Ecuador virus cases plunged 37% in August, the most in South America after Brazil (40%), according to the WHO. In comparison, neighbors Colombia and Peru saw cases jump by 8% and 67%, respectively, in the same time period. On average, South American daily confirmed virus cases rose 35% in August, the data show. To be… Read More Flattening the Curve: Ecuador and Brazil Pull Ahead in August
Ecuador won approval to restructure about a third of its international bonds this week, alleviating part of the fiscal hangover from the Correa administration’s ruinous decade in power. But while Finance Minister Richard Martínez negotiates with the country’s creditors abroad, a deeper debate about the nation’s historical debts is still needed at home. Behind Ecuador’s… Read More Ecuador Credit Talks Silent on Debts to History
Max Fisher, an international reporter and columnist for The New York Times, kicked off a debate last month about the “Latin Americanization” of the U.S. being the “defining trend of our time, arguably even more than right-wing populism.” Fisher later deleted his post and apologized, saying he hadn’t intended to imply that U.S. problems come… Read More Spotting Trends: ‘Bad Hombres’ in the News
(This article was originally published by the Institute for the Study of the Americas at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.) I’ve watched the coronavirus crisis unfold from a quiet street in the suburbs of Quito, where I’m living with my family while on a research fellowship in Ecuador. After an early outbreak… Read More Dispatch from Quito: Coronavirus and La Cuarentena in Ecuador
Landslides severed Ecuador’s two oil pipelines last week, spilling heavy crude into the Coca River in the country’s northeastern Amazon region. Now, amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis, pipeline operators OCP Ecuador and Petroecuador are deploying humanitarian aid to communities downstream and trying to halt the oil before it reaches the Amazon. Emergency teams are also… Read More Ecuador Landslide Deepens Virus Crisis as Oil Pipelines Severed for Weeks
Ecuadorian ex-President Rafael Correa is on trial again, this time for campaign-finance fraud. Three years after a national referendum forced him from office, Correa is being tried in absentia for his alleged role in a scheme to extort government contractors for campaign contributions during his decade in power. Given the number of former Ecuadorian presidents… Read More Ecuador’s Splintered Left on Trial with Correa
(Published originally in Mediato) La mina de oro y plata Río Blanco, atacada y quemada este mes por manifestantes de la comunidad, es emblemática en la industria minera ecuatoriana por todas las razones equivocadas. Haciendo caso omiso a la resistencia de las comunidades locales, del Municipio de Cuenca y de la provincia del Azuay, el gobierno… Read More Minería: del dicho al hecho
(Published originally in Mediato) El informe borrador –el cual aún no es concluyente– de la Contraloría sobre la deuda pública, presentado el 14 de marzo pasado, es un triunfo estratégico para el presidente Lenín Moreno. No solo permite responsabilizar al expresidente Rafael Correa del despilfarro fiscal, sino que Moreno también puede hacer corresponsable a la… Read More Correa, China y la Asamblea, afectados por el informe de la deuda
