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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Ecuador: Assange is a problem

One for the “no sh*t, Sherlock,” file,
Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno has described Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as an “inherited problem” in a television interview.

President Moreno said Mr Assange had created “more than a nuisance” for his government.

He has in the past warned the Wikileaks founder not to interfere in Ecuadorean politics or “that of nations that are our friends”.

His warning followed Mr Assange’s public support for the independence campaign in Catalonia.

Pamela Anderson thinks Assange is a genius.

Assange was granted Ecuadorean citizenship last month.

He’s been in the London embassy since June of 2012. Let’s hope he doesn’t break his hip.

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Ecuador: When will Assange have to leave?

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been staying at the Ecuadorian Embassy (a small apartment) in London for nearly since 2012. He has not left the premises due to outstanding warrants for his arrest.

He tweeted this last year, criticizing president Lenín Moreno,

Moreno did not like it and wants him out, but does not want the visuals of Assange being dragged away by police. Ecuador requested that the UK grant Assange diplomatic status, to which the UK said “no” (link in Spanish). Here’s a screenshot of the letter,

James Ball of The Guardian summarizes Assange’s situation,
The only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride

The WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US, charges in Sweden have been dropped – and for the embassy, he’s lost his value as an icon

Ball, by the way, worked with WikiLeaks for a few months in 2010 and 2011.

———————————————–

Headlines:
WikiLeaks: Ecuador wants Julian Assange out of its embassy. Deporting him to Australia is one option

Ecuador is hoping it can break a long impasse that has seen WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holed up in its London embassy for five years.

It is seeking a third-party mediator to broker a deal with the United Kingdom in an effort to find a way for Mr Assange, who is an Australian citizen, to leave their building.

Ecuador has been “considering and exploring the possibility of a mediation” to resolve the issue.

Why is Julian Assange in Ecuador’s UK embassy?
Mr Assange was accused of raping two women in Sweden in 2010 and was subsequently arrested in London.

He was released on bail whilst fighting extradition to Sweden, but after losing his appeal in 2012 he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Mr Assange has been in the small embassy in Knightsbridge ever since.

Sweden has subsequently dropped all charges against Mr Assange, but he continues to fear extradition to the United States.

JULIAN ASSANGE MAY BE FORCED TO LEAVE ECUADOR EMBASSY AFTER UPSETTING PRESIDENT

Ecuador’s newly elected president Lenin Moreno issued several warnings to the Australian asking him to refrain from commenting on politics relating to Ecuador’s allies.

The UK has turned down a request from Ecuador to grant diplomatic status to Julian Assange – as a means of breaking a longstanding deadlock over his fate.

UK police say he will be arrested if he leaves the embassy in Knightsbridge for failing to surrender to the court in 2012.

An FCO spokesman said: “The government of Ecuador recently requested diplomatic status for Mr Assange here in the UK. The UK did not grant that request, nor are we in talks with Ecuador on this matter.

“Ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice.”

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Ecuador: BREAKING NEWS Early results show Lasso win UPDATED

After reading this post,
please go to FOLLOW-UP POST HERE

As surprising as the Brexit and Trump wins, early results show Guillermo Lasso as the winner of today’s runoff presidential election.

Earlier this afternoon, El Universo declared “Guillermo Lasso, nuevo presidente de Ecuador, según exit poll de Cedatos” (Guillermo Lasso, new president of Ecuador, according to Cedatos exit poll). In exit polls of 36,000 voters, Cedatos found

GUILLERMO LASSO 53,02 %
LENÍN MORENO 46,98 %

Polling organization Cedatos had previously shown leftist (and friend of the late Hugo Chávez) president Rafael Correa’s hand-picked successor, Lenín Moreno, ahead by at least five percentage points.

There is no word from the elections commission on how soon official results will be made available, but Lasso tweeted in the last hour,

“Democracy won, FREEDOM won in Ecuador.”

As for Julian Assange,

UPDATE
10:30pm Moreno declared winner by CNE (National Election Council).

Lasso’s coalition press conference on Facebook Live 10:33pm Eastern time. The speaker claims that the CNE is reversing the counts, i.e., assigning Lasso’s votes to Moreno.

The CNE website is still down.

Reuters: Leftist claims victory in Ecuador, conservative asks for recount

The first runoff results were not made public for almost four days.

Listed on PowerLine‘s picks. Thank you!
Linked to by Doug Ross. Thank you!
Trending at BadBlue.

