On Thursday, an estimated quarter of a million people gathered in downtown Guayaquil to protest Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and his policies. Overall the protest was peaceful, but included a lot of name-calling, including calling Correa, Chavez of Venezuela and Bolivia´s Morales the Three Stooges. Guayaquileños are upset that the government allocated more than $20 million dollars less than requested to Guayaquil. Tension recently has heightened between Correa and Guayaquil mayor Jaime Nebot who enjoys high ratings in the popularity polls here in Guayaquil. What this will mean for the Correa government is hard to tell. Word was passed around Guayaquil Thursday that Correa had gone to Cuba for knee surgery because there were reportedly no doctors here who could perform the surgery. Many Guayaquileños took this as a slam against the quality of medical care available here in Ecuador. Anyway, here is a link from the yahoo financial page about the protest.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Guayaquil-march-protests-apf-4103528729.html?x=0&.v=1
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Guayaquil-march-protests-apf-4103528729.html?x=0&.v=1