![The Crackdown](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1718606095/articles/hnCN_aa1s1718618000063/President-Daniel-Noboa-Ecuador.jpg)
Daniel Noboa's supporters praise his "mano dura"-his aggressive tactics in combatting organized crime. His critics fear that he is building an authoritarian state.
After several hours of closed-door meetings with security officials, Daniel Noboa, the recently elected President of Ecuador, sat in a darkened office of the Presidential palace—an elegant eighteenth-century building, known as Carondelet, that overlooks the old center of Quito. When I arrived for our first meeting, Noboa was at a wide, empty desk, staring intently at his phone. Several minutes passed in silence before he looked up, mumbling an apology. We shook hands, and I asked how he was doing. “Surviving,” he said. He didn’t mean this in the ordinary, mildly ironic, getting-through-the-day way. A week earlier, he explained, a dozen hit men had been intercepted crossing the border from Colombia, apparently sent by drug traffickers to kill him. Four of the would-be assassins had been killed in a shoot-out with Ecuadorian security forces. The rest were in detention, but there were presumably others out there. Now that he was President, he said with a rueful laugh, he would never be out of danger again.
Noboa’s story about hit men might have seemed exaggerated, not to mention impolitic, but a foreign diplomat in Quito later confirmed it to me. The diplomat was taken aback that Noboa was discussing a highly confidential incident, but, he said, the new President had not yet mastered the art of discretion. I spent several weeks this spring with Noboa, travelling around Ecuador, and found that he spoke in an unfiltered way about most things, including his dangerous circumstances. Only a few months into his Presidency, he was overseeing an “internal armed conflict” against twenty-two criminal gangs that, taken together, constituted one of the most powerful forces in the country.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 24, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 24, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
![ANTIHERO](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/iZ_mJrjwf1719836837212/ANTIHERO.jpg)
ANTIHERO
“The Boys,” on Prime Video.
![HOW THE WEST WAS LONG](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/Vh1HXqPe-1719836720878/HOW-THE-WEST-WAS-LONG.jpg)
HOW THE WEST WAS LONG
“Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1.”
![WHEEL OF FORTUNE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/Tj0upTIEh1719836581848/WHEEL-OF-FORTUNE.jpg)
WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Taffy Brodesser-Akner weighs the cost of generational wealth.
![TWICE-TOLD TALES](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/FSnHEVQ2G1719836202950/TWICETOLD-TALES.jpg)
TWICE-TOLD TALES
The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.
![CASTING A LINE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/zYjGjav-D1719835755852/CASTING-A-LINE.jpg)
CASTING A LINE
The hard-bitten genius of Norman Maclean.
![TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/F4QZ49jIU1719835464335/TEARDROPS-ON-MY-GUITAR.jpg)
TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR
Four years ago, when Ivan Cornejo was a junior in high school, he had a meeting with his family to announce that he was dropping out. His parents were alarmed, of course, but his older sister, Pamela, had a more sympathetic reaction, because she also happened to be his manager, and she knew that he wasn’t bluffing when he said that he had to focus on his career.
![THE HADAL ZONE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/KiyGvpfRQ1719834860480/THE-HADAL-ZONE.jpg)
THE HADAL ZONE
Arwen Rasmont waits hours at Keflavík International for his flight; they call it as he leaves the men’s room. He walks past the mirrored wall and is assaulted, as usual, by his dead father’s handsome image: high-arched nose, yellow hair.
![OPENING THEORY](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/9TQXbGoRi1719833635129/OPENING-THEORY.jpg)
OPENING THEORY
Ivan is standing on his own in the corner while the men from the chess club move the chairs and tables around.
![THE LAST RAVE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/nxcRM0EjJ1719831949168/THE-LAST-RAVE.jpg)
THE LAST RAVE
Remembering a summer of estrangement.
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КАНО
I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”