Weekly Report - 15 January 2009 (ISSN 1741-7422)

President Rafael Correa defended his vision of modern socialism during a trip to Cuba last week where he met his Cuban peer Raúl Castro. “Traditional socialism made enormous mistakes," Correa said, adding that “perhaps the most important of these mistakes was never disputing a notion of development with capitalism". Correa aims to rectify that mistake in Ecuador, through a new constitution privileging “the people" first and foremost. Leftwingers argue that his new mining law, approved this week, contradicts this vision.