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Ecuador: O’Grady on the upcoming election

Mary O’Grady analyzes Julian Assange and Ecuador’s Election

WikiLeaks’ founder is rooting for the leftist incumbent’s party. No one else should.

O’Grady explains,

In Brazil, Argentina and Peru, where democratic institutions have held up, antidemocratic demagogues have been turned out of office in recent years. But it’s too late for Venezuela and Bolivia, both of which are now full-blown dictatorships.

Colombia has lost its proud republican tradition of institutional checks on the executive. Last year President Juan Manuel Santos dismissed the results of a national plebiscite, declared amnesty for drug-trafficking FARC terrorists, and gave them seats in Congress.

Now is Ecuador’s moment of truth.

Mr. Correa has a thirst for power, an affinity for Twitter and a bullying manner. He was an acolyte of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013. During Mr. Correa’s decade in power, civil liberties and the rule of law have disintegrated in Ecuador.

In 2015 Mr. Correa changed the constitution to allow indefinite re-election of a president after 2017. This change ought to have required a national referendum. But since he didn’t have popular backing, he used his control of Congress to get it rubber-stamped. It doesn’t take much speculation to conclude that Mr. Correa is hoping to add his name to a growing list of Latin American dictators: Peron, Castro, Chávez, Ortega, Morales.

Mr. Moreno is Mr. Correa’s proxy in this election. A Moreno triumph is important if Mr. Correa is to be protected from the wide array of corruption investigations that his opponents are demanding.

Mr. Moreno would also act as a placeholder for Mr. Correa until the 2021 election, as Dmitry Medvedev was for Vladimir Putin from 2008-12. Legalized indefinite re-election would take care of the rest.

Read the whole thing.

Related:
Ecuador’s ruling party candidate takes lead ahead of presidential vote

Lasso Wants to Win Ecuador Runoff so as to Contribute to Democracy in Latin America

The runoff is scheduled for next Sunday, April 2d.

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Assange: Hugo Chavez’s virtues “shook the world”

Julian Assange, still hiding in full view at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, sent a letter to the XV Encounter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defence of Humanity, held in Caracas, Venezuela (who knew there was such a thing?) earlier this week, praising Hugo Chávez, whose “virtues shook the world:”

[Former Venezuelan president Hugo] Chavez played the most important role on the global stage, with his tireless efforts to continue down the path of regional integration and cooperation and build a multi-polar world.

He denounced injustices as he saw them and in 2001 was the only leader to denounce the killings by the US of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, noting, “You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism”. A little over six months later, the US supported a coup against him that was defeated when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets, many of them with the constitution in hand.

Like all of us, he was not free from sin, but his virtues shook the world.

He says that as if it were a good thing, but I digress.

Assange went on to denounce Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States (of course) as servants of imperialist interests.

Assange’s letter was timed to coincide not only with the latest Wikileaks dump, and the Venezuelan-hosted Encounter, but also with Ecuador’s upcoming runoff election.

Assange did not take time to show solidarity with starving Venezuelans eating garbage.

Assange is not your friend.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Oppenheimer: Ecuador’s sham “economic miracle”

Andrés Oppenheimer: Correa’s ‘economic miracle’ in Ecuador was actually a monumental sham. Huge public spending bigger government, more regulations, confusing tax changes:

Under Correa, Ecuador was the South American country that most increased public spending during the oil boom years, Hidalgo says.

Public spending grew from 25 percent of the gross domestic product to 44 percent. The number of public employees swelled, and the government went from having 15 cabinet ministers before Correa to 30 ministers currently, he said.

And during that period, Correa hit private businesses with hundreds of regulations and more than 20 tax reforms, sowing growing confusion and scaring away private investments.

During his 10 years in power, the government sector’s participation in overall investments more than doubled from 20 percent to 52 percent, the CORDES figures show. Not surprisingly, when oil prices started to fall, investments came to a standstill.

As for the runoff,

Meanwhile, opposition candidate and runoff frontrunner Guillermo Lasso said yesterday that, if he wins, Julian Assange will be asked to vacate the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but “we vow to take all the steps necessary so that another embassy will take him in and protect his rights.”

Good luck with finding Assange a new embassy to live; the WaPo reports that his relationship with the Ecuadorian embassy staff has been strained for years.

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Ecuador: If Lasso wins, Assange will need new digs

Ecuador presidential hopeful promises to evict Julian Assange from embassy. Presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso says costly asylum no longer justified. WikiLeaks founder has been living at London embassy for four and a half years

Julian Assange will be given a month’s notice to leave the Ecuadorian embassy if the country’s main opposition candidate wins the presidency in next week’s election.

