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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, September 14th 2026 - 17:20 UTC

Venezuela

  • Tuesday, June 9th 2026 - 06:59 UTC

    Venezuela's Cabello rejects Machado's offer of talks with the chavista leadership

    At his customary press conference, Cabello dismissed rumors of a possible dialogue as “idle talk” and denied that “any meeting anywhere in the world” had taken place

    Venezuela's Interior, Justice and Peace Minister and secretary general of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, on Monday ruled out any political negotiation with opposition leader María Corina Machado and with the Democratic Unitary Platform, days after the opposition made an unprecedented offer to sit down for talks with chavismo. “There is nothing on the table with them, and even less with her,” he said.

  • Thursday, June 4th 2026 - 15:28 UTC

    Venezuela moves to open its power sector to private investment after years of blackouts

    The system, which prior to 2007 operated under a mixed and regionalized model, began to deteriorate due to a lack of maintenance and new investment

    Venezuela's National Assembly gave initial approval to a reform of the electricity law that opens the sector to private investment through long-term concessions, in an effort to reverse the collapse of a service battered by blackouts for two decades. The measure ends the monopoly held for more than 15 years by the state-owned National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec), though it still requires a second debate and final ratification in the coming days.

  • Saturday, May 30th 2026 - 07:51 UTC

    Uruguayan released in Venezuela slept in his building's hallway after finding home taken by his captor

    Originally from Uruguay, Breijo arrived in Venezuela in 1979 to work as a cook

    Uruguayan-Venezuelan citizen José Breijo, 70, on Wednesday recovered the apartment that had been confiscated during his imprisonment in Caracas, after spending several days sleeping in the building's hallway because one of the police officers who had arrested him in 2023 was occupying his home. The case, documented by the AFP news agency, illustrates the pattern of home confiscations denounced by Venezuelan political prisoners and exiled opposition figures during recent years.

  • Tuesday, May 26th 2026 - 14:08 UTC

    María Corina Machado closes Panama visit with tribute to Venezuelans who crossed the Darién

    “More than 500,000 Venezuelans have crossed the Darién in search of freedom. Many remained on the way,” Machado said during her speech to the plenary of the Panamanian Parliament

    Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado on Monday closed her visit to Panama with a tribute to the more than half a million Venezuelan migrants who over the past decade crossed the Darién jungle on their way to North America, in a speech before the National Assembly of Panama and during the presentation of the key to Panama City by the municipal authorities. The visit was also marked by the confirmation of her presidential candidacy as part of the democratic transition plan set out by the United States following the capture of former president Nicolás Maduro on 3 January.

  • Monday, May 25th 2026 - 01:06 UTC

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

    The exchange concluded with a characterization of the former Spanish prime minister as “pro-Sánchez” and “pro-Maduro,” and with the phrase “the end justifies the means”

    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.

  • 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.”

  • 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 - 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 - 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 - 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.