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President Rafael Correa said Wednesday that Washington has too many military officers assigned to its embassy in Ecuador and he plans to order some to leave. Correa, a U.S.-educated economist who calls himself a "modern leftist," made the remarks during a meeting with...
Attorneys for unreimbursed Coopera members say they are ready to file legal action against the government for poor oversight of the Cuenca-based financial cooperative. Coopera was closed by the government last June when top management and several board members were...
Quito Deputy Mayor Jorge Albán announced Tuesday an ambitious plan to construct a cable car system conntecting Quito and the new airport in Tababela. Albán calls the project a private – public partnership but offered few details about how the financial arrangement...
The Catholic church says it hopes to begin making roof and ceiling repairs to the cathedral. Curia Vice Chancellor Rigoberto Jara said he is working on raising the funds for the work and says he will seek money from both the church and the public. A study by the...
Cuenca tile manufacturers are complaining about the quality of imported floor and decorative tile as well as what they consider unfair competition from foreign manufacturers. According to Gustavo Palacios, vice president of the Ceramic Center, national tile imports...
Ecuador, where the fatty beans used to make chocolate have been grown since pre-Columbian times, is surpassing Brazil as Latin America’s top cocoa producer after boosting planting and running education programs for farmers. Cocoa-bean output rose 13 percent last year...
President Rafael Correa has confirmed that he won't seek re-election when his current term ends in 2017. The government-run newspaper El Telegrafo quoted Correa as saying that it “is dangerous when one person considers himself to be indispensable.” In 2013, in a media...
Seven months after it suspended flights between Cuenca and Guayaquil and three months after it suspended Quito to Loja service, the Cuenca-based Linea Aerea Cuencana (LAC) says it will resume service in March. In a major change, however, it said it will fly into and...
Ecuador’s Social Security administration, Instituto Ecuatoriano de Seguridad Social (IESS), is reviewing the terms of expanded voluntary membership in its health care program. A spokesman for the agency said, however, that any adjustments will not affect the...
Through mid-January, more than 25,000 have visited the new planetarium that opened in November in Parque de la Madre, according to educational director Paúl Tenesaca. Most of the visitors have been school children who observe stars and planets on the planetarium’s...
By Jim Wyss Two days after Christmas, masked and armed police raided the home of Fernando Villavicencio in the predawn hours, hauling away a lifetime of data and documents. Hours later, President Rafael Correa said Villavicencio — an opposition adviser who also writes...
The the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) has chosen Cuenca and Azuay Province for a pilot project using electronic voting machines. The machines will be used for the first time in the Feb. 23 provincial and municiapl elections. CNE plans to shift the entire...
Foreign tourists are staying longer in Cuenca, according to the city’s Municipal Tourism Foundation. A 2010 survey showed the average tourist stay was one day while the latest survey shows stays have increased to three days. According to Felipe Cardoso, spokesman for...
By William K. Black Editor’s note: This is a response to an earlier Wall Street Journal article by By David Luhnow. That article (“A divided Latin America faces an uncertain future; Pacific rim countries grow while Atlantic coast countries struggle”) was posted in...
Liquidator for the failed financial cooperative Coopera, Diego Aguilar, is seeking bids on several Coopera properties. Proceeds from the sales will go to settle debts to creditors and to compensate some of the coop members who have not be reimbursed, Aguilar said....
Cuenca’s new light rail system, Tranvia de los Cuatro Rios, has become a focus of the city’s mayoral campaign. Former Cuenca Mayor Marcelo Cabrera claims that businesses along the train route have not received adequate notice of construction plans and that their...
By James McKeigue In his book Basta de Historias! (Enough of the Stories!) Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer complains that Latin America’s endless glorification of past freedom fighters and early state-builders prevents the region from looking to the future....
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has unveiled the country’s first domestically made unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone is designed to help the country fight drug traffic and will also be for sale in South America, costing a fraction of its popular Israeli equivalent....
By Gideon Long For generations, the countries of Latin America have relied on the export of raw materials for their wealth. From Venezuela's oil, to copper from Chile, Argentinean soybeans, bananas from Ecuador, Mexican silver, and timber from Brazil -- the vast...
Complaints from shoppers have prompted the city’s Citizen Guard to investigate conditions of caged animals at the Feria Libre market. The animals, including dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens and cuys, are often kept in cramped metal mesh cages in unsanitary conditions....
