With his domestic policy floundering, Joe Biden returned from the failed COP26 climate summit to the humiliating reality that his short-lived honeymoon is already over. This was made evident with the defeat of the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate in the bellwether contest in Virginia. All the serious bourgeois journals cite the national unpopularity of Biden and the Democrats as a crucial factor in the loss.

In the early hours of Tuesday, 26 October, social and indigenous organisations, as well as workers’ unions in Ecuador began a new day of protest against the economic policies of President Guillermo Lasso. The demonstrations were called by the Ecuadorian indigenous sector, the Unitary Workers Front (FUT) (the largest union in the country), the Popular Front (FP), and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE).