US Southern Command said joint mission with Ecuadorian forces involves ‘decisive action’ against narco-terrorists
US and Ecuadorian forces have launched joint operations to combat drug trafficking, the US Southern Command said on Tuesday, but neither side gave more details.
Southern Command, which encompasses 31 countries through South and Central America and the Caribbean, said in a statement on X that the “decisive action” was aimed at combating illicit drug trafficking.
Continue reading...Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants
Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.
The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.
Continue reading...Releasing them from US custody evades thorny legal issues regarding military detention of suspected drug smugglers
The Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday’s strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.
The source, who like the US officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador.
Continue reading...Critics say referendum on rewriting country’s eco-friendly constitution is president’s latest pro-extractivist move
Indigenous and environmental leaders in Ecuador say they are facing a wave of state intimidation ahead of a national referendum next month on whether to rewrite the world’s only constitution that recognises the rights of nature.
The pressure is being applied by the rightwing president, Daniel Noboa, who has begun his second term with a Trumpian agenda of consolidating power and sweeping away legal and social barriers to extractivist businesses, such as mining.
Continue reading...Three Peruvians and two Colombians missing since setting sail from Peru in March arrive in Galápagos Islands
Five fishers who spent 55 days adrift at sea arrived on Saturday at a port in the Galápagos after being rescued by a tuna boat, the Ecuadorian navy said on X.
The three Peruvians and two Colombians had been missing since mid-March and were found on 7 May by an Ecuadorian boat called Aldo.
Continue reading...Verónica Abad claims Daniel Noboa, her former running mate, used state power to tilt the vote
Ecuador’s vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused the country’s president – her former running mate Daniel Noboa – of “violating the democratic code” by using the state apparatus to gain an advantage over the other candidates in the country’s runoff election.
In Sunday’s vote, the rightwing incumbent defeated the leftist Luisa González by a considerable margin after narrowly beating her in the first round.
Although Abad said she did not support the opposition’s claim that electoral fraud occurred during the vote, she argued that the election was unfair because Noboa refused to step down from office while running – as required by the constitution.
Continue reading...Noboa made armed forces central, initially leading to drop in crime but also to surge in reports of rights violations
In an election seen as a referendum on his “war on drugs”, Ecuador’s rightwing president, Daniel Noboa, won Sunday’s presidential runoff, defeating the leftist candidate Luisa González.
With 97% of ballots counted, the incumbent had secured 55.65% of the vote, compared with 44.35% for the former congresswoman.
Continue reading...Leftwing challenger Luisa González in statistical tie with President Daniel Noboa who champions ‘iron fist’ policy
Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday in a vote seen as a referendum on a “war on drugs” offensive that has led to numerous human rights violations, as the incumbent Daniel Noboa faces the leftist Luisa González in a tightly contested runoff.
Noboa, 37, edged out González, 47, in the first round in February by just 16,746 votes (0.17%) from a 13.7 million electorate.
Continue reading...Daniel Noboa, who is seeking re-election, announced the partnership with Erik Prince, a supporter of Donald Trump
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has announced a “strategic alliance” with the Donald Trump-supporting founder of the private military firm Blackwater to supposedly reinforce his controversial “war” on crime.
Noboa, the rightwing heir to a South American banana empire, announced the partnership with Erik Prince on social media on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...Daniel Noboa fails to achieve anticipated victory over leftist rival Luisa González, forcing them to repeat 2023’s election
Ecuador’s conservative president, Daniel Noboa, will face the leftist former congresswoman Luisa González in an election runoff on 13 April after a better than expected first-round performance by his challenger.
With more than 92% of the ballot boxes counted, Noboa was on 44.31%, just ahead of González, with a difference of only 45,000 votes in an electorate of 13.7 million registered voters.
Continue reading...Voters who have become victims of crime wave linked to cocaine trade will determine outcome of presidential election
Ecuadorians are voting in a presidential election that has shaped up to be a repeat of the 2023 race, when they chose a young, conservative millionaire over the former leftist president’s protege.
