Quito, Jan 11 (Prensa Latina) The Ecuadorian healthcare system begins a new stage Tuesday after President Rafael Correa passed an emergency decree to provide it with funds of 406 million USD.

  The figure, the largest in history for the sector, will be paid out in parts, and the first involves 50 million to hire professionals and fully supply public hospitals with medicine.

The emergency decree has a national character, but it will first target eight hospitals chosen according to their importance for the population, poverty levels, and regional distribution.

The emergency funds are aimed at strengthening hospital management and infrastructure to improve the services of the Public Health Ministry, said Health Minister David Chiriboga.

The decree is a prompt response by the government to improve the public health system, said the coordination minister for social development, Jeannette Sanchez.

Source: Prensa Latina

Quito, Jan 10 (Prensa Latina) Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he will not accept pressures by a wing of the National Assembly conditioning the approval of the Education Law currently being debated to the implementation of the Teacher’s Day social payment.

  “We have even risked our lives to eliminate the disorder caused by social payments, and they are saying in the Assembly that they will not pass the Law if the Teacher’s Day social payment is not enforced,” the president said.

Teacher’s wages would substantially increase with the projected law, and if it is not approved, it will be impossible to raise them, Correa stressed.

“We cannot improve education in the country because they do not want to pass the Law,” El Ciudadano daily quoted Correa as saying.

The president also rejected the proposed retroactive retirement in the sector, which would cost nearly 150 million USD to the State.

“I already announce a partial veto to those proposals,” Correa said.

“If they want to file the Law, go ahead. I tell you my teachers that we will be unable to increase wages and retirement payments because some Assembly members are blackmailing us,” Correa stressed.

Source: Prensa Latina

Panama – Sep 30 (Prensa Latina) The Committee of the Socialist International for Latin America and the Caribbean on Thursday condemned attempts to destabilize the democratic institution in Ecuador and expressed its solidarity with President Rafael Correa.

  A statement of the organization condemned attacks againts the physical integrity of Correa, when he went to talk to the police who had been insubordinate.

“We call on all democratic forces and institutions in the region and the world to immediately act in defense of Ecuadorian democracy and its legitimate president”, said the text signed by the head of the committee Martin Torrijos.

Ecuador’s government denounced on Thursday before the world the coup attempt in the country and called on all Ecuadorians and the international community to be on the alert.

An official release said that the particular interests of certain groups can not be over the general interests of all people.

Many governments and international institutions expressed their solidarity with Correa and condemned attempts to destabilize the order.

Source: Prensa Latina

 Sep 30 (Prensa Latina) Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said the government of President Rafael Correa has restored the Police and Armed Forcesâ�Ö dignity while it realigns public services and rids privileges.

  The Foreign Ministers said the new law restores fair salaries and order for each group used to defend its margins and the new Law organizes the salaries of Ecuadorian public servants and the policemen are big beneficiaries as well.

For instance, Police pay rise under the Government of the Citizensâ�Ö Revolution involves 74.7 percent for 1st Corporals (from $547.20 to $956.30) and 84.9 percent to noncommissioned officers (from $1.020 to $1.887).

Several provinces joined the challenge of the new Law on Public Service, especially Art. 160 that bars economic incentives for decorations, time of service and promotions.

Some 1,000 policemen set Regimiento Quito 1, north of the capital, under siege urging to restore trhe old bonus system. They even stalled an address by Police Commander General Freddy Martinez with a tear gas bomb, blocked every access and burnt tires, while some attacked President Rafael Correa, aborting his attempt to talk them into reason.

President Correa reminded that “no one has done as much for the police as his government” and “no one never expected such payback from the National Police after enjoying such broad supportâ��.

This has been the first government to listen to the Policeâ��.They were paid low salaries and charity-like Christmas freebees whose riddance we compensated with fair salaries but the protesters went on insulting.”

