Azuay prepares for El Niño; How to recycle in Cuenca; Murders rise in one canton, other crimes drop; City targets illegal cables; Pumapungo Museum tours

Lunes, 8/6/2023

Hola, Todos –

Cultura –

De El Mercurio del sábado, 3/6 (3 articles):
OFF, una galería cuencana de arte para el mundo (OFF, a Cuencanan art gallery for the world) –
The 3 story gallery is a space for contemporary art located on av. 10 de Agosto y calle Federico Proaño. The current show is ‘La profunidad de la imagen,’ works by Cuencano artist Jorge Chalco and it will run until 23/6. Hours are martes a viernes, 10:00-19:00 sin interrupciones <meaning they don’t lock their doors and take off for a 2 hour lunch at 1:00.>

Eventos en el Pumapungo (Events at the Pumapungo) – El Museo y Parque A rqueológico Pumapungo is organizing 2 activities. The first will be el 7/6, a las 9:00 with Wawapungo Decodificado in which there will be explanations about pieces in the Pumapungo collection. On el 9/6 a las 10:00 there will be a guided tour of the museum and park. Free.

Presidential candidate Yaku Perez has received the endorsement of the United Workers Front, the country’s largest labor union. The union said it supports a center-left position but “rejects Correismo absolutely”.

Exposición de obras – The show, ‘Matices de Vida,’ opened yesterday in the Galería Vitrina at the Casa e la Cultura Núcleo del Azuay (Pres. Córdova 7-23 y Luis Cordero) and will run to 16/6. It shows the work of students with different capacities from the Instituto San José de Calasanz de Cuenca. Free.

Titular –

Semana de definiciones electorales (Week of electoral definitions) – In conformance with the electoral calendar, the period for political organizations to arrange their primaries ends el sábado, 10/6. Currently there are 7 precandidates for the presidency, but most are running with parties with which they are not affiliated. Others are running with parties that are newly created and not registered. Experts note that the lack of a political affiliation could bring someone to power who doesn’t have a political policy – just their own individual ambition. <Too many of those politicians running around in the world. I’m kind of liking this cross death – how often have you thought, “Fire them all.” Well, now you can see how it will work out in real life.>

Cuenca –

Centro Sur regulará el tendido de cables (Centro Sur to regulate the laying of cables) – Tangled cables are an ugly, dangerous headache for the citizens and authorities of Cuenca. Worries center on the dangers to passersby and drivers, and the increase in cable operators has made the situation worse. For this, the Empresa Eléctrica Regional Centro Sur created the Unidad de Control de Cables in abril, 2023 which has a team of engineers and cable cutters. This unit costs Centro Sur about $300,000 a year which the electric company hopes to recover with rents for their infrastructure. Starting this month, the unit will start notifying unregulated operators. These are operators that don’t have a contract to use the Centro Sur posts. <So that cheap telecommunications service might get more expensive once it has to stop “squatting” on posts it hasn’t paid to use.>

From this month to octubre, Centro Sur wants to sign contracts with the operators so they will be paying rent for the infrastructure. Currently, it has contracts with 53 operators and estimates there are at least 100 businesses using their poles. Notices will go out next week for operators to regularize their contracts. Those that don’t do it in 15 days will have their cables cut. <So all of a sudden, you might lose service in the middle of your important Zoom call or favorite telenovela.>

Regularizing the contract includes complying with the Arcotel standards for heights of cables, labelling, bundling, and removing unused cables. Centro Sur estimated that in the worst areas, between 20 & 50% of the cables are “dead.” The ideal solution is to underground the cables, but it is also very expensive.

De El Mercurio del sábado, 3/6 (1 article):
Inseguridad con cifras en rojo (Insecurity with figures in red) – Violent deaths in Azuay in the period between 1/1 & 22/5 increased from 22 in 2022 to 26 in 2023. Most of those deaths were in the Camilo Ponce Enríquez canton, in the coastal zone of Azuay between Guaya and El Oro. Just in that canton, in the same period there were 14 deaths in 2023, double the number in 2022. According to Patricio Almeida, a security consultant, Camilo Ponce Enríquez has particularities that make it a violent area. The main one is mining since there are criminal networks fighting over control of zones with mining concessions. It has also become a refuge for gangs fleeing other cities and hiding in the canton.

Information from the police showed a reduction in the number of robbery of persons from 227 to 266. Theft of auto parts and accessories dropped from, 165 to 140, house burglaries from 168 to 91, motorcycle thefts from 86 to 67, and car thefts from 41 to 37. 62% of the arms used in the homicides were firearms, 26% other, 8% condundentes (blunt instruments – our word for the day), and 4% armas blancas (knives and other things with blades like machetes). 15% of the cases have been resolved and 15% <a typo? should be 85% according to the pie chart) are under investigation. 15% of the victims were women and 85% men.

