Only 15 giant Española tortoises were left in the wild before one male sired 800 offspring in a wildly successful breeding program
The Galápagos National Park has announced it is ending a captive breeding program for giant Española tortoises, after one tortoise produced more than 800 offspring, helping save the species.
Related: Giant tortoise believed extinct for 100 years found in Galápagos
Continue reading...A barge carrying 2,000 litres of diesel has sunk at a dock on San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos archipelago. The incident occurred as workers attempted to load a container on a barge with the crane and both somehow tipped, destabilising the vessel which turned on its side. Barge workers began to jump into the water to escape the sinking vessel. A clean-up operation has begun and environmental impact is unclear
Continue reading...From Chile to Ecuador and Bolivia to Haiti police and protesters are clashing on the streets, but what are the common threads and will they lead to change?
Tanks on the streets in Chile. Barricades and bloodshed in Bolivia. Weeks of unrest that have pushed Haiti to the brink and forced Ecuador’s president to relocate his government.
“This is a social revolution,” said Andrea Lyn, a 61-year-old actor who took to the streets of Santiago this week. “It is us saying: ‘No more’.”
Continue reading...Demonstrators in capital Quito attack television station and national government buildings
President Lenín Moreno ordered the army on to the streets of Ecuador’s capital Quito after a week and a half of protests over fuel prices devolved into violent incidents, with masked protesters attacking a television station, newspaper and the national auditor’s office.
Moreno said the military enforced curfew would begin at 3pm local time in response to violence in areas previously untouched by the protests. Masked protesters broke into the national auditor’s office and set it ablaze, sending black smoke billowing across the central Quito park and cultural complex that have been the epicentre of the protests.
Continue reading...Protesters in Ecuador are continuing to demand president Lenín Moreno step down with violent clashes continuing for a second week. Demonstrators attempted to storm the presidential palace in Quito while a counter protest in Guayaquil called for an end to the violence
Continue reading...Security forces fired teargas to break up hundreds of protesters marching in Quito against president’s austerity measures
Ecuador has been paralyzed by a national strike as the president, Lenín Moreno, refused to step down or overturn austerity measures that have triggered the worst unrest in a decade.
Streets were empty of traffic and businesses were closed from early in Quito and other cities during the shutdown, in Latin America’s latest flare-up over unpopular structural reforms.
Continue reading...Masked and stick-wielding protesters hurled stones and battled with security forces, who responded with tear gas
Thousands of indigenous protesters have converged on Ecuador’s capital after anti-government demonstrations and clashes prompted the president to move his besieged administration out of Quito.
On Tuesday afternoon, one group of protesters burst through security lines and briefly surged into the country’s National Assembly, before they were forced out by police firing tear gas. The legislature was not sitting at the time.
Continue reading...Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, has moved his government from the capital in Quito to the port city of Guayaquil amid violent protests over the end of fuel subsidies. Images from Quito showed protesters hurling petrol bombs and stones as well as setting up barricades with burning tyres and branches. There have also been clashes with police since the unrest erupted last week.
The president faces anger from indigenous groups and others who blocked some roads including a main highway into the capital
Continue reading...Protesters in Quito throw petrol bombs and ransack public buildings in fuel subsidy demonstrations
Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, has said he has moved his government from the capital in Quito to the coastal city of Guayaquil amid violent protests over the end of fuel subsidies.
Images from Quito showed protesters hurling petrol bombs and stones, ransacking and vandalising public buildings as well as clashing with the police in running battles late into the night.
Continue reading...Measure to eliminate fuel subsidies sparks worst unrest in years, resulting in 477 arrests
Indigenous protesters have paralyzed roads around Ecuador and blocked a main highway into the capital in a fifth day of action against government austerity measures that have sparked the worst unrest in years, resulting in 477 arrests.
The umbrella indigenous organization CONAIE said demonstrations would continue until President Lenin Moreno withdraws last week’s measure to eliminate fuel subsidies.
Continue reading...Police in Quito have used teargas and horses to quell a violent protest over rising fuel prices, which triggered transport disruption nationwide. Taxi, bus and truck drivers blocked the streets during the demonstration, which was supported by indigenous groups, students and trade union members.
