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Work began this week to turn Cuenca’s garbage into electricity. It is the first project of its kind in Ecuador. The city of Cuenca will drill 26 wells during the first phase of the project to capture biogases generated from waste in the city landfill at...
A preliminary audit of Coopera confirms what government investigators have suspected since taking control of the Cuenca-based financial cooperative in June: the coop had been losing money. Comparing assets on hand with expenses, auditors announced that Coopera...
Ecuador’s finance minister Fausto Herrera has presented the National Assembly with a proposed budget of $32.3 billion for the second half of 2013. He says it will mean a $5 billion deficit. Herrera says the deficit will be covered in part by a $1.4 billion from...
Ecuador’s Consejo Nacional Electoral, or CNE, has published the official rules for foreigners living in Ecuador who want to vote in the February 2014 local elections. Any foreigner 16 years of age or older who has lived in Ecuador for five years or more is...
The final contracts for construction of Cuenca’s light rail system, Tranvia de Los Cuatros Rios, have been signed. Cuenca mayor Paul Granda said construction would begin in August. The signings had been delayed for four months due to technical problems, Granda said....
When Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa brought up the subject of the Isaias brothers in a phone conversation last week with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Biden said he had never heard of the brothers but would look into the matter. Biden had phoned Correa to make a...
Work on the Eloy Alfaro Pacific Refinery will be completed in 2017 and be operational by the end of that year, according to President Rafael Correa. The refinery and petrochemical plant will be Ecuador’s first facility for processing crude oil into petroleum...
A representative of a group of Coopera investors says the government has provided inadequate information about the liquidation process of the Cuenca-based savings cooperative. Attorney Gustavo Quito, speaking for a group of account holders with investments of more...
Ecuador is not currently considering Edward Snowden's asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong, president Rafael Correa said as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito for his case to be heard. Snowden was Russia's...
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden called Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and asked him to reject the asylum plea of Edward Snowden, the fugitive NSA-leaker. During his regular Saturday television program, Correa said the conversation was “polite” and that Biden had...
Although some account holders of the Cuenca financial cooperative Coopera can begin withdrawing funds this week, there is new uncertainty about the repayment schedule and repayment amounts for accounts of more thant $10,000. Coopera, or Coopertiva de Ahorro y Credito,...
Editor's note: Adapting to life in Ecuador is an on-going topic of conversation among North American expats. Yolanda Reinoso Barzallo turns the tables and tells the story of being an Ecuadorian living in the Middle East and the U.S. She is a native of Cuenca and the...
Ecuador has renounced its trade preferences with the United States, saying it will not be "blackmailed." In a Thursday morning press conference, communication secretary Fernando Alvarado announced that Ecuador would "unilaterally" renounce...
Ecuador has decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and four other drugs. The move, which was expected, came last week when the National Council of Control of Narcotic and Psychotropic Drugs (CONSEP) published a table of drug possession limits. The...
By William Neuman and Mark Landler President Rafael Correa has more than just the ire of United States to consider as he weighs an asylum request from Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive intelligence contractor trying to dodge American authorities. Mr. Correa has some...
Deke Castleman and David Morrill describe their new book, Expats in Ecuador: Learning Spanish, as “a book for expats, written by expats.” “There are literally hundreds of books that teach you Spanish,” says Castleman. “What we did is write a book specifically for...
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor currently trying to evade a U.S. arrest warrant, has applied for political asylum in Ecuador, a South American republic best known internationally for its dominion over the Galapagos Islands and many years of relative...
Editor’s note: The following is a critique of Ecuador's new communications law by the Knight Foundation’s Journalism in America blog. It reviews the components of the law, with personal commentary from Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator in the Americas for the...
By Kathleen Peddicord Editor’s note: Prospective expats scouting countries and cities hear often these days about Cuenca and Medellin, Colombia as two of the hottest South American expat destinations. Kathleen Peddicord, publisher of Live and Invest Overseas, and the...
Bus traffic in Cuenca’s historic district is about to take a major hit. According to the Cuenca Municipal Transit Authority, two new bus transfer stations, one at Terminal Terrestre on Av. Espana and a second at El Arenal, near Fiera Libre, on Av. Las Americas West,...