Region –

El Niño amenaza a Cañar y Azuay (El Niño threatens Cañar and Azuay) – Forecasts about El Niño concern the South. The Secretaría Nacional de Gestión de Riesgos y Emergencias (SNGRE – National Secretariat of Risk and Emergency Management) is warning that 10 cantons in Azuay and Cañar could suffer severe doughts in the next months and especially at year end. This climate event results in heating of ocean waters and heavy flooding as well as droughts. Ecuador suffered its impacts in 1972-3, 1982-3, and 1997-8. The flooding is mainly in the lower parts of river basins.

A yellow alert was declared the past 15/5 in 17 of the 24 provinces that have cantons and parishes lower than 1,000 m. above sea level. In Azuay, there are 7 cantons in the risk area: Camilo Ponce Enríquez, Cuenca, Girón, Nabón, Oña, Pucará y Santa Isabel. In Cañar, the at-risk cantons are Cañar, Suscal y La Troncal. According to Milton Benítez, zone 6 coordinator for SNGRE, Camilo Ponce Enríquez and La Troncal will have the most problems since they are closest to the coastal areas. SNGRE has held meetings with the mayors to plan for El Niño. <And it won’t be a kilometers long parade full of gussied up cars and horses.> Cities are identfying possible threats in the most vulnerable zones and starting mitigation activities such as dredging rivers, notifying people who live in slide prone areas, and identifying shelters as well as training residents.

Nacional –

De El Mercurio del domingo, 4/6 (2 articles):
Arranca segunda fase de la vacunación para niños (Second phase of vaccination for children begins) – The Ministerio de Salud started the 2nd phase of the vaccination campaign against polio, measles and German measles yesterday. In the 1st phase which lasted 5 months, 700,000 children or 70% of the goal, were vaccinated at their schools. Phase 2 will intensify the activities of brigades on a national scale in places with concentrations of people such as shopping centers, land terminals, parks; and in house to house visits.

Apoyan a Yaku Pérez (Support for Yaku Perez) – The Frente Unitario de Trabajadores (FUT) gave its support to presidential candidate Yaku Pérez according to its president, José Villavicencio. He signaled that support for Perez is a rejection of Correism.

Special section C – Día Mundial del Ambiente –

Lo que se puede reciclar en Cuenca (What can be recycled in Cuenca) – One of the first steps to becoming a culture of recycling is knowing what can be recycled. In Cuenca, there are 2 kinds of bags: black for things that go to the landfill, and celeste (sky blue – your color for the day) for things that can be recycled.

What goes into the black bags:
• Crockery and cardboard packaging – pots, plates, glasses, drinking straws, cake packaging and disposable styrofoam packaging.
• Inert waste – cigarette butts, broken ceramics, wood, cloth, dust, and sweepings.
• Noisy polyethaline plastic bags – Snacks, noodles and treat (golosinas) packaging.
• Bathroom trash – toilet paper, disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, toothpaste tubes, razors.
• Organic and food waste – fruit and vegetable peels, leftovers, animal wastes.
<Except for the animal waste, the other compostible items can be exchanged for humus or compost at a 10 to 1 ratio at the BIO EMAC station on 24 de mayo, diagonal to the Manuela de Garaicoa school from lunes a sábado, 8-17:00.>

What goes into the blue bags:
• Paper and cardboard – notebooks, books, magazines, newspapers <I give mine to a neighbor for bedding for her chickens or to ARCA to line cages – reuse is good.>, egg cartons and trays, cement bags, tetrapack packaging, and shredded paper.
• Chatarra (scrap metal/ junk- your word for the day) <however your comida chatarra goes into the black bags or compost> and electronic items – Pieces of copper, bronze, or aluminium such as wire, metal kitchen goods, pots, spoons, electrical appliances.
• Aluminum and cans – aerosol cans, tin foil <aluminum nowadays> wrapping, food containers, drink cans.
• Soft plastics – fundas plásticas de halar (I think plastic shopping bags with handles), milk and food bags, food and drink plastic packaging, plastic to wrap suitcases (like at the airports).
• Plastic containers and cutlery – pop bottles <you linguists should be able to figure out where I grew up>; yogurt, juice, shampoo, and cosmetics containers; plastic cutlery; bottles, tubs and trays.
• Rigid and hard plastics – kitchen utensils, bowls and plates, clothes hangers, broken furniture, plastic crates, toys, CD boxes.

And that’s all for today so hasta ? –

Jeanne