Ecuador, the present and the past by Lucia Mitrova

Try to guess where am I. People around here speak Spanish, there's Peru on the east and south and Colombia on the north. There's Pacific ocean also, and Galapagos Island are not that far away. Now You probably already know (if don't know I'll tell you anyway) I'm in Ecuador. Beautiful country of South America with it's shores, jungles, highlands and cities and of course people. Speaking of people, first human cultures in Ecuador dates back to 3500 B.C.. Arguably the most famous are Valdivia an Machalia culture. Later their territory were occupied by the Inca Empire and they assimilated. And yes, we are talking about the Incas. But in the 1532 Incas found themselves in the the middle of civil war (siblings, brothers Huascar and Atahualpa were fighting). Spanish conquistadors, concretely Francisco Pizarro, took advantage of this and conquered the Inca Empire. That is how Spain gained it's influence over the Ecuador. After nearly three hundred years of Spanish colonization Ecuador wanted to get rid of it. So the battle for independence began. It was a long, but successful one. In 1822 whole Ecuador gained his independence and was able to start a new era. The present Ecuador is modern, democratic, mostly catholic Latin American country with amazing and rich culture, fauna and flora (Galapagos Islands are on the UNESCO list) and also it's own problems. For instance government instability, unemployment, poverty or low safety at work. Like the incident that happened recently nearby the town Machala. Sixty miner got trapped in an underground gold mine. There was also an explosion and (at least) one person got killed. The explosion "demonstrates the need for responsible mining in Ecuador," said Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/ecuador_mine_explosion;_ylt=AqZMVb8sK0XmoKwHmiLw_KGs0NUE

by Lucia Mitrova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.