Source: Prensa Latina

  The treaty needs to be ratified by at least nine of the bloc’s 12 member countries to take effect, and so far, seven ratifications have been made, with Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, and Surinam still pending, Patino said.

Intense efforts have been made so that the 12 countries can ratify it this year. “It is unlikely that the 12 can do it, but with nine countries, it would go into effect,” he noted.

“It would be a very important achievement for Ecuador’s temporary chairmanship. We hope that Ecuador hands in the ratified treaty on November 26, so that UNASUR becomes a legal reality,” the minister stressed.

Very positive talks for the treaty’s ratification have been held with countries such as Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Colombia, and these countries are expected to make their announcements in coming days.

Source: Prensa Latina

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa left the door open to dissolving the Andean nation’s legislature and calling for new general elections, about a year after the last poll.

The leftist leader’s statement came after a week of heated debate in parliament — where Correa’s party has the most seats but not an outright majority — over an education bill and a new hydrocarbons law.

“We don’t exclude the dissolution of the National Assembly and the call for legislative and presidential elections for the remainder of the term,” Correa said during a ceremony at the port city of Guayaquil.

“If the National Assembly continues to be blocked by unscrupulous maneuvers … we will call the majority to speak. We will call the Ecuadorean public to go to the ballot box as many times as needed,” he said.

The next scheduled national elections are in 2013.

Correa has said he would enact a law on Monday aimed at increasing state control over the country’s oil sector. That could set the stage for nationalization of non-complying companies.

Congress has scheduled a debate on the bill for the evening, but Correa said lawmakers have waited too long to act on his government’s proposal.

The law will govern new contracts that the government is preparing, aimed at increasing state oil revenues.

Correa, a popular former economy minister, was re-elected in April 2009 for a four-year term under a new constitution that expanded presidential powers.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

The law will govern new contracts the government is preparing, aimed at increasing state oil revenues.

Congress had scheduled a debate on the bill for Sunday evening, but Correa said on Saturday lawmakers have waited too long to act on his government’s proposal. The bill was marked “urgent,” meaning Congress had only 30 days to act on the legislation before it would be automatically enacted.

“With this law, petroleum companies that do not abide by the policies of the state will have their fields nationalized and they will leave the country,” the president said during his regular Saturday television address.

Oil is Ecuador’s top export. Correa’s government wants foreign companies to give up their profit-sharing deals and become service providers in exchange for a flat fee.

“If they (lawmakers) want to meet on Sunday evening, let them do as they please,” Correa said. “But on Monday, in strict defense of the Constitution, the bill will become the law of the republic.”

On Thursday, Ecuador ended French oil company Perenco’s contract for two petroleum blocks and one field, and said state-run Petroamazonas would take over operating the areas.

Source: Reuters

QUITO -(Dow Jones)- President Rafael Correa said Saturday that on Monday he will enact reforms to a hydrocarbons law that aims to expropriate foreign company operations unless they sign service contracts increasing state control of the industry.

During his weekly radio address, Correa said that “on Monday, in strict defense of the Constitution, the bill will become law of the republic” because lawmakers failed to meet the time limit set to decide about the project.

The bill, categorized as urgent, was sent to the National Assembly by President Rafael Correa on June 25.

Fernando Cordero, president of the National Assembly, has said that lawmakers either vote to approve or reject it within 30 days or it automatically becomes law.

Late Friday Cordero called a session for Sunday evening to vote on the bill, but Correa said that this session was not called on time.

“The time periods have not been met and on Monday I will send this law to the official gazette to be published and take effect,” Correa said.

According to Ecuadorean law, the President can enact bills categorized as urgent if lawmakers fail to vote to change or reject them on time.

Alianza Pais, the government’s party, has the largest bloc in Ecuador’s National Assembly, but falls short of a majority with 54 of 124 seats, fewer than the 63 needed to approve laws.

Several lawmakers had said that it seemed neither the government neither the opposition have enough votes to affect the hydrocarbons reforms.

