News stories by Gonzalo Ortiz, page 3

Although domestic consumption of seafood is low, Ecuador has a large fishing fleet, and is home to the main port for tuna and white fish in the eastern Pacific.

A referendum on reforms to the new constitution and criminal law is to be held in Ecuador in response to the mounting public security crisis, giving left-wing President Rafael Correa an opportunity to canvass public opinion on these thorny issues.

On a clear day, hundreds of families pull over in their cars and snap pictures of the column of smoke spewing out of the Tungurahua volcano in central Ecuador.

Approximately 300 Cuban and 30 Venezuelan volunteer 'brigadistas' have departed Ecuador, marking the end of the first phase of the 'Manuela Espejo Mission,' conducting a complete study of disabilities in this country over the past year and a half.

As the dust settles following contract negotiations with foreign oil companies, Ecuador is looking at a new map for its petroleum industry and trying to determine what it will mean in economic terms for this OPEC-member nation.

The office is chaotic. Huge piles of T-shirts and boxes of ballpoint pens are piled high on desks where indigenous men and women are busy packing these articles, together with placards, leaflets and fliers, at the headquarters of their National Commission on Statistics.

'It is essential for the amnesty law to be repealed' in Uruguay, Argentine poet Juan Gelman told IPS after hearings at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ended in Quito, in the cases of the murder of his daughter-in-law and the kidnapping of his granddaughter.

The Spanish government is 'analysing mechanisms to contribute' one million euros (1.3 million dollars) to the Yasuni-ITT initiative, one of the few definite contributions received by Ecuador for a scheme to leave oil reserves untouched in a highly biodiverse area of the Amazon jungle.

Tens of thousands of Ecuadorians are set to visit cemeteries on Tuesday, the traditional 'Día de Finados' (Day of the Deceased). But while city residents tend to spend the day in mourning, for many indigenous peoples it is a day of celebration, of reunion with their ancestors.

'What lies ahead in Colombia is an increase in the number of refugees and displaced persons, while in Guatemala and Mexico people are going to continue leaving their countries in difficult conditions in which they face dangers to their lives,' said Nelsy Lizarazu, one of the spokespersons for the Fourth World Social Forum on Migration.