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After the declaration of unconstitutionality of the state of exception, which was reported on Saturday, January 2, 2021 by the Constitutional Court, the National COE issued new resolutions on Sunday, January 3, aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the country. In the resolution of January 3, 2021, the National COE referred to...
Single-use plastics and polystyrene containers will soon become extinct in Ecuador. On November 4, 2020, the National Assembly approved the Organic Law for the Rationalization, Reuse and Reduction that prohibits the use of single-use plastics in commerce. The law went into effect in the country on Monday, December 21st, after it was published in...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: UPDATED FOR TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020 THE NUMBERS In our last two reports, we were optimistic with the COVID-19 situation in the country; unfortunately, that optimism has been replaced with serious concern as the statistics representing the Christmas holiday were released. The increase in...
As many of you know, I lost two friends to COVID-19 last year. One in May and one in August. Some people didn’t believe me when I wrote about this, said it was all a hoax. With all the death and illness since then, I suspect many of those doubters have now been silenced....
The new Unified Basic Salary (SBU) of the Ecuadorian worker for 2021 remains at $400. This was decided by the Ministry of Labor, after the workers and employers did not reach an agreement in the National Labor and Wages Council (CNTS), made last Friday. The announcement was made by the Minister of Labor, Andrés...
At the end of 2016, the United States Department of Justice made it known that Ecuador was part of a corruption plot led by the Odebrecht company to obtain public contracts through the delivery of bribes. Last week, they clued Ecuador in to another scandal: between 2015 and July 2020, bribes were received by...
Last November 11th marked four years since the signing of the Multiparty Trade Agreement (MCA) between Ecuador and the European Union (EU). It was signed in Brussels before representatives of Colombia and Peru, who were already part of that treaty since June 26, 2012. It was put into effect on January 1, 2017 and is now entering its fifth...
A couple of weeks ago, we ran an article on Ecuador Verifica, an initiative in the country that brings together 14 media, 9 civil society organizations and 7 universities. Its objectives are to combat misinformation, verify the veracity of the speeches of the candidates (and their supporters or detractors) for the 2021 Ecuadorian election, and...
Last month, the National Assembly approved a bill that seeks to reduce the use and trade of single-use plastic material such as bags, straws, containers for beverages and food. The bill now awaits the signature of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno for final approval. The ‘Organic Law for the Rationalization, Reuse and Recycling of Single-Use...
Finance Minister Mauricio Pozo announced on Thursday that the country is negotiating the support of multilateral organizations to issue a bond in the international markets to support the private productive sector. Ecuador is in negotiations to issue an international market bond that will allow it to raise around $3 billion to support the recovery...
“I’m thankful.” It’s the time of year for us to all look back on how things have gone, and are going for us, and hopefully feel that way. This year that will be difficult for so many people. Not just here, or in the US, but throughout the world. So many people have suffered...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: UPDATED FOR TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2020 Across the country, reported cases of coronavirus are going up, hospitals are seeing more admissions and ICU beds are becoming scarce, and places that had seemed to stop the virus—for example, Guayaquil—are seeing it surge back with rapid...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: UPDATED FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020 The big question this week is where we stand with the spread of COVID-19 in Ecuador’s larger cities, and what does the government say about the numbers. Because the two pieces of information are not in synch. Last...
It’s been almost a year since Houston, Texas expat Nancy Thalmann was killed in her Challuabamba home while her husband Doyle slept in the next room. Her attacker was finally sentenced this past week. The Azuay Criminal Guarantees Court unanimously sentenced Alfredo José R., to 34 years and eight months in prison, for both...
This week we are all being inundated with volumes of witty, angry, happy, stupid, smart, and all-around lifeless columns about what Donald Trump is doing in his reaction to his loss in the 2020 US Presidential Election. And it’s not just he who is being written about ad nauseum, it’s also the Republican Congress,...
