FROM THE ECONOMIST:
One of Ecuador’s most-watched news programs, El Noticiero, broadcast live when gunmen stormed the studio. Cameras rolled as hooded gangsters pistol-whipped staff to the floor. They strutted on air for 15 minutes, flicking gang signs to stunned viewers and taking selfies while waving machetes, dynamite, and machine guns.
This thuggery, beamed across the country on the afternoon of January 9th by state-owned channel tc Televisión, was the most shocking moment in 48 hours of mayhem that swept through Ecuador this week. It is the latest, most dramatic episode in Ecuador’s four-year slide into the grip of drug gangs. In 2019 it was one of the safest countries in Latin America, with a homicide rate of 6.7 per 100,000, comparable to that in the United States.
Photograph: Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Reuters
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN
THE NORMS
