Moreno last week announced public spending cuts including the closure of state companies and embassies around the world, but trade unions Monday said workers were paying a disproportionate price compared to Ecuador’s elite, AFP reported.

“This protest is because the government is firing workers to avoid making the rich pay,” Mecias Tatamuez, head of the county’s largest union, the Unitary Front of Workers (FUT), told reporters at a march in Quito.

Around 2,000 people marched in the capital, waving flags and banners and shouting anti-government slogans.

Protesters demonstration took place in several other cities, including Guayaquil, the epicenter of health crisis in Ecuador, where union leaders said hundreds marched through the city.

Moreno ordered the closure of Ecuadoran embassies, a reduction in diplomatic staff, and scrapped seven-state companies as part of measures designed to save some $4 billion.

He also announced the liquidation of the TAME airline, which has lost more than $400 million over the last five years.

The government says the pandemic has so far cost the economy at least $8 billion.

Public sector working hours have been cut by 25 percent, with an accompanying 16 percent pay cut.

Moreno said on Sunday that 150,000 people had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus.

Ecuador was struggling economically before the pandemic hit, due to high debt and its dependence on oil.

The IMF predicts that the economy will shrink by 6.3 percent this year, the sharpest drop of any country in South America.

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IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

Ecuador’s Ambassador to Tehran Alejandro Ortega Almeida yesterday met Head of international affairs of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce Mr. Mohammad Karbasi and discussed ways for expanding economic cooperation between both countries.

During the meeting, Karbasi pointed to the cultural commonalities and good bilateral relation between Iran and Ecuador especially in the political field, adding that direct export of Iran to Brazil and some African states can be used as a model for cooperation between Iran and Ecuador.

He also called for exchange of information on trade between Iran and its neighboring states like Iraq and the UAE, adding that having enough knowledge and familiarity with economic potentials of Iran and Ecuador is necessary for expanding bilateral cooperation.

Ecuadorian Ambassador Mr. Ortega Almeida, for his part, said that Iran’s exports of stone to his country can be a good ground for bilateral cooperation, and urged Mr. Karbasi to give Ecuadorian Embassy a list of Iranian private sector business activists who are active in stone sector.

Using bartering system between both states was another major issue which was discussed between Karbasi and Ortega Almeida.

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Fourteen other inmates were injured, the La Hura newspaper reported.

The violence broke out when the murder of a detainee by another inmate “provoked a brawl”, according to Munoz, Al Jazeera reported.

Five of the victims have been identified, while the sixth remains unknown because his corpse was “incinerated”, he said.

Four suspects were also identified and a firearm and other weapons were seized, a security official said.

Family members of the prisoners protested outside the prison to demand information about their relatives, according to images broadcast by local media.

The incident comes a month after the government declared a crisis in the country’s penitentiaries.

Three inmates had escaped from the same prison on Monday, while two inmates were killed last week.

According to official figures, there are currently about 38,500 people in Ecuador’s prisons which are only built to hold 28,000.

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Ecuadorian pan flutist Juan Leonardo Santillán Rojas, known as Leo Rojas, is to travel to Iran to have his second concert titled ‘Son of the Sun’, named after one of Rojas’ hit songs, on March 7-8.

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A planning committee called the Legislative Administrative Council voted 4-3 to put Glas on trial in the congress.

The case now goes to the Constitutional Court and if it agrees, another panel in the National Assembly must vote on whether to let the entire body vote on dismissing Glas. A two-thirds majority is required.

Glas was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for receiving illegal kickbacks from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Glas, 48, had been in preventive custody since October, after his immunity was lifted by Congress, although he was allowed to remain vice president.

Prosecutors said Glas received a total of $13.5 million in Odebrecht bribes, via an uncle who is also under arrest. He was also charged with criminal association.

He is the highest-ranking Latin American politician to be convicted in the sprawling case centered on Odebrecht, whose past practice of giving bribes to secure public works contracts has cast a cloud over officials and ex-officials in several countries of the region.

Under investigation by the US Justice Department, Odebrecht agreed in December to pay a record $3.5 billion fine after admitting to paying $788 million in bribes across 12 countries to secure contracts.

The scandal has ensnared politicians in several countries, including Mexico, Peru, Panama and Venezuela.

Ecuadoran prosecutors said Odebrecht spent $47.3 million in bribes in their country to get public contracts.

(Source: AFP)

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