Last Thursday it was announced that Ecuador closed an agreement with AstraZeneca for the acquisition of five million doses of the vaccine that it is developing with the University of Oxford. According to the World Health Organization, worldwide there are eleven proposals for vaccines against COVID-19 that are in phase 3 clinical trials in...
Last Tuesday, Ecuador and the United States signed a first-phase trade agreement in Quito. The government emphasized that this is the first firm step towards the achievement of a definitive trade agreement between both nations. This first phase of the agreement was the result of three meetings the Council for Trade and Investment (TIC), had...
Last October 6th, two metropolitan traffic guards prevented a woman from jumping off a pedestrian bridge in southern Quito; three weeks later, another agent prevented a man from jumping into the Chiche River, in Puembo, northeast of the capital. Near that parish, in Pifo, a few days later, two children were found dead from poisoning and their mother was taken...
Wow, what a week. I thought that I had seen it all with Donald Trump, but I was wrong. I knew he would not take being a “loser” very well, but I didn’t expect him to try to “burn down the house” on his way out. Nor did I expect to see so many...
Back in late August, Ecuadorian Vice President María Alejandra Muñoz, toured the Ubuntu community dining room located on Trinitaria Island, south of Guayaquil, which has delivered more than 12 thousand dishes and feeds 150 children a month. This Ubuntu kitchen will serve as a pilot plan for the rest of the community kitchens that...
The financing that Ecuador seeks to obtain with the ICBC Bank of China of up to $1.4 billion, through a financial operation (credit) tied to a commercial operation (sale of crude oil), would have a total cost of between 9.43%, 9.70% and 9.83%, depending on the amount of the credit and the volume of...
Well, today is election day in the United States. Because of editorial deadlines, I won’t know who has won before I have to turn this column in. In reality, because of all of the early voting, I (and you) probably won’t know for some time who won. Imagine, some states actually have rules that...
Ecuador will not rush to open its land borders with Colombia and Peru until a mechanism is found to guarantee health security measures in coordination with neighboring governments. “We depend on the decisions taken by neighboring countries, especially Peru, which has had a much longer duration of its pandemic and infections than ours,” said Government Minister María...
In our “Updates” feature, we follow up on some of our most read stories over the last few weeks. Our goal is to bring our readers up to speed on any news that adds to, changes, or increases the impact of previous topics we’ve covered. Update to: Ombudsman’s Office asks the Foreign Ministry to...
The physical space for the Vehicle Technical Review Center (CRTV) of the Santa Isabel canton is ready. The Municipality now has to install all the techincal equipment to get this new CRTV into action. Santa Isabel becomes one of the first cantons of Azuay with the physical space ready for the operation of a Vehicle Technical Review Center (CRTV).In the...
I spoke with my mother for a bit this week by WhatsApp video chat. It was nice, but certainly does not come close to seeing her in person, hugging her and seeing her laugh right next to me. Unfortunately, we both agreed that this would have to be the way of things for a...
The coronavirus pandemic has affected the economies of countries on all continents, and its aftermath will last thru the end of next year, according to two reports released last week from the World Bank and the Bank of Spain. The World Bank estimates that the region’s economy will contract by 7.9% in 2020 due...
From mid-March thru the end of September—during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic—410,000 formal jobs (i.e., contracted jobs) were lost in Ecuador. This was reported by Ecuador’s Minister of Labor, Andrés Isch, to the Economic Development Commission on September 30, 2020, which was meeting to evaluate the use of the Humanitarian Law...
It was reported last week that Juan Ribas Domenech (a one-time adviser to former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa),the former Chairman of the Board of Director of Seguros Sucre, changed his plea to guilty, in the money laundering and bribery scheme he has been charged in. In yet another case that puts a spotlight on...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: UPDATED FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2020 We’ve now entered the first week without nationalized restrictions in place under a state of emergency. This means that this week’s review will be the last numbers that we can be sure were relative to the prior months...