Tag: Ecuador

• Tuesday, May 5th 2020 - 07:15 UTC

  COVID-19 collapses Ecuador: 30,000 confirmed cases and no certainty on death toll

  

  Ecuador on Monday exceeded 30,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, while the government launched a plan to start gradually relaxing quarantine measures that have been in place since mid-March. Ecuador has confirmed 31,881 cases of COVID-19, with 1,569 reported deaths and a further 1,336 deaths likely as a result of the virus.

• Tuesday, April 21st 2020 - 08:52 UTC

  Ecuador receives temporary reprieve to defer interest payments

  

  Ecuador received a temporary reprieve over the weekend when the government announced that a sufficient number of investors had agreed to a consent solicitation to defer interest payments.

• Saturday, April 18th 2020 - 08:56 UTC

  Overwhelmed by the pandemic, Ecuador on the cliff of a US$ 17bn default

  

  The coronavirus outbreak in Ecuador is increasing pressure on President Lenin Moreno to default on US$ 17 billion in debt and devote more resources toward fighting a pandemic that has left bodies in the streets of the nation’s largest city.

• Wednesday, April 15th 2020 - 13:00 UTC

  “A bomb” hit Ecuadorean city of Guayaquil: “no space for the living or the dead”

  

  Ecuador's economic capital Guayaquil is reeling from the most aggressive outbreak of COVID-19 in Latin America after the pandemic hit the city “like a bomb,” its mayor said. Cynthia Viteri has emerged from her own bout with the virus to battle the worst crisis the port city of nearly 3 million people has known in modern times.

• Saturday, April 4th 2020 - 08:36 UTC

  Ecuador's health system has collapsed: bodies of dead in the streets of Guayaquil

  

  The authorities in Ecuador have collected at least 150 bodies of people who died due to the coronavirus from the streets and homes of Guayaquil, the main port city in the country. The latest data reveals that there have been at least 3,100 have tested positive for COVID-19.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 08:36 UTC

  Ex Ecuadorean president and several ministers on trial for accepting millions of dollars in bribes

  

  Former President Rafael Correa went on trial before Ecuador’s highest court starting Monday on charges of campaign finance fraud and accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

• Monday, January 13th 2020 - 08:51 UTC

  Prolific Galapagos giant tortoise Diego is credited for saving his species from extinction

  

  Prolific Galapagos giant tortoise Diego is being released back into the wild after being credited by authorities with almost single handedly saving his species from extinction. The 100-year-old tortoise, who was recruited along with 14 other adults for a captive breeding program, will be returned to his native island of Espanola in March, the Galapagos National Parks service (PNG) said on Friday.

• Friday, January 10th 2020 - 09:58 UTC

  Mexico grants political asylum to members of Ecuadorean opposition holed in its Quito embassy

  

  Mexico granted political asylum on Thursday to four members of Ecuador's opposition holed up in its embassy in Quito since widespread social unrest in October, the foreign ministry said. The four lawmakers, including former Congress speaker Gabriela Rivadeneira, “took a commercial flight to Mexico” early Thursday, the ministry said in a statement.

• Friday, December 20th 2019 - 09:46 UTC

  IMF releases loan tranche to embattled Ecuadorean government

  

  The International Monetary Fund on Thursday approved a delayed loan tranche for Ecuador, releasing nearly US$500 million under a three-year aid program. The IMF board gave the go-ahead for a US$4.2 billion loan in March to help support the oil-rich nation's economic reforms, but massive protests led by indigenous groups erupted in October when President Lenin Moreno scrapped fuel subsidies, causing gasoline prices to soar.

• Tuesday, November 5th 2019 - 09:45 UTC

  Protests all over the world: are we witnessing an emerging global society?

  

  By Gwynne Dyer – Journalists don’t just travel in packs; they write in packs, too. And what they’re writing this week is endless pipe-sucking ruminations about what’s driving the seemingly synchronized outbreak of protests in a large number of very different countries around the world.