Correa also said that oil companies that don’t abide by the state’s policies will have their fields nationalized and will be forced from the country.

Source: Foxbusiness

LIMA – The Ecuadorian government and the United Nations Development Program are expected to sign an agreement on Aug. 3 creating a trust fund to manage international contributions to the Yasuni-ITT initiative.

Cultural Patrimony Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa told Efe Friday at an international book fair in Lima, where she presented the project, that her focus is already on the direct negotiations to raise funds in interested countries.

Following more than four months of technical work, the UNDP and Ecuador will sign an agreement establishing the trust fund, which will enable the Andean nation to receive compensation in exchange for leaving an important oil deposit in the Amazon region underground indefinitely.

To protect that extremely bio-diverse area within the limits of the Yasuni National Park, Ecuador is demanding it receive compensation equal to at least 50 percent of the revenue it would receive if it were to exploit the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha, or ITT, oil reserve.

According to Espinosa, the 200-page agreement establishing the fund is “extremely complex” and has been negotiated “line by line” since neither the UNDP, which will administer the fund, or Ecuador had ever faced a “such a unique” challenge.

The next step is for the Ecuadorian government, starting in August, to convince potential donors of the viability of the project, whose aim is to combat climate change and turn Ecuador into a “post-petroleum” country.

The initiative calls for Ecuador to refrain from producing some 850 million barrels of heavy crude oil and thereby avoid emitting some 407 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would result from burning these fossil fuels.

Ecuador has received “political” support for the project but it now needs to define what each potential donor country is prepared to contribute.

Espinosa cited Germany as the only country in the European Union that, in addition to expressing tacit support for the initiative, has pledged an exact monetary figure – 50 million euros ($64.5 million) annually over 13 years.

Spain, Belgium, Italy and France also have been receptive, while Espinosa said that in the case of Norway there already have been formal contacts since that country is a “big oil exporter but very environmentally conscious.”

The second block of the countries that Ecuador wants to win over are Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Espinosa said.

Ecuador will visit its fellow OPEC members individually and convince them to come on board as “strategic partners” in the Yasuni-ITT initiative, she said.

In the case of the United States, the minister said that country’s interest in the project stems from the impact of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and President Barack Obama’s commitment to combating climate change during his administration.

In addition to governments, contributions to the Yasuni trust fund also will come from private and public companies, intergovernmental or non-governmental organizations, private-sector organizations and the public at large.

Other countries such as Nigeria and Guatemala have requested technical assistance to replicate this model of development, but Espinosa said it is first necessary to prove it works before sharing it with other nations.

“This model isn’t for every country,” but rather for those that are extremely bio-diverse, oil-producing and on a path to development, the minister said.

Espinosa said the world is faced with a global environmental crisis and called for rethinking “the values and ethics of development.” EFE

Source: EFE

Last March, an international arbitration panel of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ordered to Ecuador to pay up to $700 million in damages and interest because its courts took too long to rule on lawsuits brought by the oil giant.

The court found that Ecuador’s courts violated international law by delaying rulings on certain commercial disputes between Chevron’s Texaco and the government.

The court also ruled that Ecuador had violated the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty by failing to provide effective means of asserting claims and enforcing rights.

The Ecuador Attorney’s Office said Friday in a statement that it asked Thursday for the nullification of the ruling because the arbitration tribunal was not the proper forum to hear the dispute.

Chevron’s lawsuits in Ecuador were related to past oil operations of Texaco Inc. in the South American country. Texaco was acquired by Chevron in 2001.

The ruling is unrelated to another long-running environmental lawsuit brought against Chevron in Ecuador by residents of the country’s oil-producing Amazon region.

The company is accused of having used out-of-date technology that led to the environmental damage. Chevron denies the accusations.

A court-appointed expert has estimated Chevron’s liability in that case to be $27 billion. Chevron has challenged the expert’s qualifications.

Source: Dow Jones