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Top 10 Things to Do in Ecuador (Ecuador Travel Guide)

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Ecuadoreans have voted to scrap unlimited presidential terms, a move which should stop leftist ex-leader Rafael Correa from returning to power.

With almost all votes counted, 64.3% of voters backed a constitutional change which will prevent presidents from holding office for more than two terms.

The question was one of seven being put to voters in a referendum.

It was called by current President Lenín Moreno, once Mr Correa's deputy but now his staunch opponent.

The questions also include a proposal to bar officials convicted of corruption from politics.

Mr Correa split very publicly from Mr Moreno, who took office in May 2017 after winning an election as the candidate of Mr Correa's Alianza Pais (Country Alliance) party.

Ecuador's president faces party revolt

Ecuador country profile

The referendum was Mr Moreno's way to "distance himself from his predecessor and consolidate his political process", said Ecuadorean news and analysis portal GK.

Voters also gave broad backing to measures to limit the mining of minerals in environmentally protected areas and to end the statute of limitations for sexual crimes against minors.

Some of the measures will require approval by Congress.

Mr Moreno, 64, was disabled in a 1998 armed robbery and is currently the only serving head of state using a wheelchair. He was Mr Correa's vice-president between 2007 and 2013.

So this is a battle over Mr Correa's legacy?

Yes - and a deeply personal one.

Mr Moreno wants a decisive vote to mark an end to the Correa-era "Citizens' Revolution" and close the door to Mr Correa's candidacy in the 2021 election.

"Corruption sets in when you have only one government that thinks it will stay on forever," he said on the campaign trail this week, according to Reuters news agency.

But Mr Correa has called his former ally a "traitor" and said he was "trying to destroy everything that has to do with Correa", the agency reports.

Mr Correa, who in January 2018 returned from Belgium where he had been living to spearhead the "No" campaign, has called the referendum a "coup d'état".

He accuses "the right" of wanting to "invent a crime against me to disable me", said AFP news agency, referring to a referendum measure to bar those convicted of corruption from politics.

Jorge Glas, vice-president to both Mr Correa and Mr Moreno, was sentenced to six years in jail in December 2017 for his involvement in a case of bribes paid by Brazilian firm Odebrecht.

Mr Correa has not himself been convicted of any corruption. He has voluntarily agreed to testify in court on Monday as prosecutors investigate allegations of irregularities in oil sales to China and Thailand during his time in office.

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Ecuadoreans have voted to scrap unlimited presidential terms, a move which should stop leftist ex-leader Rafael Correa from returning to power. With almost all votes counted, 64.3% of voters backed a constitutional change which will prevent presidents from holding office for more than two terms. The question was one of seven being put to voters in a referendum.

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When Ecuadorean authorities boarded the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 earlier this month off the Galápagos Islands, they had little idea what awaited them. Officials at the Galápagos National Park had called in the navy to investigate the Chinese-flagged vessel, which had been sailing through the area's marine reserve without explanation.

It didn't take long to find the cargo.

Roughly 300 tons of marine species lay heaped in piles onboard, including more than 6,600 dead sharks. Most of those were hammerheads, but authorities also found silky, thresher and mako sharks as well - all of which are off-limits to industrial fishers within the marine reserve.

Now, after a brief trial on the Galápagos' San Cristobal Island, an Ecuadorean judge has convicted the ship's 20 crew members of possessing and transporting protected species. The ruling Monday sentenced them to anywhere from one to four years in prison and slapped them with fines totaling $5.9 million.

"The sentence marks a milestone in regional environmental law and an opportunity to survive for migratory species," the country's Ministry of Environment said in a statement.

It also marks something of a vindication for the large crowd of demonstrators who showed up outside the courtroom last week, signs in hand, to protest illegal fishing around the Galápagos Islands.

Fishing of any kind is banned throughout much of the area, which is home to one of the world's largest marine reserves. UNESCO says the world heritage site comprises more than 50,000 square miles of protected waters, and, according to National Geographic, it has "the highest abundance of sharks known in the world."

"The Galápagos Islands have extraordinary ecological value, and also economic value," President Rafael Correa said last year after adding a new sanctuary to the reserve. "[It's a] wonderful world where as many species as possible are preserved for the enjoyment and knowledge of future generations."

Yet the global trade in shark fins remains a burgeoning business, partly driven by efforts "to satisfy the expensive Asian dish shark fin soup," Costa Rica marine biologist Geiner Golfin told Quartz. That's despite some attempts from Beijing in recent years - laid out earlier this year by NPR's Anthony Kuhn - to cut down on the trade.

Chinese leadership says it has been following the case in Ecuador.

"We will not condone illegal fishing in any form," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news briefing Tuesday - yet she noted that the Chinese government has conducted some investigations of its own to verify the Ecuadorean determination.

"Judging from the information gleaned from the two sides, there has been no evidence proving that the vessel was engaged in fishing and transporting in the Ecuadorean waters," she said, adding that it was true the vessel was in the marine reserve, "unaware of the relevant rules."

That said, she did not offer her own judgment on the ruling, saying only that Beijing plans to carry out its own "due investigation" and professing hope that Ecuadorean authorities "will deal with this case in a just and unbiased way based on the objective facts."

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Fishermen Caught With 6,600 Sharks In Galápagos, Now Headed To Prison

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When Ecuadorean authorities boarded the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 earlier this month off the Galápagos Islands, they had little idea what awaited them. Officials at the Galápagos National Park had called in the navy to investigate the Chinese-flagged vessel, which had been sailing through the area's marine reserve without explanation.