![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.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 24, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 24, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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![ANTIHERO](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1751212/iZ_mJrjwf1719836837212/ANTIHERO.jpg)
ANTIHERO
“The Boys,” on Prime Video.
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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.
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TWICE-TOLD TALES
The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.
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CASTING A LINE
The hard-bitten genius of Norman Maclean.
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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.
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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.
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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.”