TODAY’S AMERICAS story

Ecuador rejects push to allow US military bases

What happened
Voters in Ecuador yesterday rejected four measures backed by President Daniel Noboa, including repealing a constitutional ban on U.S. and other foreign military bases in the country. The other measures voted down would have created an assembly to rewrite the Constitution, cut public funding for political parties and slashed the number of seats in the National Assembly to 73, from 151.

Who said what
The results were a “significant defeat” for Noboa, a “conservative who is closely aligned with the Trump administration,” The Associated Press said. He recently gave Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a “tour of a military base along Ecuador’s coast that could possibly host U.S. troops.” Noboa said after casting his ballot yesterday that “international cooperation” was “the only way to dismantle” the “transnational criminal networks” that have turned Ecuador into a violence-plagued conduit of cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru.

Noboa’s “bet on the military has not brought peace” to Ecuador, just “ignited new waves of violence,” International Crisis Group analyst Glaeldys González Calanche wrote in The New York Times. And “more troops — even foreign ones — won’t solve the problem.”

What next?
Noboa said on social media last night that his government would “respect the will of the people” and continue to fight for the country that “everyone deserves.” The U.S. had “hoped the referendum would pave the way for it to open a military base” in Ecuador after a 16-year ban, the BBC said. The Trump administration on Saturday announced its 21st military strike on suspected drug trafficking boats off South America’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts, bringing the death toll to 83.

TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL Story

Chile advances Communist, far-right candidates to runoff

What happened
Chilean voters yesterday set the stage for a presidential runoff election between Jeannette Jara, a progressive former labor minister from President Gabriel Boric’s governing coalition, and far-right former congressman José Antonio Kast. Jara came out ahead in yesterday’s first round, with about 27% of the vote to Kast’s 24%. But Kast was one of four right-wing candidates who collectively won about 70%, making him the frontrunner in next month’s runoff vote.

Who said what
Jara, 51, is a member of the Communist Party, “but many see her as center-left in practice,” the BBC said. Chile’s electorate appears to have shifted to the right since Kast lost to Boric four years ago, with most voters now listing violent crime among their biggest concerns. Kast, 59, has faced criticism “over his late father’s Nazi party membership and his affinity for Augusto Pinochet,” Reuters said, and his victory “would put in place an administration that is further to the right than any other since the Pinochet dictatorship.”

Kast has “borrowed liberally” from President Donald Trump’s playbook, The New York Times said, and “recently set aside many of his most divisive proposals to focus on crime and illegal immigration.” Chile is “one of Latin America’s most prosperous and developed countries,” and “still one of the safest,” The Wall Street Journal said. But many Chileans blame “recent shootouts in broad daylight and violent robberies” on Venezuelan migrants.

What next?
The Dec. 14 runoff vote “will be between a Communist candidate and one from the extreme right who four years ago seemed unreasonable, but now seems reasonable,” economist and former Boric adviser Eduardo Engel told the Times.

It’s not all bad

Renewables are on track to grow faster than any other major energy source over the next decade, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA’s annual report predicts that more renewable projects will be built in the next five years than in the past 40, meeting nearly all rising global electricity demand. The IEA says that despite political backlash in some nations, solar and wind power will dominate the market, marking the effective end of the fossil fuel era.

Under the radar

Who were the ‘weekend snipers’ of Sarajevo?

Prosecutors in Milan have launched an investigation into claims that Italian citizens paid huge sums of money to the Bosnian Serb army in the mid-1990s to shoot civilians “for fun” during the Siege of Sarajevo. Snipers killed 225 people, including 60 children, during the four-year siege, Zilha Mastalic Kosuta, of the Institute for Researching Crimes Against Humanity and International Law at Sarajevo University, told DW in 2022. To date, not one sniper has been brought to justice.

The case, first reported by Italian newspaper Il Giornale in July, began with charges of “voluntary homicide aggravated by cruelty and abject motives” brought against unknown persons, stemming from a complaint filed by journalist Ezio Gavazzeni. It has proved enough to launch an inquiry into so-called weekend snipers who allegedly took part in the siege, which left about 11,000 people dead from 1992 to 1996.

Testimonies gathered from across northern Italy claim that far-right sympathizers and gun and hunting enthusiasts met in Trieste before being transported to the hills surrounding Sarajevo, where they allegedly fired on civilians after paying what today would be the equivalent of $116,000 to Bosnian Serb militias loyal to Radovan Karadzic.

Slovenian director Miran Zupanic’s 2022 documentary “Sarajevo Safari” was based on similar witness testimony from Slovenian and Bosnian intelligence officers, about “tourist shooters” from Russia, Canada and America, as well as Italy. Zupanic faced a “major backlash and hostile responses from some Bosnian Serb media outlets,” said DW. “I didn’t want to convince anyone of this story,” he told the German broadcaster. “The public will be the ones to judge.”

On this day

November 17, 1869

The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea to create a key trading route for ships. It remains an economic lifeline for the region, though the number of ships passing through the channel fell by 50% from 2023 to 2024 due to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Toxic politics’

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene “regrets ‘toxic politics’ as split with President Trump widens,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Monday’s front page. “In shift, president supports Epstein disclosure” after “defections,” The Wall Street Journal says. “Trump’s foreign policy is testing once-unwavering MAGA base,” says the Los Angeles Times. “GOP sifts for remedy on ACA” as “dueling votes loom in December,” The Washington Post says. “Pressure on ICE to deport leaves children without their parents,” The New York Times says. Immigration “crackdown may stall Houston growth,” says the Houston Chronicle. “Districts cite ICE for loss of pupils,” says The Boston Globe.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Help unwanted

A Canadian man boarded an unattended bus, sat in the driver’s seat and then drove passengers around Hamilton, Ontario. Riders realized the man wasn’t the real driver once he started making wrong turns, and one passenger guided him back to the route, police said. He took his job seriously, even blocking a person from using an expired pass. The man was captured after 15 minutes, and “there was not a ding on the bus,” Hamilton Police spokesperson Trevor McKenna told CBC News.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.