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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...
Cuenca Mayor Marcelo Cabrera described the first two months of his administration last week, saying that the tram project and taxi meter issues have dominated his agenda. Cabrera said that final tram construction details will worked out after a team from UNESCO visits...
By Jim Wyss It’s the year 2043 and this burgeoning city of 100,000 is a high-tech Mecca. Using rare plants from the Amazon, university researchers have cured many diseases; factories churn out nano-sponges that soak up oil spills around the world; local software...
Acknowledging consumer confusion, the government is stepping up its campagin to encourage Ecuadorians to switch from gas to electric cooktops. The Ministry of Energy is posting graphics on its website showing the energy savings of cooking with electricity instead of...
By Ben Casselman In 1994, California Governor Pete Wilson aired television ads showing people scrambling across the Mexican border near San Diego. “The rules are being broken,” a narrator intoned. “Pete Wilson has had the courage to say enough is enough.” Wilson, who...
By Jim Wyss Franklin D. Roosevelt had it, so did Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and so does Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Could Ecuador’s Rafael Correa be the next president to win the right to consecutive and indefinite reelection? That’s the question the country’s...
By Michael Corkery As government regulators crack down on the financing of terrorists and drug traffickers, many big banks are abandoning the business of transferring money from the United States to other countries, moves that are expected to reverse years of declines...
By Emma Weissmann For the Kichwa people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, teatime isn't an afternoon tradition that pairs dainty finger sandwiches with porcelain cups. Instead, it begins at 3 a.m., when members of this indigenous community gather around a fire and brew...
Ecuador can pursue a lawsuit seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars the country claims was fraudulently drained by the owners of Filanbanco SA who subsequently fled the country to live to Miami, a Florida appeals court ruled. Today’s ruling overturns a...
For Colombia this week, two worlds collide. Its captivating side -- led by the tournament's star man James Rodriguez -- is preparing for its first ever World Cup quarterfinal on Friday, hinting at a future full of promise. But that glamor tie against hosts Brazil also...
Jilted by the Cuenca city council, Leonardo Berrezueta has been appointed Azuay provincial governor by President Rafael Correa. It appeared that Berrezueta was in line to be Cuenca vice mayor but the defection of two Alianza País councilwomen denied him the office....
Banana exports top 100 million boxes for first time According to a report from Ecuador’s Association of Banana Exporters, the country exported a record of 102,799,334 boxes of bananas in 2013. In 2012, 93,728,011 boxes were exported. The association says...
Latin America is in a better position to face the effects of the climatic event El Niño, forecast for this year, than on previous occasions due to fiscal improvements in many of the region's economies over the last decade, said Moody's Financial Service in a report....
