Ecuador

A state of emergency has been declared as a magnitude 6,8 earthquake struck the Baláo region, leaving over 1500 people affected and resulting in the deployment of emergency agents to the area in order to provide food and shelter

Intense rains in the Manabí area have affected around 80.000 locals and left over 2.800 hectares underwater, causing the government to have to resort to the building of emergency shelters for the hundreds of displaced families

President Guillermo Lasso and his Costa Rican counterpart, Rodrigo Chaves, have signed a historic free trade agreement between both countries, which includes free trade for 97% of Ecuadorian products and over 90% of Costa Rican products

Cocaine bricks mixed with gravel and cement for building houses have so far helped get rid of approximately 61% of the drugs confiscated in recent years, an innovative method implemented by Ecuador to use its tons of confiscated vegetal material

Minister of Agriculture Bernardo Manzano has officially resigned from his position, after his department has been allegedly linked to a corruption scandal and drug trafficking that involves people close to President Guillermo Lasso

The anti-corruption department is currently going through a crisis as the Secretary of Anti-Corruption, Luis Verdesoto, has resigned after an investigation was opened against him for alleged illicit activities committed within the electric sector

Evidence against President Guillermo Lasso’s relatives being involved in corruption has caused the government to hold a new investigation of all public entities, with help from the Interpol in order to detect all people possibly involved in corruption

A free-trade agreement has been successfully signed with China for Ecuador's exports up to USD$1 billion yearly, agreeing also to the protection of Chinese goods in the industrial, manufacturing, and livestock sectors

The country has signed an agreement with Colombia to neutralise the drug trafficking groups’ confrontations that take place in their shared border, which includes merging their soldiers and deploying almost 4.000 of them into the area

Thousands of students have taken to the streets to demand a higher budget for public universities and better job offerings for them, successfully resulting in a scheduled public talk with the National Assembly to discuss these issues and more

To incentivise the country’s economy, the government has launched a “digital nomad” visa for any remote workers seeking lower living costs, thus promoting people with a higher-than-average income to enter the country

The government has issued monthly bonuses for 75% of the poorest citizens, thus improving the monthly income of over 1,5 million national households