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Ecuador is protesting a Spanish court's decision to release an alleged crime boss believed to have been the mastermind of an attack on a Guayaquil television station in January 2024. Ecuador had petitioned the Spanish government to extradite William Joffre Alcivar,...
By Jancee Dunn Before she stopped drinking alcohol eight years ago, Cecily Mak drank daily to “soften the edges of life.” She couldn’t socialize without a “boozy assist.” Mak, the author of “Undimmed,” an upcoming book about rethinking alcohol use, told me that many...
For medical tourists and long-term expats in Cuenca, the search for the "best dentist" often begins with a name. While finding a highly skilled individual is important, the reality of modern specialized dentistry—particularly for complex procedures like dental...
“People are dying of malnutrition, even starvation, at Litoral,” a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said following a visit to the Guayaquil prison last week. Alicia Diaz also said that inmates suffering from tuberculosis are receiving...
Curious? - (De El Mercurio del martes, 6/1/2026) Proyectan lluvias (Forecast for rain) - A high probability of rain in Cuenca is predicted for this week according to the daily forecast published by ETAPA EP based on information from The Weather Channel. <So if...
There was a time, and it was not so very long ago, when the Republic of Ecuador would hand you a retirement visa if you could prove an income of about seven hundred dollars a month. That was back when rotary dial phones still worked and avocado toast had not yet been...
By Steven Boykey Sidley In early December, in a corner of Yunnan Province near the Myanmar border, something rather extraordinary happened. While most of the Western tech world was busy arguing about whether AI would take their jobs or merely make them obsolete, China...
For expats entering the social and romantic landscape of Ecuador, the experience is often described as a journey back to a more traditional, romantic, and diplomatic era. Unlike the often blunt and direct dating culture of North America, Ecuadorian courtship is a...
To conserve water, management of the Mazar hydroelectric complex is operating only two of three generation stations downstream from the reservoir. CelecSur said Tuesday that the power generation shortfall is being made up by other generation plants in the country as...
By Ryan Zickgraf Fictional vampires are dark, dangerous, and, crucially, sexy. From Bela Lugosi’s hypnotic stare in the first Dracula film to the tortured emo vibe of Edward Cullen, the silver-skinned heartthrob of Twilight, the undead have often been seen as the apex...
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez on Tuesday declared seven days of mourning for members of the military killed in the U.S. raid over the weekend to capture leader Nicolas Maduro. "We have officially declared seven days of national mourning for the...
France has made French language and civic exams mandatory for certain multi-year residence permits, long-term residence cards and citizenship applications from January 1, 2026, making it tougher for some foreigners to secure long-term stay or nationality. The new...
For the expatriate community, understanding Ecuadorian politics is often less about the heated debates in the National Assembly and more about the "math" of the Unified Basic Salary (SBU). As we enter 2026, the political landscape is defined by a significant pivot...
Bored? - (De El Mercurio del domingo, 4/1/2026) Nueva app UDA Book reúne más de 350 obras (New UDA Book app brings together more than 350 works) - <This would probably only be an antidote to boredom in Spanish.> The Universidad del Azuay launched a free, new...
There is a man on YouTube who says he is living in Ecuador on a budget of about $167 a month. His name is Steve W., a sort-of retired Canadian who moves around the country volunteering and doing odd jobs in various places, living a kind of free-range lifestyle with no...
For the global expat community, 2024 and 2025 have been years of mixed signals regarding Ecuador. National headlines have focused on a significant security crisis, primarily concentrated in the coastal provinces where drug trafficking routes and port access have...
By Mauricio Torres "No, the U.S. is not running Venezuela," the country's new leader Delcy Rodríguez said Sunday. The Venezuelan Supreme Court appointed Rodríguez interim president following Saturday morning's capture of President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces. The...
Spend enough time in Cuenca’s cafés and you start to notice something subtle. The room is full, yet the tables rarely mix. Older expats often sit with people who arrived around the same time, share similar routines, and meet at familiar hours. Younger expats are...
By Rachel Fairbank Even if you are a long-time smoker, there are some surprising, and even immediate, benefits to quitting. Every year, half a million Americans die from smoking-related causes, while an estimated 16 million Americans are living with smoking-related...
Ecuador tops all Latin America countries for the highest rate of digital piracy, according to the internet monitoring company Origin. The company’s survey found that 65% of Ecuadorian households with fixed internet service access pirated content. According to Origin,...
