The mangrove finch is critically endangered; it is estimated that only 100 specimens remain alive. It is one of the 17 finches discovered by Charles Darwin in Galapagos in the 19th century. Photo: © Juan Manuel García / CDF
Image: PlanV
Photo: Asamblea Nacional
Photography: latercera.com
The national police cordoned off the headquarters of the Citizen Participation Council, in Quito, to allow the entry of four majority councilors, who met at the headquarters and removed the president of the Council from office. Photo: Expreso.
Referential image: PlanV
Councilors Javier Dávalos (r), Sofía Almeida (c), David Rosero and Ibeth Estupiñán formed the majority for the approval of resolutions. Now Councilor Estupiñán is no longer in the majority. Photo: El Universo
In the midst of a crisis of confidence, the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control is in charge of five public competitions to elect the first authorities of agencies such as the Public Defender's Office, the Comptroller General of the State, the National Electoral Council, the Ombudsman's Office; and the partial renewal of the Contentious Electoral Tribunal. The first three competitions are underway and the last two will be called in the coming months.
Referential image. Plan V
In theory, any of the nine members of the Constitutional Court could leave office at the beginning of next year, since a selection is scheduled for a partial renewal. The drawing of lots will be the old-fashioned way: with slips of paper to be drawn from an amphora, but it will be attended by all the constitutional judges and the members of the Qualifying Commission, which is conducting a competition to fill the three vacancies that will occur. The three new judges are expected to take office in February 2022.
Nema Grefa (left) and Andrés Ruíz (right), president and vice president of the Sapara Nation of Ecuador. Press conference on Tuesday May 25 outside the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Ecuador. They denounced the handover of his ancestral territory to an organization that they consider "illegitimate", associated with Andes Petroleum. Photos: Ramiro Aguilar, Andrés Yépez, Josué Araujo. Photo: Ramiro Aguilar Villamarín @miro.a.villamarin (Ig)
In Ecuador, the government of Guillermo Lasso appeared to show an attitude change towards the environment. After decades of extractive projects in the Amazon rainforest, the government created the Secretariat of Peoples and Nationality of Ecuador. On World Environment Day, it announced that Ecuador will be the first country in Latin America to make a national policy on the ecological transition.
Between January and July 2021 alone, more than 62,000 Ecuadorians were detained for irregular entry into the United States. Photo: EFE
Ecuadorian migration to the United States has left a tragic toll. In 2021, 28 Ecuadorians have lost their lives at the U.S.-Mexico border, the highest number since 2019. That is almost double the number recorded in 2020 (16 deaths). This is confirmed by recent figures from the Foreign Ministry to which PlanV had access.
This AP image shows a dead prisoner on the roof of the Penitenciaría del Litoral. Photo: AP
Please, gentlemen, I beg you, let the military come in. That was the plea of an inmate of the Litoral Penitentiary while he was transmitting from his cell phone the confrontations that took place last night and early this morning. He was asking for help amidst the sounds of bullets, bombs and screams of other inmates who accompanied him.
Thousands of Ecuadorians arrived by plane to Mexico before the imposition of the visa and then had to cross by land to the United States. Photos: Courtesy Pamela Cevallos / Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Before reaching the border areas between Mexico and the United States, Ecuadorian migrants, who are in search of the American dream, must arrive by different routes to the crossing points. Near the border, migrants are held in safe houses while coyoteros find the time to cross. In this scenario, there are often kidnappings and extortions where they are asked for new sums of money to take the next step.
A Mexican army soldier attempts to detain a group of irregular migrants at a point on the border with the United States. Photo: AFP
In 2019 and 2020, 67 Ecuadorians died on the border between Mexico and the United States and so far in 2021 there are 34 (5 on the Mexican side and 29 in the United States). There are also missing persons. So far this year, 29 disappearances have been reported, of which the authorities solved 12 cases, but there are 17 pending cases.
This is part of the largest shark fin smuggling seized in Hong Kong in May 2020 and was shipped from Guayaquil, Ecuador. There were 26 tons, 30,500 sharks killed for their fins and the fine imposed Photo: taken from the South China Morning Post, photo by Nora Tam.
In this session of the Commission, the final voting text for the second debate of the project to reform the Organic Environmental Code had to be approved. It seemed a simple task: this project has been two years in the making; it has received contributions and attacks from every imaginable sector: animal protectionists, industrial fishermen, defenders and some authorities.
The increase of Ecuadorian migrants traveling with children has caught the attention of authorities and tour operators in Mexico. Photo: EFE
Police found 9.6 tons of cocaine in a warehouse in Guayaquil, Ecuador, which had the facade of a water bottling plant. Photos: Ecuador Police
A white truck with the façade of a water delivery truck was the first clue that led to the seizure of the largest cocaine shipment ever found in Ecuador. Last July 23, three men were driving in that vehicle in the Los Vergeles sector, in Guayaquil, but when they saw the police presence they tried to escape. The police pursued them until the truck entered a warehouse. The agents had already received confidential information that the truck was being used to transport drugs and was being guarded by a black car.