QUITO, ECUADOR — The U.S. role in the defeat of leftist Andrés Arauz in Ecuador’s presidential contest on April 11 was not overt because it did not need to be, according to a high-ranking Latin American diplomat. We met with the diplomat and others on an official election observation delegation with CODEPINK. Names of some…

This article was written and researched for MintPress by a talented new collective of journalists that call themselves Ecuador On Q. You can find more of their work on Twitter at @Ecuador_On_Q, or visit them on Patreon. With just days until Ecuador’s February 7 presidential election and four months remaining on President Lenin Moreno’s mandate,…

Polls show socialist, anti-imperialist candidate Andrés Arauz to be the clear frontrunner in Ecuador’s presidential elections slated to take place this Sunday, February, 7. Some even suggest the 35-year-old might receive double the votes of his nearest competitor in the first round of voting. Yet it now appears that the greatest danger to Arauz is…

If the country’s polls are to be believed, Ecuador is set to become the latest Latin American nation to move away from the United States and elect a strongly progressive, anti-imperialist government. Successive public opinion studies have shown Andrés Arauz of the Unión por la Esperanza coalition holding a commanding lead over his rivals, with…

If you are using one of the many coronavirus incidence trackers, the Pacific country of Ecuador does not seem to be particularly badly affected by COVID-19. Officially, the country has less than 7,500 cases and 333 deaths. But everybody knows this number is nonsense, including President Lenín Moreno, who freely admitted that authorities were collecting over 100…

QUITO, ECUADOR — “We don’t have a state! We don’t have any state!” The lady’s voice projects through a loudspeaker amid the crowd. She’s not having it. Nor is the groundswell of hundreds, if not thousands who’ve converged at Plaza Grande trolley stop, just meters from Simon Bolivar’s statue at the entrance to Quito’s historic…

LONDON — Like the proverbial “shot heard round the world,” the U.K.’s arrest and imprisonment of publisher and journalist Julian Assange officially signaled the Western world’s war on a free press. The Australian who founded WikiLeaks, but stepped down as editor-in-chief last year, was ousted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London last week after Ecuador…

QUITO, ECUADOR — Last week, Ecuador’s government gravely undermined not only its own national sovereignty but international refugee and asylum laws by allowing U.K. police into its London embassy to arrest then-Ecuadorian citizen, Ecuadorian asylee, and journalist Julian Assange. As has been observed by many analysts, the shocking yet somewhat anticipated decision has shown that…

Latest | London Judge Michael Snow has found Assange guilty of breaching his bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after Assange appeared in a courtroom packed with supporters. Assange faces a sentence of up to one year for the conviction and has serious charges pending in the United States. Assange has been arrested in relation to…

QUITO, ECUADOR — On Monday, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Jose Valencia denied recent allegations that his government is working with the U.K. to expel Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Last week, WikiLeaks announced that “a high-level source within the Ecuadorian state” had informed them that Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno was plotting to expel…

WASHINGTON — Chelsea Manning’s fight against her subpoena in the U.S. Department of Justice’s grand-jury case targeting WikiLeaks founder and former publisher Julian Assange this past week has revealed several uncomfortable truths, not only about that investigation but also about the fate of Assange, whose asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy hangs precariously in the balance.…

Lawyers for Julian Assange have filed an urgent application to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), based in Washington D.C., to direct the Trump Administration to unseal the charges it has secretly filed against Mr. Assange. Assange’s lawyers are also asking the Commission to compel Ecuador to cease its espionage activities against Mr. Assange,…