On Monday afternoon, President Guillermo Lasso offered details of his plan to vaccinate 9 million people for Covid-19 within the first 100 days of his administration. This came after a new platform was launched on Saturday that lets citizens verify the place where...
Give the guy a chance
I’ve got to admit that I’m curious to see how President Lasso is going to move forward on several fronts. First, he tried to clean up a big mess on his first day and is now getting slapped around by the assembly because of it. He signed a draft law on freedom of the press, […]
Experts say salary hike to $500 will be a tough offer to keep
The plan of the government of Guillermo Lasso to increase wages gradually, during the four years of administration, is not yet known. Unemployment is one of the problems that the new government will have to take on. Along with that problem, one of the new President’s...
Crowds Congregate For Holiday While Deaths From Covid-19 Continue To Rise
With restrictions lifted and a confirmed case of the South African variant in the country, we have no choice but to voice a warning: keep following social distancing, wear your mask everywhere outside of your home, and be highly selective about who you chose to...
The challenges the new government faces in vaccinating 9 million people in 100 days
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic changed the priorities of purchases in the foreign market in the last year. When infections spread throughout the world, nations intensified negotiations to stock up on medical and biosafety supplies, such as masks, gloves, rapid virus...
President Lasso presents fourteen more senior officials who will be part of his cabinet
Lasso tasked his team to fight corruption, emphasized the lack of resources, said that there is nothing more precarious than the lack of employment and spoke of concessions. Last Thursday, President Guillermo Lasso introduced fourteen more members of his cabinet, including former assembly members and people who have been close to Creando Oportunidades (CREO) years ago. […]
President Lasso Announces Tax Reforms
Ecuador’s new President, Guillermo Lasso, has already announced several tax reforms intended to stimulate the economy April 11, 2021, will unquestionably go down in Ecuadorian history as one of the country’s most memorable days. After a long year of pandemic-related restrictions and effects, not to mention years of governments dazzled by the promises of 21st […]
President Guillermo Lasso: “The political persecution in Ecuador is over. I have not come to satisfy the hatred of a few, but the hunger of many”
Lasso, 65, takes office after his third attempt Today, Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, became the forty-seventh president of the Republic of Ecuador. Lasso, a 65-year-old Catholic, takes office after his third attempt. In his administration, he will face challenges such as...
Lots of opportunity
President Guillermo Lasso. We are going to have to get used to saying that. Today he finally became the President of the Republic of Ecuador, after trying to get to the seat over eight years and three elections. A lesson in “stick-to-it-ness?” Or a lesson in change? Let’s hope this is a lesson of life […]
Lenín Moreno says goodbye to Carondelet with a meeting of his expanded cabinet
Forty-eight hours before leaving his Presidency, Lenín Moreno held his last meeting with his enlarged cabinet, where he carried out a kind of rendering of accounts on his management of the government for the last four years. Moreno left power on Saturday when the transfer of command to the president-elect, Guillermo Lasso, was made. The ceremony […]
IOM releases report on the recent migration of Venezuelans into Ecuador
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has published the results of the 10th Flow Monitoring Survey on the Venezuelan population in Ecuador carried out in February and March 2021. The survey, part of the Displacement Monitoring Matrix (DTM), was implemented through 4,258 interviews with people of legal age (54% men, 46% women and less than […]
A year after Ecuador oil spill, Indigenous victims await justice, reparations
Last year an oil spill in the Ecuadoran Amazon that contaminated the Coca River, local Indigenous groups are still struggling to adapt to alternative livelihoods It started as an ordinary morning in Ecuador’s eastern Orellana province. Abel Jipa’s sons, Byron and Johnny, and his son-in-law, Gibson, set out on the Coca River to go fishing […]
Deaths Fall Again This Week, New Case Data Of Little Vaule As Sample Collection And Test Completion Fall
As we reported last week, one of the more alarming bits of information that was published last week was just how many “unusual” deaths occurred over the past year. That term in Ecuador means deaths that are above and beyond the average number of deaths seen year-on-year. Without repeating the details that we reported last […]
Threatened amphibian species double in Ecuador; human activity devastates their habitats
Agricultural and livestock expansion, roads, settlements, oil extraction and mining have a significant impact on populations Of the 635 species of amphibians registered in Ecuador, 57% are in some category of extinction threat (13% critically endangered, 23%...
