Posts:
There’s good news for Ecuador air travelers. With the opening of a new four-lane highway, the drive time from Quito to the new Mariscal Sucre Airport at Tababela has been cut almost in half. A poll of drivers taking the new Collas-Tababela route say it took between 36...
Ecuador’s poverty rate has dropped by 12% since 2006 according to Ecuador’s Ministry of Planning and Development. The ministry also reports that Cuenca has the lowest poverty rate among the country’s municipalities. According to Pabel Muñoz, planning and development...
Ecuador's 2013 communications law should be used as a basis for the rest of the region, as it would "strengthen democracy, solidarity, culture and identity," says national assembly member Octavio Villacreces. The communication law, pushed by President Rafael Correa,...
A few details of the new trade agreement between Ecuador and the European Union are beginning to leak out and they point to lower costs on a number imports from Europe, including liquor and cars. Although President Rafael Correa has gone to great lengths to claim the...
The first phase of the project to renovate Cuenca's San Francisco Plaza is underway as workers prepare the Passage León building on Presidente Cordova for reconstruction. The building, which features a large glass-roofed foyer, belonged to bank that failed 14 years...
Bananas are the most important export commodity for Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize, and they're one of the top three exports in Colombia, the Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, and Cameroon. The global banana industry, once bountiful with the popular fruits,...
By Nathan Gill Ecuador’s National Assembly approved a new law today that allows the government to create its own parallel currency for use in local transactions as the government struggles to meet spending commitments. Congress voted 91-22 to approve President...
After announcing that it would begin charging a $42 tax on small packages shipped from overseas, the government is sending mixed messages about exemptions of the tax. The tax would affect shipments of less than four kilos, part of the country's 4x4 package plan (four...
China is making a strong move to bolster its rapidly expanding influence in Latin America as with President Xi Jinping continues his visits to countries in the region. On Monday night, Xi arrived in Havana on the last leg of his marathon trip, following a visit to...
By Anne Z. Cooke A pint-sized dish of cevichocho, served on the street in Otavalo, sparked an aha! moment that caught me unawares. By the time the three of us parked near the town’s famous craft market, lunch time had come and gone. Heading down the block we passed a...
In the wake of the World Cup, just when interest in football is at a fevered pitch, the Ecuadorian Football Players’ Association is calling a strike to collect back pay. According to association vice president Edwin Tenorio, the strike begins at midnight on Wednesday....
According to Human Rights Watch, more than a 100 countries impose restrictions on Internet use, particularly on blogs and such social media outlets as Twitter and Facebook. The restrictions, they say, are almost always politically motivated and more countries appear...
Although President Rafael Correa says Ecuador would never enter into free trade agreements with other countries, opposition politicians say the agreement reached Thursday with the European Union looks a lot like the one the EU signed six years ago with Peru and...
By Margaret Zeigler and Ginya Truitt Nakata Population growth and dramatic diet changes are placing agriculture and the natural resource base under great stress worldwide. As the largest net food exporting region on the planet, Latin America and the Caribbean appears...
By Ramiro Crespo A year after Ecuador passed its controversial media law, the Ley Orgánica de Comunicación (LOC), most of the fears that it provoked as a potential instrument of repression have come true. Freedom House, a U.S. non-governmental organization that...
Ecuador, the world’s top banana exporter, and the European Union reached a long-delayed trade agreement, the Ecuadorian Minister of Trade Francisco Rivadeneira said on Thursday. “Ecuador has completed negotiations with the European Union to join the...
Planning continues on the three-year-old project to open the alley to the north of Cuenca’s cathedral to crafts shops, art galleries and cafés. The entrance to the alley, to the left of the Raymipampa Restaurant, has been bricked shut for more than a century. The...
By Nicole Akoukou Thompson Dead Guatemalan women are being dumped in alleyways, dropped by the roadside, and deserted in parks, bodies bound by trash bags, plastic blankets, or left bare for the world to see, abandoned by the wayside like discarded trash. Guatemala...
Following last week’s announcement that Cuenca’s tram project is five to six months behind schedule, Mayor Marcelo Cabrera says that the number of workers on the project will be increased and work hours will be extended in an effort to make up lost time. Cabrera...
By Robert Wood America is a great land and lures immigrants worldwide, yet record numbers of U.S. citizens and permanent residents are giving up their citizenship or residency. For all the immigrant arrivals the trickle the other direction is increasing. The number is...
