International
Noboa assures that Ecuador has a new face with more security after six months in office
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, assured this Friday in his first report to the nation that, in the six months of his mandate, he has achieved a country with a new face thanks to efforts to combat insecurity and for the recovery of institutionality.
In his message to the National Assembly (Parliament), a day after having served six months as head of state, Noboa asserted that he received a country “with fear and without hope,” so he had to take “hard” decisions that other administrations did not dare, in search of a safe country, open to investments, job creation and to “guaranteee the future of all.”
The president said that last January 9 will be a date that the country will not forget, having revealed the scope of “the horror of terrorism”, with a series of attacks and violent actions of organized crime such as the taking of the TC Televisión channel by a group of armed men and simultaneous riots in various prisons with about 200 hostages.
That day, on which he again denounced an attempted coup d’état against him, Noboa declared the “internal armed conflict” against 22 criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking, whom he called terrorists.
The actions of the Government, he said, seek to “start building a country where tranquility and progress are the norm and not the exception.”
He highlighted the commitment and sacrifice of the security forces to fight the mafias that “have accomplices and allies, at all levels of the country: public institutions, public companies, local governments, in our neighborhoods, they are everywhere.”
Despite the changes he reported about, Noboa said that the fight for “the ‘New Ecuador’ has only begun,” he pointed out that social transformation and security are also achieved “with employment, education, with services and empathy” with social actions that reveal “the face of a new Ecuador that grows.”
In that line, he also mentioned the efforts in the energy field of his Government, which in April had to face blackouts in the face of a serious electricity crisis, due to the drought of one of the main hydroelectric complexes in the country.
“We are working very hard to solve the energy crisis, in such a way that Ecuadorians, in the future, do not have to go through more energy rationing. In other words, we are cleaning up what those of the past mudded,” he said.
In the economic area, Noboa mentioned the existence of 105,000 young employment places, the ratification of two trade agreements (with China and Costa Rica) and the reduction of 1,000 points in the risk premium.
Noboa claimed to have recovered the country’s institutionality by asserting that “the new Ecuador does not deal with drug trafficking, drug policy, terrorists or any of its historical costumes.”
“The new Ecuador also does not give in to external pressures or even from citizens who call themselves Ecuadorians and even want their country to be sentenced,” he said, without referring to any specific person, although the day before he sent on social networks “to cry to tears” to former President Rafael Correa for his statements regarding the crisis with Mexico.
Noboa did not speak in his speech about the assault on the Mexican Embassy in Quito in April, to capture Jorge Glas, former vice president of Rafael Correa, which caused the breakdown of relations with the Mexican Government, as well as the almost unanimous condemnation of the international community.
After that assault, Correa considered that the country should receive pressure from the international community at the political and legal level as a precedent so that a similar situation does not happen again.
Noboa committed himself to his compatriots to “not go back” and “never stay in the problem or in the comfort of the excuse,” but to move forward to “find and travel clean roads that allow the problems of Ecuadorians to be solved.”
And he explained that he follows the lessons that formed his generation: “to be strong so that no one defeats you, to be noble so that no one humiliates you, to be humble so that no one offends you and to continue to be you so that no one forgets you.”
“In just six months we are achieving what other governments did not do in two, nor four, or ten years,” he said.
International
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.
In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.
The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.
Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.
The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.
This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.
Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.
AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.
International
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.
“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.
For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”
The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.
In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.
“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.
The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.
The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.
The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.
The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.
According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.
All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.
That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.
International
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.
The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.
According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”
Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.
“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.
He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.
It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.
In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.
Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.
Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.
Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.
The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.
Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.
It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).
Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
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