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In a television interview with Teleamazonas, Cuenca Mayor Paul Granda says the city is building a transportation system he believes will be a model for all of Latin America. At the heart of the system, says Granda, is the quarter-billion dollar light rail system, or...
By Jim Wyss Waving away a cloud of gnats, biologist Phyllis “Lissy” Coley scours the Amazonian underbrush for inga shrubs, whose young leaves are loaded with powerful toxins and chemicals that might be useful in medical research. Coley and her team from the University...
President Rafael Correa announced Saturday that the government will end subsidies for LP gas by 2016, when new hydro electric projects go online. He said that consumers will be encouraged to replace gas hot water heaters, stoves, clothes dryers and other gas...
Construction of Cuenca’s new planetarium on the south side of Parque de la Madre should be complete by early October but officials have not set an opening date for the facility. The planetarium, designed in the shape of the planet Saturn, complete with the ring, will...
President Rafael Correa used the bully pulpit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) summit to warn of what he called “infantile environmentalism” that puts the needs of people below those of nature. Observers said Correa’s intention had more to do with...
The U.S. Congress allowed the Andean Trade Preference agreement with Ecuador to expire on Wednesday. Ecuador, which angered U.S. lawmakers by flirting with offering asylum to former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, has received duty-free treatment for many...
Ecuador’s national police say that crime is dropping in Cuenca. According to a police “security index” of Ecuadorian towns and cities, the city's overall crime rate has declined 21% in the last four years. Within recent months, Cuenca has put 250 traffic police on...
In a new survey of religious preference, Cuenca was the least Catholic of all cities in Ecuador with a population of more than 100,000. The survey, conducted by the Ecuadorian Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), which questioned 13,211 people over the age of 16...
Sent to a center offering to "cure" her attraction to women, Denisse Freire was raped and tortured, a practice Ecuadoran authorities admit has been tolerated for too long. The country of 14.8 million people, known for its liberal policies toward gays and lesbians, has...
Tucked away in the deep south of the Ecuadorian Andes, Vilcabamba is a place steeped in legend. It is also a place steeped in copious quantities of misinformation and general weirdness. It has been called the "Valley of Longevity" for claims of its large population of...
The Interprovincial Transportation cooperative (UTIPA) says it will begin offering express bus service between Cuenca and Guayaquil. Currently, all the buses on the route make frequent stops between the cities to pick up and drop off passengers. UTIPA says it making...
Ecuador’s civil aviation authority continues to re-route flights between Quito, Cuenca and Guayaquil to avoid the Tungurahua volcano smoke plume. The plume of ash, smoke and steam, rises almost five kilometers above the 16,000 foot volanco. Flight routes have been...
Officers of the National Traffic Authority (NTA) have impounded 22 vans entering and leaving Cuenca that they say were operating illigal passenger service to Guayaquil, Machala and Loja. During the crackdown, which began on Sunday, dozens of van passengers, most of...
Cuenca’s Mariscal La Mar Airport reports a 7% drop in air passengers since Quito’s new airport in Tababela opened in March. Chief of aviation operations in Cuenca, Juan Ignacio Ordóñez, says that about 17,000 passengers a month have used the airport since March,...
Announcing a plan to hire more than 5,500 Spanish teachers and professors, Ecuador is making its first move to fulfill President Rafael Correa’s pledge to rebuild the country’s public education system from kindergarten to the university levels. The plan is sure to...
Ecuador’s government is quietly preparing for trouble in the jungle. As the country auctions several tracts of land for oil exploration and negotiates minining rights with foreign companies, indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Oriente are organizing to oppose what they...
Following pressure from bus companies and bus drivers, Cuenca traffic officers are again stopping tourist vans headed in and out of town for Guayaquil, Machala and Loja. Officers are checking van registration and credentials to determine that they are being used for...
As foreign investors in the failed financial cooperative Coopera maneuver to protect their interests, some Ecuadorian investors say they want to make sure that the foreigners, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, do not receive special treatment. Coopera, or Cooperativa...
While volcanic activity has remained constant at Tungurahua in the central highlands near Ambato, scientists say lava flow and ash and gas emissions have intensified at a second volcano, Reventador, 60 miles east of Quito. Ecuador's Geophysics Institute says the lava...
Editor's note: Ecuador ambassador to the United States, Nathalie Cely, responded on the weekend to recent news commentary critical of Ecuador for its asylum consideration for intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. Her response appeared in a number of newspapers and...
