envoys

    The Venezuelan government framed the opening as part of a broader agenda of stabilization and gradual normalization of ties.

    Venezuelan National Assembly speaker Jorge Rodríguez said on Wednesday that he met in Caracas with representatives of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and with U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu, in the latest sign of the bilateral opening that began after January’s political shift. Rodríguez said the agenda forms part of a dialogue “always based on mutual respect and cooperation between nations.”

  • Tuesday, March 17th 2026 - 22:31 UTC

    US counterterrorism chief resigns over Iran war

    Kent’s departure cuts at one of the White House’s core arguments for the strikes

    Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday with immediate effect, saying he could not support Washington’s war against Iran in what became the first high-level public break inside Donald Trump’s national security apparatus since the offensive began. Kent said Tehran had posed no “imminent threat” to the United States.