International
Police killed, guards held in gang violence-stricken Ecuador
| By AFP |
Two police officers were killed, two more wounded and prison guards taken hostage Tuesday in the latest wave of attacks in a deadly gang war consuming Ecuador, authorities said.
Officials said “organized crime” groups responded to the transfer of detainees from the Guayas 1 prison with nine attacks using explosives and firearms.
The prison, in the southwestern port city of Guayaquil, is one of the main scenes of a series of bloody prison massacres that have left about 400 inmates dead since February 2021.
“We have had reactions” of “organized crime” in Guayaquil and in the northwestern oil port of Esmeraldas, Interior Minister Juan Zapata told reporters in the capital, Quito.
These included car bomb attacks.
In the early morning hours, two police officers died when their patrol car was attacked by people with firearms in Guayaquil, according to police. A separate attack on a police station in Guayaquil left two officers injured.
In Esmeraldas — the same city where two beheaded bodies were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge on Monday — inmates took eight guards hostage, according to the SNAI prison authority.
A video circulated on Twitter appears to show two guards with explosives tied to their bodies and a man claiming to be an inmate denouncing prison “corruption.” AFP could not independently verify the video.
“If war is what they want, war is what they’ll get,” says the man, his face obscured, adding: “We will use these guards.”
‘Find the perpetrators’
Police commander General Fausto Salinas said at the press conference in Quito that four of the guards were since released.
The SNAI had earlier announced on Twitter that it was moving about 200 inmates from the Guayas 1 prison in Guayaquil. It said the transfers were necessitated by required maintenance to cell blocks. But according to the purported hostage video, the move was the reason for the events at Esmeraldas.
“Given the events in Esmeraldas and GYE (Guayaquil), we activated our tactical and investigative units to maintain order and find the perpetrators,” the police said on Twitter.
Once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen a wave of violent crime that authorities blame on turf battles between rival drug gangs believed to have ties to Mexican cartels.
Hundreds of inmates have been killed — many beheaded or incinerated — as the fighting spilled into prisons. Civilians have increasingly been caught up in the violence, which has included a spate of car bombs.
The violence has claimed 61 police lives since last year. Ecuador has gone from being a drug transit route in recent years to an important distribution center in its own right, with the United States and Europe the main destinations.
The murder rate in Ecuador nearly doubled in 2021 to 14 per 100 000 inhabitants, and reached 18 per 100,000 between January and October this year. In 2021, law enforcement seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine. So far this year’s seizures total 160 tons.
International
Bolsonaro diagnosed with skin cancer amid coup conviction
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been diagnosed with skin cancer while serving a historic sentence for attempting a coup d’état. His medical team confirmed that the lesions have been removed and that, for now, he does not require further procedures, though he will need regular monitoring.
On Wednesday, September 17, Bolsonaro’s doctors confirmed the diagnosis. The announcement comes shortly after the former leader was convicted of orchestrating an attempted coup.
According to his physician, Claudio Birolini, Bolsonaro has “squamous cell carcinoma, which is neither the most benign nor the most aggressive form — it is intermediate.” Birolini warned, however, that this type of skin cancer “can carry more serious consequences.”
International
Milei praises Paraguay’s growth, calls Argentina’s last 20 years a ‘decline’
Argentine President Javier Milei praised Paraguay’s economic growth over the past two decades during a speech before the Paraguayan Congress on Wednesday (Sept. 17, 2025), crediting it to incentives that favored capitalism. At the same time, he contrasted that progress with what he described as Argentina’s deepening “decline” during the same period.
“If we compare the last 20 years of Paraguay with those of the Argentine Republic, we will find almost diametrically opposite results,” Milei told lawmakers during a special session of Parliament on the second and final day of his official visit to Asunción.
“While you have not stopped growing, we have deepened our decline. If we understand incentives as the engine of capitalism, Paraguay focused on preserving and strengthening them, while Argentina dedicated itself to chaining, directing, and suffocating them,” the right-wing leader stated.
International
Trump administration launches large-scale immigration operation in Chicago
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump intensified a large-scale immigration operation in the Chicago area with the arrival of additional Border Patrol agents on Tuesday and the presence of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem during a raid.
Noem posted a video on her X account showing the immigration operation, in which DHS reportedly removed “violent criminals” from the streets. The footage shows Noem observing the arrest of a man taken into custody at his home early Tuesday morning at an undisclosed location.
“I was in Chicago today to make it clear that we will not back down,” the secretary wrote. “Our work is just beginning,” she added.
The warning from Noem was echoed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Gregory Bovino, who posted a video on X Tuesday showing multiple Border Patrol vehicles arriving in the city with the caption: “Chicago, we are here!”
Bovino, who led the immigration crackdown in Los Angeles implemented since last June, said the team will remain in Chicago to continue the mission they started in California.
Operation “Midway Blitz” is currently focused on the Chicago metropolitan area and its suburbs. Activists and residents have reported sightings of masked agents and unmarked vehicles in predominantly Latino neighborhoods.
Bolsonaro diagnosed with skin cancer amid coup conviction
Milei praises Paraguay’s growth, calls Argentina’s last 20 years a ‘decline’
Trump administration launches large-scale immigration operation in Chicago
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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