Ecuador News

The magnitude of the weekend floods in Esmeraldas continues to grow as more rain fell on the area Tuesday. “This is a disaster of almost unimaginable dimensions, affecting thousands and thousands of families,” President Guillermo Lasso said Monday following a helicopter fly-over of flooded communities. Lasso said that “all government resources” would be used to...

National Court Judge Mauricio Espinoza has denied the request of prosecutors to order preventive detention of former president Lenin Moreno and his wife Rocío González in the Sinohydro corruption case. He also ruled that ordering Moreno to report monthly to a Quito court is unreasonable. Instead, Espinoza ordered Moreno and González to appear during the...

In what could be a preview of the new El Niño weather phenomenon, more than 500 people were evacuated from their homes in northern Ecuador on Sunday. Although no one was reported dead or missing, many homes are feared damaged beyond repair. Dozens of residents climbed onto the rooftops or balconies of their homes to...

Neither President Guillermo Lasso or Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) President Leonidas Iza will be candidates for president in the cross death election. Both made announcements Friday, ending speculation about their political futures. Although Lasso said he would not be a candidate when he announced the cross death two weeks ago, he since then hinted...

In a survey of 4,000 poor and vulnerable families living in and near Quito, almost 20% of school-aged children were found not to be attending classes. Parents and custodians told Ecuador’s Secretariat of Inclusion that the children were needed to work to support their families. “Although the study focus is on Quito, its findings almost...

By Liam Higgins Internal disputes among the indigenous movement’s major social and political organizations is threatening to reduce its effectiveness in the coming cross death elections. Less than year after the movement mounted a powerful national strike that forced major concessions from the government, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) and the political party, Pachakutik,...

By Eduardo Campos Lima Catholic Church activists from the province of Orellana in the Ecuadorian Amazon have been staging weekly protests since February against mining and oil exploitation in the rainforest. Protesters say extraction activities are contaminating the local rivers, soil and atmosphere and are linked to dozens of cases of cancer in the region....

On May 11, Ecuador and China officially signed a free trade agreement that aims to boost bilateral trade, including that in the agricultural sector. The deal was signed by Ecuador’s Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries Julio José Prado and China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao during a video conference after a year...