Opinions

By Megan McArdle In 2015, El Salvador was the world’s murder capital, with 107 homicides per 100,000 people — as if one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods was a country unto itself. Since then, homicide in El Salvador has fallen so far, so fast that it looks comparable to the United States’ rate and may still […]

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By Tyler Colman Italy’s Agriculture Ministry announced recently that some wines that receive the government’s quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes. That’s right, Italian wine is going green, and for some connoisseurs, the sky might as well be falling. But the sky isn’t falling. Wine in a box makes sense environmentally and […]

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By Carol E. Leutner On my most recent trip to see my family in Washington, D.C., I finally had time to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  Opened in 2016, it is the most visited of all of the Smithsonian’s 19 museums.  The museum follows classical Greco-Roman design with a base […]

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By Danel Kalder Of all the grim futures on offer today, climate change is unquestionably the doomsday scenario that weighs most heavily on the minds of the most people. Despite the raging hype that AI might one day turn against its creator, no protestor has yet glued himself to a JMW Turner painting to demand […]

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By Arturo McFields  A new wave of immigration is knocking on the doors of the U.S., despite the reduction experienced this summer after the end of Title 42 and the new Biden immigration policy. Detentions on the border with Mexico increased by 30 percent in July, from 99,545 to 130,000. This month, the figure could […]

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By the Financial Times Editorial Board Latin America’s turbulent politics often hit the headlines. Less well reported is that the region has enjoyed a long and broad democratic expansion over the past 35 years. Nowhere else in the developing world are free elections so well entrenched. Most of Latin America’s serving presidents were chosen at […]

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How does a presidential candidate go from 5% in the polls to almost 24% at the ballot box in 10 days? How does another drop from 15% to 4% in the same period? How is it that the leaders of National Assembly and of the movement to impeach President Guillermo Lasso failed to be reelected? […]

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By Pablo Ferri No other country handles such a high ratio of tons of cocaine per capita as Ecuador. The South American nation, a hinge between the two major coca leaf producers in world, Colombia and Peru, has become logistical platform for large transnational criminal organizations over the past 15 years. Among these, the Sinaloa […]

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By Florantonia Singer  A few weeks ago, social media users celebrated the fact that the traditional cachapa — a corn cake cooked on a budare [griddle] and stuffed with fresh cheese — had triumphed in MasterChef Australia. This comfort food was prepared by a Venezuelan contestant, one of the seven million who have left the […]

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By Carlos Maldonado At the beginning of July, the government of El Salvador activated its diplomatic machinery to stop the presentation of a work at the International Book Fair of Guatemala, the largest literary event in Central America. Populist President Nayib Bukele’s officials demanded that the collection of stories — Sustancia de hígado [Liver Substance], […]

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By David Morrill and Deke Castleman What do expats — especially those from the U.S. — think about using the U.S. dollar in Ecuador? Not much, frankly, although it’s hard to deny that it makes life easier. We don’t have to worry about exchange rates or go through the hassle of trading dollars for a […]

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On the spring of 1974, at the tender age of 21, I had my first encounter with “the light.” This encounter came in the form of a Voice which informed me with great authority that I was to radically change the course of my young life. My willingness to follow this “divine guidance” would set […]

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The Cuenca Dispatch

Week of September 24.

Financial ‘Stress-test’ Highlights Weaknesses in Ecuador’s Private Banks
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Ecuador Has One of the Weakest Passports in Latin America
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Cuenca’s Tram Celebrates 3-Year Anniversary Without System Integration or Funding Solutions
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