QUITO: Ecuador’s president on Tuesday accused the Venezuelan drug gang Tren de Aragua of financing Indigenous fuel price protests that have rocked his country for days.
President Daniel Noboa earlier this month announced a cut in the fuel subsidy he said would save the state $1.1 billion.
The move saw the price of diesel soar from $1.80 to $2.80 per gallon (48 cents to 74 cents per liter) — a bitter pill in a country where nearly a third of the population is poor.
Hundreds of Indigenous Ecuadorans have come out in protest in defiance of a state of emergency declared by the president last week.
On Tuesday, Noboa claimed the protesters were “financed and surrounded by criminals from the Tren de Aragua.”
In a message on X, he posted photographs of several men behind bars, without clarifying who they were, why they were detained or what their link to the protests was.
“This is not a struggle, it’s not a protest... it’s the same mafias as always,” the president said.
Like the United States, Noboa has declared the Tren de Aragua a terrorist group for its links to skyrocketing cartel violence.
Last week, he imposed a state of emergency after protesters blockaded key roads, hindering food deliveries and hobbling critical sectors of the economy.
Noboa warned that protesters who defy the emergency would be “charged with terrorism and will serve 30 years in prison.”
Ecuador’s Minister of Government Zaida Rovira said Tuesday that 47 people had been arrested to date, including two foreigners for whom there were “indications” of ties with the Tren de Aragua.
The gang is at the center of rising tensions between Venezuela and the United States, which has deployed warships to the southern Caribbean in what it labeled an anti-drug operation.
Washington claims several people killed in US strikes on boats in the region were members of the Tren de Aragua.
Ecuador’s powerful Conaie Indigenous group, credited with unseating three presidents between 1997 and 2005, decried a “violent repression” of the fuel protests and urged its supporters Tuesday to “stand firm.”
Indigenous people represent nearly eight percent of Ecuador’s population of 17 million, according to the latest census.
Ecuador’s president claims narco gang behind fuel price protests
https://arab.news/5uf4j
Ecuador’s president claims narco gang behind fuel price protests
- President Daniel Noboa earlier this month announced a cut in the fuel subsidy he said would save the state $1.1 billion
- He claimed the fuel price protesters were “financed” by the Tren de Aragua narco cartel
UK to cut protections for refugees under asylum ‘overhaul’
- PM Starmer announced the cuts amid mounting pressure in the face of soaring support for the hard right
- More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year in the UK
LONDON: Britain will drastically reduce protections for refugees under plans to overhaul its asylum system, the Labour government said on Saturday.
The measures were announced as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure over irregular migration in the face of soaring support for the hard right.
“I’ll end UK’s golden ticket for asylum seekers,” interior minister Shabana Mahmood declared in a statement.
Presently, those given refugee status have it for five years, after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain and eventually citizenship.
But Mahmood’s ministry, known as the Home Office, said it would cut the length of refugee status to 30 months.
That protection will be “regularly reviewed” and refugees will be forced to return to their home countries once they are deemed safe, it added.
The ministry also said that it intended to make those refugees who are granted asylum wait 20 years before applying to be allowed to live in the UK long-term, instead of the current five.
The Home Office called the proposals the “largest overhaul of asylum policy in modern times.”
Starmer, elected last summer, is under pressure to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats from France, something that also troubled his Conservative predecessors.
More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year following such dangerous journeys — more than for the whole of 2024 but lower than the record set in 2022.
The crossings are helping fuel the popularity of Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, which has led Labour by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of this year.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with some 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures.