Quito mayor on trial for embezzlement; Ombudsman arrested for sexual assault
Quito mayor, Jorge Yunda, called to trial for embezzlement, then his defense team quits The mayor of Quito, Jorge Yunda, is one of the 14 accused of the crime of embezzlement related to the purchase of PCR tests to detect COVID-19 Twelve days after the mayor of Quito, Jorge Yunda, was called to trial for […]
Covid-19 vaccine tourism becomes a bigger issue in the US
On Saturday, May 1, 2021, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced that 103.4 million Americans over the age of 16 (31.2% of the population) had already been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reported that 146.2 million people (44% of the population) have received at […]
Lasso reaches agreement with Russia for Sputnik-V vaccine, may meet goal to immunize 9 million people
President-elect, Guillermo Lasso, who will take office on May 24th, announced this week that his administration will sign an agreement with Russia for the provision of Sputnik V vaccines to strengthen its immunization plan. This was something that the outgoing government failed to achieve. In the electoral campaign, Lasso said his administration would vaccinate 9 million Ecuadorians in […]
Nepotism, expensive gifts and party collections will be prohibited in the new Executive Code of Ethics
Guillermo Lasso will sign an executive decree with these rules of conduct on May 24th, when he assumes the Presidency of the Republic Issues related to conflict of interest, family ties, use of public assets and resources, norms of transparency and management with equality and non-discrimination will be addressed in the Code of Ethics for […]
Juan Eljuri Antón, the low-profile businessman who forged one of the largest economic groups in Ecuador
The businessman Juan Eljuri died at the age of 78 in Cuenca on Monday, May 10, 2021 When Juan Eljuri Antón inaugurated one of his ventures or businesses, he preferred that his executives were in charge of public speeches. He opted for a lower profile, a little away from the cameras and the media gaze. Within […]
BREAKING NEWS: Government of Ecuador signs agreements with three other pharmaceutical companies to obtain vaccines against COVID-19
First level agreements were signed with Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Sputnik-Gamaleya The Government of Ecuador announced early Wednesday that it has signed first-level agreements with the Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Sputnik-Gamaleya laboratories, to obtain...
I wonder if Lasso can say “spasiba”
“The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!” It sounds like a battle cry warning everyone to hide, but in fact it may be Ecuador’s saving grace. What I’m talking about is the announcement that incoming President Guillermo Lasso has achieved what the outgoing...
Lasso’s cabinet members come with enormous experience, are tasked with laser focus and transparency
President-elect Guillermo Lasso introduced eight members of his new cabinet over the last two weeks and said he intends to maintain a “laser focus” on ending the Covid-19 epidemic and restoring the economy. Of the new ministers, five are women. “I have chosen my ministers carefully, not just for their competence but for their dedication,” […]
Ecuadorian woman RISEs up with education and beer
Waste isn’t waste anymore Bertha Jimenez is the co-founder of RISE Products, a startup that turns organic industrial waste into value by converting it into raw materials. RISE is currently focusing on converting by-products of the beer and wine industry into food...
World Bank says IESS could have problems paying pensions in 2022
The outgoing government will deliver to the president-elect, Guillermo Lasso, a World Bank diagnosis to the IESS pension fund, the conclusion is that it needs an urgent reform. The World Bank made a technical diagnosis of the situation of the pension fund (IVM) of the...
Average hospitalization of Covid patients rises from 7 to 22 days
Some critically ill patients have damage to 75% of their lungs and require urgent mechanical ventilation, but ICU beds are hard to find The aggressiveness of the new variants of coronavirus that circulate in Ecuador hits the health system from different fronts. One of the most serious problems is that patients arrive at hospitals with […]
False documents in contracts that cost Cuenca hundreds of thousands of dollars
The Comptroller's Office found irregularities in at least three hiring packages since 2016 The maintenance done to the ETAPA vehicle fleet from 2016 to 2019, the Zero Hunger summit organized by the Prefecture of Azuay in 2018 and the disinfection of the streets with...
UPDATES 05/09/2021
Update to: Banana sector reinforces prevention measures to avoid Foc R4T fungus Published: Volume 5, Issue 27 Alfredo Saltos: Most likely (Foc R4T) is already in Ecuador waiting for the best opportunities to hatch Alfredo Saltos, former Minister of Agriculture, indicated that it is important to study the behavior of the Formosana during various cycles […]
Cases Explode Worldwide, Cuenca ICU Beds Remain Full
On Friday, the daily cases of COVID-19 reached a record number of 903,410, more than a third of them concentrated in India, which on Sunday reported 354,531 new infections, a number never before seen in any country, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). With these new records, global cases since the beginning of the pandemic […]
Deaths Fall This Week, But New Data Shows That Overall Number Of Deaths May Be Severely Underreported
One of the lead stories this week lays out how serious the situation is in hospitals across the country; we will not go into that further here. But along with that, one of the more alarming bits of information that was published this week was just how many “unusual” deaths occurred over the past year. […]
Ecuador has 1,607 ICU beds but almost all Covid-19 beds are occupied
Ecuador had 1,183 beds in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) as of 2019, according to the latest Registry of Beds and Hospital Discharges published in June 2020 by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC). How many are there now, after a year in crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and what is the level […]