Ecuador

Ecuador



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[]  I chose the news article about the governor of the Ecuador Central bank resigning over having a fake degree. This caught my eye because I believe I heard a similar story about a German government official being caught in a similar situation recently, and because it might be an indicator of either incompetence in proper screening and research on the part of Ecuador's "elite" or corruption and cronyism among the political establishment. ~Alessandro Ceserani = Ecuador Central Bank governor resigns over fake degree =  The governor of the Central Bank of Ecuador has resigned after admitting that he lied about having a degree in economics. Pedro Delgado apologised for providing false information when he applied to a business school more than 20 years ago. He finished his masters degree there, but the business school - Incae - discovered he'd lied in his application and informed the government. Mr Delgado had been in the post since November 2011. "I have to admit that I have made a serious mistake 22 years ago which is costing me very dear," he said on television on Wednesday night. In his application form to join the Incae business school, in Costa Rica, Mr Delgado said he had a degree from Ecuador's Catholic University. Opposition MP Enrique Herreria denounced him to the Prosecutor's Office last month, based on the business school findings. 'Blow to revolution' President Rafael Correa, who is Mr Delgado's cousin, promised to investigate. "A very hard day. We can confirm that Pedro Delgado had presented a fake degree at Incae," he tweeted. "It has been a big blow to the revolution," he said, referring to his left-wing programme of government. The president had previously accused the media in the South American country of carrying out a campaign against his government. Mr Delgado rejected other accusations of illegal financial operations with Iran, which he said were an attempt to smear the president. "Nothing has been found out because all these accusations were fabricated to damage the image of the one who leads the revolution," he said. Ecuador's economy, which is largely based on oil and remittances from the US and Spain, is expected to grow by 5% in 2012. Mr Correa has been in power since 2007 and already been re-elected once - the first such success for an Ecuadorean president in more than 30 years. He is running for re-election in February.

The Economist News Article Link

Second article concerning censoring of the media





The country of Ecuador has a constitution assuring the freedom of speech and a president who vowed to uphold the right of free speech while in office. This has been challenged by the current president, Rafael Correa. In recent events Correa filed a libel suit against a newspaper called El Universo. An article in The Economist by S.K. Quito reports that; "a judge awarded the president $40 million and sentenced the author and his bosses to jail time" (Quito, 2012). The ruling was questioned by several people including a judge who has had to flee the country for accusing the ruling to have been written by Correa's own lawyers. Correa is instituting a bill that states, “the media must refrain from direct or indirect promotion, either through features, specials or any other form of message, which would tend to influence in favour of or against a particular candidate, postulates, options, voting preferences or political ideas” (Quito, 2012). Correa has never been approving of the media in Ecuador, censoring material to the governments liking; this is not freedom of speech. Through the eyes of Americans this is not a free country where the media has no voice and is punished for speaking out to educate the public. However, Quito reports in his article that while all of this is going on the president has a reported 80% approval rating among the people of Ecuador. I chose this article because I find it relevant to the reading in chapters one and two of our textbook. How even though Ecuador is a "free" country with a constitution and elected officials it is still run by a single powerful man who can punish the media for speaking out against him. I am very intrigued with the idea of "why can't Latin America develop into a free democracy like the United States or European countries?" This article is a perfect example of how even today countries are having a difficult time developing and moving away from dictatorships and unjust rulers in Latin America.

~Beau Hogan

Current Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is calling upon richer nations to gift Ecuador with a rather large sum to insure that the country will not drill in part of the Amazonian Rainforest known as the Yasuni reserve.

The Yasuni reserve is located in Northeastern Ecuador, and the oil beneath it would amount to approximately 846 billion barrels of crude oil. The amount of oil underground in these reserves amounts 20% of the oil in Ecuador, and the amount of money that Correa is looking for to not drill in this area is 5.4 billion euros (~7.2 billion USD). Certain European countries have already given money to this cause (Italy, Spain), however, there are many critics who believe that this proposal by the Ecuadorian government is not worth it.

A critic, Mascha Kauka, believes that this money instead of going to the many indigenous people of the region, will eventually not be enough or important as the price of gas rises (Heinrichmann, 2013). Kauka argues that an area of three million hectacres of the Amazonian Rainforest in Ecuador near the Yasuni reserve has already been cleared; the hectacres already removed equal an area 16 times larger than the Yasuni reserve.

The other issue in this situation is that many nations are not willing to pledge the money to a country for fear that other nations might demand money to preserve their national parks and reservations (Heinrichmann, 2013).

I chose this article because I think it is in some way very telling of the actions of Rafael Correa. I find it very odd that someone could demand other countries pay his country so that they can preserve a natural area that should be preserved without any question. It also is very strange because, according to the article, 40% of Ecuador's population is made up of indigenous people and it seems rather bold that the president would be willing to risk that much of the voting public in case other countries are not give money to save part of the Yasuni reserve. It makes me very confused because I can't completely wrap my head around why anyone want to destroy an area so biologically diverse--2274 different types of trees in one hectacre; more than the amount of trees in all of North America (Heinrichmann, 2013). As the article ends, the Yasuni reserve is untouched, but the real question is: for how long? I think it it something we will need to keep an eye on in the future. ~Jessica Barnes

Ecuador treads fine line in preserving Amazon reserve--Heinrichmann