- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- Hezbollah fires at Israel as wars rage on Yom Kippur
- Analysts warn more detail needed on new China economic measures
- China tees up fresh spending to boost ailing economy
- China says will issue special bonds to boost ailing economy
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Dodgers drop Padres 2-0 to advance in MLB playoffs
- Alexei Navalny wrote he knew he would die in prison in new memoir
- Last-minute legal ruling allows betting on US election
- Despite hurricanes, Floridians refuse to leave 'paradise'
- Israel observes Yom Kippur amid firestorm over Lebanon strikes
- Trump demonizes migrants in dark, misleading speech
- X says 'alert' to manipulation efforts after pro-Russia bots report
- US, European markets rise before Boeing unveils sweeping job cuts
- Small Quebec company dominates one part of NHL hockey: jerseys
- Comoros shock Tunisia, Salah, Mbeumo strike in AFCON qualifiers
- Boeing to cut 10% of workforce as it sees big Q3 loss
- Germany win in Nations League as 10-man Dutch rescue point
- Undav brace sends Germany to victory against Bosnia
- Israel says fired at 'threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- Want to film in Paris? No sexism allowed
- Ecuador's last mountain iceman dies at 80
- Milton leaves at least 16 dead, millions without power in Florida
- Senegal set to announce breakaway development agenda: PM
- UN says 2 peacekeepers wounded in south Lebanon explosions
- Injury-hit Australia thrash 'embarrassing' Pakistan at Women's T20 World Cup
- Internal TikTok documents show prioritization of traffic over well-being
- Israel says fired at 'immediate threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- New US coach Pochettino hails Pulisic but worries over workload
- Brazil orders closure of 2,000 betting sites
- UK govt urged to raise pro-democracy tycoon's case with China
- Sculptor Lalanne's animal creations sell for $59 mn
- From Tesla to Trump: Behind Musk's giant leap into politics
- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- Supercharged hurricanes trigger 'perfect storm' for disinformation
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Djokovic proves staying power as he progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
- Sheffield Utd boss Wilder 'numb' after Baldock death
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- Fans immerse themselves in Marina Abramovic's first China exhibition
- Israel says conducting review after UN peacekeepers wounded in Lebanon
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Djokovic 'overwhelmed' after 'greatest rival' Nadal's retirement
- Zelensky in Berlin says hopes war with Russia will end next year
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Djokovic proves staying power as progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
Noboa vs organized crime: Can Ecuador's new president rise to the challenge?
Ecuador's president-elect Daniel Noboa, its youngest ever, is bracing for a titanic clash with narco traffickers that have turned the South American country upside down with a spate of horrific violence.
With little political experience, the businessman son of one of Ecuador's richest men will be confronting gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels, seeking to restore the peace that reigned just a few years ago.
He has plans to install a separate judicial system for the most serious crimes, militarize the borders with Colombia and Peru -- the world's biggest cocaine producers -- and jail the most violent offenders on barges offshore.
On Sunday, Noboa garnered 52 percent of ballots cast by voters with security concerns uppermost on their minds, according to opinion polls.
By Tuesday he had already called for the country's security council to convene to report on the actions being taken to "restore peace to Ecuadoran families," he said in a social media post.
In the four years to 2022, formerly peaceful Ecuador's murder rate quadrupled, with at least 460 inmates massacred in prisons since February 2021 -- many beheaded or burned alive -- in fighting between enemy gangs.
As Ecuador went from being a mere transit stop to a hub for drug trafficking itself, the bloodbath has spilled into the streets with narco criminals dangling headless corpses from city bridges and detonating car bombs outside police stations in a show of force.
Could Noboa's plans work?
- Prison mayhem -
Perhaps the first sign of things to come were simultaneous massacres in four prisons in February 2021. Since then, more than 460 inmates have died as the carnage has spread, some of the bloodshed transmitted live on social media.
Images of bodies hacked up with machetes or burnt beyond recognition spoke to the lack of control in the country's overcrowded prisons, which have become trafficking centers.
Widespread graft among over-extended prison guards has allowed inmates to obtain guns and explosives, even drones.
In this context, Noboa's proposal to seclude prisoners offshore under the supervision of "highly corruptible" guards, is risky, Renato Rivera, coordinator for the Ecuadoran Organized Crime Observatory, told AFP.
If individual guards are bought by organized crime and left to operate in isolation, "the (proposed) solution could become an additional problem," he said.
There are also fears for human rights abuses as well as the high cost of building floating prisons.
It is a solution that would "take a lot of time" to execute, said Rivera, for a president elected to just 16 months in office.
Noboa will be finishing the term of outgoing leader Guillermo Lasso, who called snap elections to avoid possible impeachment.
- Security purge -
"A very aggressive, rapid and effective purge of the security forces, obviously infiltrated by organized crime, is indispensable" for Noboa to have any success, said David Chavez, a political analyst at the Central University of Ecuador.
"Without doing this it will be impossible to regain control of the prisons, I think that is a critical issue, the priority," he told AFP.
Widespread corruption that spreads far beyond prisons to government and the private sector, was another of voters' major concerns.
Transparency International gave the country a score of 36 out of 100 on its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2022, lower than the 43 average for the Americas.
In 2021 and 2022, concerned by high levels of graft tied to organized crime, the United States barred several senior police officers, judges and judicial employees from travel to its shores.
Strengthening the organs of state to hit back at organized crime and its ever-expanding web of graft was essential to addressing the security problem, said Chavez.
However, "Noboa and his vice president have made it very clear that their project is to continue... dismantling the state, decreasing its size," he added.
- Intelligence overhaul -
The country's intelligence services have been severely weakened in recent years.
Viewed as a tool of political espionage under socialist ex-president Rafael Correa -- in office for 10 years until 2017 -- the intelligence agencies were enfeebled by subsequent rightwing governments.
It is "a totally weakened intelligence system that is not preventing (crime), not generating alerts," said Rivera.
Experts estimate that Ecuador could close this year with the record of 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, up from 33 per 100,000 today.
This is more than Mexico or Colombia, countries with "a much longer history of crime," said Rivera.
The United States said Tuesday it would fund a program in Ecuador offering rewards for information that helps track down members of organized crime groups.
A.Rodriguezv--AMWN