International

Ecuador military, prison heads resign after jail riot

AFP

The heads of Ecuador’s armed forces and prisons resigned Monday after weekend riots left 68 dead in the latest outbreak of violence between inmates aligned to rival gangs, the government said.

President Guillermo Lasso accepted the resignations of Vice Admiral Jorge Cabrera, head of the joint command, and Bolivar Garzon, head of the SNAI prisons agency, the president’s office said in a statement.

Fighting over the weekend between inmates armed with guns, machetes and explosives killed dozens at an overcrowded prison in Guayaquil before authorities could regain control.

Social media posts showed gruesome images of prisoners beating and setting fire to bloodied bodies.

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This year, Ecuador’s violent, decrepit and overcrowded prisons have seen some of the worst rioting in the history of Latin American penitentiaries.

More than 320 inmates have been killed so far in 2021, and the latest riot happened despite a state of emergency enforced in Ecuador’s prison system after even deadlier fighting in September.

The presidency said Lasso agreed to the resignations of Cabrera and Garzon at a meeting on measures to prevent further prison violence with his interior and defense ministers, as well as the military and police chiefs.

Lasso appointed army commander General Orlando Fuel as the new head of the joint command. Marlo Brito, who was head of the Center for Strategic Intelligence (CIES), took over from Garzon at the SNAI.

Another riot in the same prison in Ecuador’s southwest in September left 119 dead — making it the largest such massacre in the country’s history, and one of the worst in Latin America.

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Nestled between the world’s biggest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen a surge of violence blamed on fighting between rival drug groups.

The country of 17.7 million people is favored by traffickers because of its porous borders, a dollarized economy and major seaports for export.

Seizures of drugs, mainly cocaine, reached a record of 155 tons between January and October 2021, while street crime and warring between gang-aligned prisoners has left more than 2,000 dead so far this year.

International

Winter Storm Fern Leaves 30 Dead and Over One Million Without Power Across the U.S.

The massive winter storm Fern, bringing polar temperatures, battered large portions of the United States for a third consecutive day on Monday, leaving at least 30 people dead, more than one million households without electricity, and thousands of flights grounded.

In the Great Lakes region, residents awoke to extreme cold, with temperatures dropping below -20°C. Forecasts indicate that conditions are expected to worsen in the coming days as an Arctic air mass moves south, particularly across the northern Great Plains and other central regions, where wind chills could plunge to -45°C, temperatures capable of causing frostbite within minutes.

Across the country, heavy snowfall exceeding 30 centimeters in roughly 20 states triggered widespread power outages. According to PowerOutage.com, nearly 800,000 customers remained without electricity on Monday morning, most of them in the southern United States.

In Tennessee, where ice brought down power lines, approximately 250,000 customers were still without power. Outages also affected more than 150,000 customers in Mississippi and over 100,000 in Louisiana, as utility crews struggled to restore service amid dangerous conditions.

International

Spain approves plan to regularize up to 500,000 migrants in Historic Shift

In November 2024, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a reform of the country’s immigration regulations aimed at regularizing 300,000 migrants per year over a three-year period, in an effort to counter population aging in a country where births have fallen by 25.6% since 2014, according to official data.

Going against the trend in much of Europe, Spain’s left-wing government has now approved an exceptional migrant regularization plan that could benefit up to 500,000 people, most of them from Latin America.

The measure will allow the regularization of around “half a million people” who have been living in Spain for at least five months, arrived before December 31, 2025, and have no criminal record, Migration Minister Elma Saiz explained on public television.

The plan, approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, establishes that applications will be processed between April and June 30, enabling beneficiaries to work in any sector and anywhere in the country, Saiz said.

“Today is a historic day for our country. We are strengthening a migration model based on human rights, integration, and one that is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion,” the minister later stated at a press conference.

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The socialist government of Pedro Sánchez stands out within the European Union for its migration policy, contrasting with the tightening of immigration measures across much of the bloc amid pressure from far-right movements.

Central America

Honduras swears in conservative president Asfura after disputed election

Conservative politician Nasry Asfura assumed the presidency of Honduras on Tuesday with an agenda closely aligned with the United States, a shift that could strain the country’s relationship with China as he seeks to confront the economic and security challenges facing the poorest and most violent nation in Central America.

Asfura’s rise to power, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, marks the end of four years of left-wing rule and secures Trump another regional ally amid the advance of conservative governments in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina.

The 67-year-old former mayor and construction businessman was sworn in during an austere ceremony at the National Congress, following a tightly contested election marred by opposition allegations of fraud and Trump’s threat to cut U.S. aid if his preferred candidate did not prevail.

Grateful for Washington’s support, Asfura—who is of Palestinian descent—traveled to the United States to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, before visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We need to strengthen relations with our most important trading partner,” Asfura said after being declared the winner of the November 30 election by a narrow margin, following a tense vote count that lasted just over three weeks.