Luisa González and the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, are the clear frontrunners in the pool of 16 candidates. All have promised to reduce the widespread crime that pushed the country into an unnerving new normal four years ago.
Continue reading...Beatification ceremony for Clare Crockett, former party girl from Derry, draws more than 100 people to Madrid
A nun from Northern Ireland who was killed in an earthquake while she was teaching music in Ecuador has taken a step closer to sainthood.
A ceremony on Sunday afternoon started the process of beatification for Clare Crockett, who died in Portoviejo, Ecuador during an earthquake in April 2016. The 33-year-old had been working in the country as part of her work as a nun, which had also taken in placements in Spain and the US.
Continue reading...Sixteen air force personnel who apprehended boys being held in custody as inquiry into deaths continues
Ecuador’s attorney general’s office has confirmed that incinerated bodies found on Christmas Eve belong to the four children missing since early December, in a case posing a severe challenge to President Daniel Noboa’s “war on drugs”.
The four boys – all black, aged between 11 and 15, and residents of Las Malvinas, a poor area in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil – were returning from a football game on 8 December when they were apprehended by 16 air force soldiers.
Continue reading...Protests have erupted nationwide after disappearance of boys not seen since they were approached by soldiers
The disappearance of four boys in Ecuador after they came into contact with the armed forces is posing a severe challenge to President Daniel Noboa’s “war on drugs”.
The four – all black, aged between 11 and 15, and residents of Las Malvinas, a poor area in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil – were returning from a football game near their homes on 8 December when 16 air force soldiers approached them.
Continue reading...Petition to Ecuador’s copyright office is first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship
A forest in Ecuador could be recognised as the co-creator of a song under a groundbreaking legal proposal.
A petition is to be submitted to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognise the Los Cedros cloud forest as the co-creator of the composition Song of the Cedars. The action by the More Than Human Life (Moth) project is the first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art.
Continue reading...Villavicencio was killed last year and a man and woman, described as instigators, have each been sentenced to more than 34 years in prison
Five people have been jailed over the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was killed by gunmen on motorcycles last year.
Villavicencio, 59, was a former journalist and killed on 9 August as he left a school in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, after a campaign rally. Thirteen people were injured.
Continue reading...Ruling, based on constitutional rights for natural features like Quito’s Machángara River, appealed by government
A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.
The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.
Continue reading...Power was restored on Wednesday afternoon, after the outage caused confusion on the streets of Quito as traffic lights ceased working
Power was nearly fully restored in Ecuador, hours after a nationwide electricity outage left the country of about 18 million in the dark, including the capital’s subway system.
Public works minister Roberto Luque said in a post on X that 95% of service had been restored by late Wednesday afternoon.
Continue reading...Eight tonnes of cocaine seized and 40 people arrested after four-year investigation led by Spain’s Guardia Civil
• How big is Europe’s cocaine problem – and what is the human cost?
Forty people have been arrested and eight tonnes of cocaine have been seized as a result of a four-year international police operation targeting a criminal network that trafficked large quantities of the drug from South America to Europe via west Africa and the Canary Islands.
The long-running investigation – which was led by Spain’s Guardia Civil force and coordinated by Europol’s operational taskforce – discovered that a Balkan cartel was using logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canaries to smuggle cocaine from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador into EU countries.
Continue reading...Sweeping security measures designed to empower police and armed forces against organised crime
Ecuadoreans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on a raft of unprecedented security measures designed to empower the police and armed forces in the fight against spiralling violence and organised crime.
Voters must accept or reject 11 questions, mostly about security, in the plebiscite, which is being seen as a test of support for Ecuador’s popular young president. Daniel Noboa who took office in November on the pledge to combat the surge in violent crime, put forward the poll to push through proposals to retake control of prisons and tame soaring homicide rates.
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