Ecuadorians were angered by President Lenín Moreno's decision to end subsidies for fuel after 40 years. Diesel and petrol prices are expected to more than double
Continue reading...Pro-choice activists say decision is a death sentence, after illegal abortions resulted in 15.6% of maternal deaths in 2014
Clashes have erupted between pro-choice demonstrators and police outside Ecuador’s national assembly after lawmakers rejected a bill which would decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.
Abortion is illegal in Ecuador except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, or if the pregnancy is the result of the rape of a woman with mental disabilities.
Continue reading...The fund browbeats poor countries into accepting neoliberal measures that exacerbate inequality and economic distress
When people think of the damage that wealthy countries – typically led by the US and its allies – cause to people in the rest of the world, they probably think of warfare. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from the 2003 invasion, and then many more as the region became inflamed.
Related: Brexit: EU ‘would block trade deal if Britain reneged on bill’
Continue reading...When Carolina’s body was found on wasteland in Ecuador’s capital, her mother, Amanda, did not believe she died of natural causes. Her investigation has now led to a conviction
Amanda* makes pastries to sell around the streets of Quito, she is not a detective. But the day after she buried her youngest daughter she “started to move” to track down those responsible.
Carolina Andrango had promised her mother she would not run away again. The 15-year-old had been through a difficult two years. She had fallen in with a bad crowd, her school grades had dropped and she had spent time in a drug rehabilitation clinic. She’d gone missing from home for days at a time. But on a shopping trip in August, it felt like happier times. Her mother bought her a new backpack and Carolina fooled about with her older sister, making a video on her phone.
Continue reading...Political row sparked after government gave US permission to use island for anti-narcotics flights
The Galápagos Islands are at the centre of political row in Ecuador after the government agreed to allow US anti-narcotics planes to use an airstrip on the archipelago which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Dozens of people demonstrated outside the main government office in Quito on Monday to protest against a plan they described as a threat to the world heritage site’s unique environment – and an attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty.
Continue reading...Women from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala who suffered child rape take cases to UN human rights committee
Four women from Latin America whose lives were put at risk when they were not allowed abortions after being raped as girls are taking their cases to the UN human rights committee.
The women, from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala, filed cases against their governments on Wednesday for failing to provide appropriate healthcare and denying them abortions, even when it was their legal right to have one.
Continue reading...Julian Assange could face decades in a US prison after being charged with violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified information through WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors announced 17 additional charges against Assange for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Continue reading...No law can end abortions, however severe its restrictions and however harsh its penalties. Each day almost 70,000 unsafe abortions are carried out around the world, and they are vastly more likely to happen in countries with strict laws. What such legislation does do is force some women to continue pregnancies against their wishes, while risking the lives and wellbeing of others. Women in the US have seen their ability to terminate pregnancies dismantled piece by piece. Now states are racing to outlaw or dramatically curb abortions with extreme and unconstitutional bills. The aim is to directly challenge Roe v Wade, the US supreme court ruling that established that abortion is legal before the foetus is viable outside the womb, at around 24 weeks. Last Tuesday, the governor of Georgia signed a bill essentially banning abortions after six weeks from 2020. Some described it as a sign that men who wish to control women’s bodies have no idea of how they actually work. More likely, those who pushed hardest for the change understand all too well that many women will not know they are pregnant until it is too late.
Five other states have signed similar bills; several more are considering them. (Others have introduced more incremental curbs.) The Alabama senate will this week consider a near-total ban on abortion – with prison sentences of up to 99 years for doctors – which Republicans initially tried to sneak through without even a vote. The state’s lieutenant governor said he believes Roe v Wade will be overturned thanks to Donald Trump’s appointment of conservative jurists.
Continue reading...Actor joined by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief for Assange’s first social visit since his arrest
Pamela Anderson has described Julian Assange as “the world’s most innocent man” and said a fight was on to “save his life”, after the actor and model visited the WikiLeaks founder at Belmarsh prison.
She was accompanied by the website’s editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, for what WikiLeaks described as Assange’s first social visit since he was arrested by police after Ecuador revoked the political asylum granted to him at the country’s London embassy.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretaries wrote to assure Ecuador president over WikiLeaks founder’s extradition
Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, was assured by two British foreign secretaries that Julian Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to letters seen by the Guardian.
Letters signed by the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and his predecessor Boris Johnson, dated 7 March 2018 and 10 August 2018 respectively, confirm a person cannot be extradited if they could face the death penalty, according to British legislation.
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