International
Luisa González, Correa’s bishop who seeks revenge against Noboa
Luisa González, the bishop of the former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa (2007-2017), once again personifies the hope of the correismo to return to govern the country after eight years away from power and to be the first Ecuadorian woman to win a presidential election.
González (Quito, 1977), a lawyer with peasant roots on the Ecuadorian coast, was on the verge of achieving it in 2023, when she was surpassed in the second round of the extraordinary elections by the current president, Daniel Noboa, who now seeks his re-election and once again profiles himself as the greatest rival of the correísmo.
This 47-year-old single mother with two children, a woman of Correa’s absolute confidence, accepted the challenge of seeking her particular revenge and returning to being the candidate of the Citizen Revolution led by the former president, who is disqualified from being a candidate for the sentence of eight years in prison for bribery he received in 2020 and he considers “lawfare”.
Although he was born circumstantially in Quito when his parents visited the capital, González defines himself as an “authentic manaba”, originally from the coastal province of Manabí, where he grew up in Canuto, a lavish agricultural land where the “montubios” the tough peasants of the coast are also forged.
He worked in the field with his grandfather, who taught him to temper his character, to ride a horse, to handle the machete and perform the hard tasks entrusted to the mountaineer. Emerging from that rural and challenging environment, González proudly claims to be a woman who has managed to make herself and get her children ahead.
With a strong Catholic conviction, a crucifix hangs from González’ neck and on her skin she has tattooed pink paths since she was a twenty-year-old that symbolize her commitment to the Lord, one with a stem formed by the words of a fragment of the Bible.
His positions against the total decriminalization of abortion have also cost him criticism from leftist groups in his time as an assemblyman.
González studied at the International University of Ecuador, where she received a lawyer’s degree, but also has a master’s degree in Economics and Development at the Complutense University of Madrid.
He is a lover of Manabita cuisine, one of the most precious in Ecuador, as well as sports and animals, to the point that he has two dogs at home.
He was linked to Correísmo from the beginning, when Rafael Correa began his political life and quickly reached the Presidency of the Republic in 2007. She is faithful to the former president, of whom she was his coordinator of Strategic Agenda (2010), a key and close position that allowed her to understand the twists and turns of power.
She also served as Deputy Minister of Tourism Management (2014), Secretary General of the Presidential Office (2015) and National Secretary of Public Administration (2017).
She served as vice-consul of Ecuador in Madrid (2011) and consul in Alicante (Spain) in 2017, as well as general secretary of the Intendencia de Compañías de Quito.
After concluding Correa’s mandate in 2017, she launched into active political life and in 2021 she was elected as a member of the National Assembly (Parliament), where she held a strong critical position against the Government of conservative President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023), whose early departure led to the extraordinary elections of 2023.
His name began to sound just after Lasso invoked the so-called “cross death”, a constitutional mechanism that allowed him to dissolve Parliament and call new elections to complete the period that did not end (2021-2025).
After the 2023 elections, she remained as the president of the Citizen Revolution, which gave her strength to be the presidential candidate again against other possible candidates of the Correísmo such as Paola Pabón, Augusto Verduga and Gustavo Jalkh.
On this occasion he accompanies González as a candidate for vice president Diego Borja, instead of Andrés Arauz, who was the presidential candidate of the correísmo in 2021.
The Citizen Revolution appeals to the stability enjoyed by Ecuador during the decade that Correa ruled the country, which the presidential candidate wants to “revive”, as she repeatedly mentions in her campaign interventions, which happens to a large extent by appeasing the crisis of violence that affects the country due to the rise of organized crime gangs.
International
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.
“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”
The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.
The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.
International
Seven inmates dead, 11 injured after violent riot in Veracruz prison
Seven inmates were killed and eleven others injured in a violent riot and clash inside a penitentiary in the Mexican state of Veracruz, local authorities reported on Sunday.
The disturbance began on Saturday afternoon at the Social Reintegration Center in the port city of Tuxpan, in northern Veracruz, when inmates staged a protest over extortion and assaults allegedly carried out by members of the criminal group known as Grupo Sombra.
The protesting prisoners clashed with another group of inmates and set fires inside and outside the facility, seizing control of the prison for more than 12 hours.
During the takeover, the rioters released several videos, including one showing four prisoners —believed to be members of Grupo Sombra— accusing them of being behind the violence and extortion inside the prison.
It wasn’t until Sunday morning that elements of the Mexican Army, the National Guard, and local police forces managed to enter the prison and regain control. The state’s Public Security Secretariat confirmed that around 9:00 a.m. local time a coordinated operation restored full order and reestablished control of the facility.
Authorities also reported that the fires set by inmates were fully extinguished.
Official figures confirmed the “tragic” deaths of seven inmates and injuries to eleven people, who are now receiving medical treatment in various regional hospitals.
This is the second deadliest riot in Veracruz in the past eight years. In 2018, a violent uprising at the La Toma medium-security prison left seven people dead (six police officers and one unidentified man) and at least 22 injured (15 officers and seven inmates).
The riot follows the kidnapping and killing of retired teacher and taxi driver Irma Hernández, a case that shocked the entire country and was attributed to Grupo Sombra. Images of Hernández kneeling, surrounded by armed men in the municipality of Álamo, sparked nationwide outrage. She was murdered after refusing to pay extortion demands from the criminal organization.
Despite these incidents, Veracruz has not seen a spike in the daily homicide average. In fact, there has been a 1.6% decrease in homicides in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System.
In 2023, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported 3,094 incidents in Mexican prisons —an 18.5% increase from the previous year— resulting in 100 deaths and 892 injuries.
International
Study finds COVID-19 vaccines prevented 2.5 million deaths worldwide
COVID-19 vaccines prevented an estimated 2,533,000 deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2024, according to an international study led by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy and Stanford University in the United States, published in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers calculated that one death was prevented for every 5,400 doses administered.
The analysis also found that the vaccines saved 14.8 million years of life, equivalent to one year of life gained for every 900 doses given.
The study, coordinated by Professor Stefania Boccia, revealed that 82% of the lives saved were people vaccinated before becoming infected with the virus, and 57% of deaths avoided occurred during the Omicron wave. In addition, 90% of the beneficiaries were adults over 60 years old.
“This is the most comprehensive analysis to date, based on global data and fewer assumptions about the evolution of the pandemic,” explained Boccia and researcher Angelo Maria Pezzullo.
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