
-
Experts warn 'AI-written' paper is latest spin on climate change denial
-
PSG eye becoming France's first 'Invincibles'
-
Late birdie burst lifts Ryder to Texas Open lead
-
Five potential Grand National fairytale endings
-
Trump purges national security team after meeting conspiracist
-
More work for McIlroy even with two wins before Masters
-
Trump hopeful of 'great' PGA-LIV golf merger
-
No.1 Scheffler goes for third Masters crown in four years
-
Where Trump's tariffs could hurt Americans' wallets
-
Trump says 'very close to a deal' on TikTok
-
Trump tariffs on Mexico: the good, the bad, the unknown
-
Postecoglou denies taunting Spurs fans in Chelsea defeat
-
Oscar-winning Palestinian director speaks at UN on Israeli settlements
-
With tariff war, Trump also reshapes how US treats allies
-
Fernandez fires Chelsea into fourth as pressure mounts on Postecoglou
-
South Korea court to decide impeached president's fate
-
Penguin memes take flight after Trump tariffs remote island
-
E.T., no home: Original model of movie alien doesn't sell at auction
-
Italy's Brignone has surgery on broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Trump defiant as tariffs send world markets into panic
-
City officials vote to repair roof on home of MLB Rays
-
Rockets forward Brooks gets one-game NBA ban for technicals
-
Pentagon watchdog to probe defense chief over Signal chat row
-
US tariffs could push up inflation, slow growth: Fed official
-
New Bruce Springsteen music set for June 27 release
-
Tom Cruise pays tribute to Val Kilmer
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's tariffs list
-
Zuckerberg repeats Trump visits in bid to settle antitrust case
-
US fencer disqualified for not facing transgender rival
-
'Everyone worried' by Trump tariffs in France's champagne region
-
Italy's Brignone suffers broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Iyer blitz powers Kolkata to big IPL win over Hyderabad
-
Russian soprano Netrebko to return to London's Royal Opera House
-
French creche worker gets 25 years for killing baby with drain cleaner
-
UK avoids worst US tariffs post-Brexit, but no celebrations
-
Canada imposing 25% tariff on some US auto imports
-
Ruud wants 'fair share' of Grand Slam revenue for players
-
Lesotho, Africa's 'kingdom in the sky' jolted by Trump
-
Trump's trade math baffles economists
-
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
-
'Unprecedented crisis' in Africa healthcare: report
-
Pogacar gunning for blood and thunder in Tour of Flanders
-
Macron calls for suspension of investment in US until tariffs clarified
-
Wall St leads rout as world reels from Trump tariffs
-
Mullins gets perfect National boost with remarkable four-timer
-
Trump tariffs hammer global stocks, dollar and oil
-
Authors hold London protest against Meta for 'stealing' work to train AI
-
Tate Modern gifted 'extraordinary' work by US artist Joan Mitchell
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's new tariffs list
-
Tonali eager to lead Newcastle back into Champions League

Drug crimes keep Ecuador community in grip of fear
When Luis Sarmiento and his grandson went out early to buy bread one morning in March, they came across a shocking scene: A macabre message left by Ecuador's drug traffickers in the form of two headless bodies.
"I covered my grandson's eyes, went upstairs, and I don't know anything else," recalled Sarmiento, a 78-year-old former laborer who has lived in the Duran municipality -- near Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city -- for 16 years.
Drug traffickers have long targeted this hilly area to groom young recruits at their "school of assassins," a retired police chief told AFP under condition of anonymity.
The cartels recruit children as young as 10 to sell drugs.
"First they sell, then they give them a weapon and convert them into killers," said police colonel Jorge Hadathy.
At a hideout used by the Los Lagartos gang -- one of Duran's cartels -- police found a collection of cuddly stuffed crocodiles.
They believe gangs use toys to attract children, particularly ones that allude to the criminal group -- Los Lagartos means "the lizards" in Spanish.
The majority of the 230 people arrested in Duran between January and April of this year were aged 17 or 18, said Hadathy.
The group, he said, was responsible for "four or five deaths."
The Cerro Las Cabras hill where Sarmiento lives has a reputation for violence in Duran.
In February, two dead bodies that had been shot were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge.
And another five mutilated bodies appeared between October and when the two decapitated ones showed up in March.
The killings are believed to be linked to cruel score-settling in the style of Mexican mafias.
The murders are part of battles between rival micro-trafficking gangs, who move around $1.8 million a month in Duran alone, according to official figures.
- 'Playing cat and mouse' -
About 30 police officers search vehicles for drugs and weapons along the sloping side of the Cerro Las Cabras hill.
Inside the community, when police on horseback seize a man in a cap, residents follow events out of the corner of their eyes, but don't leave their homes or talk openly about what they have seen.
The traditional mafia code of silence reigns.
In their most recent incursion into the community, the police received support from the military for their operation.
Three of Ecuador's provinces, including Guayas, where Duran is located, are under a state of emergency as the government looks to tackle gangs.
"The gangs are playing cat and mouse with us," said Sergeant Washington Reyes.
The cartels employ the use "bell-ringers" -- children who use radios the size of a lighter to alert the mafiosos to police movements.
The whole place is "a drug supermarket," says Hadathy.
"Families live off sales or receive money from the mafias, and the rest keep quiet out of fear."
Teenagers are easy prey for drug traffickers, said Duran community leader Alexandra Saavedra.
"If they don't have places to play sports and live in a depressed place, of course they will join a gang," she said.
"Sometimes a wolf is not bad out of desire, but because it has no options."
- Raging violence -
Leaders like Junior Roldan and Ben 10, from the feared Los Choneros gang and its armed wing the Chone Killers, came from Cerro Las Cabras where they started out as hitmen, according to authorities.
Their gang has been implicated in the bloody prison riots that have shocked Ecuador in recent months.
Since February 2021, around 400 inmates have been killed in savage massacres between rival gangs battling for control of the facilities.
Violence rages outside, too.
Since January, 363 people have died in crimes linked to drugs in Duran and neighboring Samborondon and Guayaquil.
The latter is the country's main port and principle jumping off point for dozens of tons of cocaine shipped to Europe and the United States.
In Samborondon and Guayaquil alone, 43.5 tons of drugs have been seized this year.
Ecuador, which borders the world's two largest producers of cocaine, Colombia and Peru, was for years spared the drug trafficking-related violence of other Latin American countries.
But the country has become a logistics center for the drug market and a battleground between rival cartels.
Many compare Ecuador's struggles with the terror wrought by Colombian drug cartels and their hitmen decades ago.
"You've made the comparison with the Colombia of the 1980s, but likewise Colombia is a country that has achieved economic development, attracted local investment, international investment and Ecuador is in a great economic moment," said President Guillermo Lasso last month when quizzed by a journalist.
S.F.Warren--AMWN