Opinions

By Jeff Abbott Mexico has severed diplomatic relations with Ecuador after heavily armed police raided the country’s embassy, in a direct violation of international norms. Late in the evening on April 7, police entered the Mexican embassy in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had requested political asylum in...

By Genevieve Glatsky Ecuador’s decision to send police officers into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a politician who had taken refuge there inflamed tensions between two countries that were already at odds, but it may prove a political boon for the Ecuadorian president. President Daniel Noboa has been faced with flagging approval ratings amid rising...

By Surita Sandosham The Covid-19 pandemic, protests by indigenous groups and El Niño flooding have landed devastating blows to poor Ecuadorians who live in precarious situations. Add to these, the disruptions of recent drug gang violence affecting some areas of the country and it is easy to see the difficulty faced by those at the bottom...

By Garry Vatcher When I was just a little boy, a long, long time ago, my mother was really worried about a loan payment that was due. My father worked away from home and he called to say he had to work overtime and it would be a few days before he would be back...

By Gabriela Barzallo  “In a’ingae, my native language, the words oil, contamination, and cancer did not exist until Texaco arrived on our lands,” says Don Arturo, an elder among the A’i Kofán Siangoé people, one of Ecuador’s 11 Amazonian communities. The A’i Kofán worldview is based on an intimate relationship with nature and its environment,...

By Matthew Bristow and Stephan Kueffner It’s the kind of opportunity most leaders can hardly fathom: voters rallying behind a government that is raising taxes, clearing the way for more oil drilling and planning to slash fuel subsidies. Ecuador’s 36-year-old President Daniel Noboa is overhauling the nation’s economic model in a way that would likely...