In an interview with the Guardian, Guillermo Lasso, of the rightwing Creo-Suma alliance, said it was time for the WikiLeaks founder to move on because his asylum was expensive and no longer justified.

The Correa-designated candidate, Lenín Moreno (yes. Lenin for you), is ahead in the polls, but odds are the election will go to a runoff.

Tiko-Tiko the clown is also running for congress under Correa’s party.

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The Deplorables Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

In an attempt at demonizing any opposition, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tars the Trump supporters as deplorable and/or clueless, and later tried to walk it back, making what even Mexican media called a half apology.

ARGENTINA
Uber Drivers in Argentina Could Face 10 Days in Jail. Officials Raid Buenos Aires Offices and Plan to Charge them for Operating Without a Permit

Protesters Set Up 100 Soup Kitchens in Argentine Capital. What took them so long?

Nisman’s Iran case reaches new appeal stage

The efforts to reopen the complaint filed by late AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman against former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in January last year will continue this week with a hearing at an appeals court to determine if Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas had reason to deny such a petition from the DAIA Jewish community group last month.

In parallel, Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio has been making progress in an accusation of treason against Fernández de Kirchner and former foreign minister Héctor Timerman in relation to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran.

ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, COLOMBIA:
South America’s Drug Slums: Jurisdiction of Organized Crime

BELIZE
Belize will not support second probe into death of Guatemalan teen

BOLIVIA
Bolivia proposes prison time for illegal coca production

BRAZIL
Upcoming event at Cato: Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country, September 13, 2016, 12:00PM to 1:30PM

If you can’t make it to the event, you can watch it live online at www.cato.org/live and join the conversation on Twitter using #Brazillionaires. Follow @CatoEvents on Twitter to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Rousseff Abandons Brazil’s Capital after Ouster

Brazil’s Attorney General Asks High Court to Allow Abortions for Women With Zika. Brazil’s attorney general is urging the nation’s Supreme Court to permit abortions for pregnant women infected with the Zika virus.

CHILE
Affluent Chile draws migrants but it’s no picnic for them

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s ELN rebels and paramilitary heirs scramble to occupy FARC territory

The Secret History of Colombia’s Paramilitaries and the U.S. War on Drugs. After decades of atrocities, the warlords were finally being held to account. Then the Americans stepped in.

Colombian Condemns Murder of Owner of FARC Transition-Zone Property

CUBA
Cuba’s Walled Garden

House panel will consider bill to halt Cuba flights next week

Sirley Ávila León Cuban Democracy Leader Disappears From Commercial Flight

ECUADOR
Ecuador Begins Drilling for Oil in Pristine Corner of Amazon

Sweden puts pressure on Ecuador over questioning Julian Assange

HAITI
Hillary Cares About You? Ask the Haitians She Ripped Off

JAMAICA
Prince Buster: Jamaica’s True Voice of the People

MEXICO
‘Wolf Boys’: 2 American teens become brutal hitmen for feared Mexican drug cartel

Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert. U.S. aluminum executives claim Liu Zhongtian, founder of Chinese metals conglomerate China Zhongwang, used a factory in Mexico to game the global trade system

PANAMA
Panama Papers: Denmark to buy leaked data

PUERTO RICO
Latin America’s Largest Sail Training Ship Docks in Puerto Rico

URUGUAY
Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a.k.a. Jihad Ahmad Diyab, a.k.a. Abu Wael Dihab, a.k.a. Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, is still at it:
Hunger-striking ex-Guantanamo inmate leaves Uruguay hospital

Uruguay searching for country to take ex-Guantanamo detainee (emphasis added)

Syrian native Abu Wa’el Dhiab has repeatedly said he is unhappy in Uruguay and is demanding he be allowed to leave the South American country, which took him in with five other former Guantanamo prisoners in 2014.
. . .
Although there’s nothing impeding Dhiab’s family from coming to Uruguay, the former prisoner is against it, Mirza said. “We’d have to ask ourselves why his family could not come to Uruguay when the families of other Guantanamo refugees came here when they wished.”
. . .
Dhiab also says that he feels like a prisoner in Uruguay.

A prisoner who traveled to Argentina, and through Brazil to Venezuela, that is.

VENEZUELA
FROM VOODOO ECONOMICS TO VOODOO

Almost 60 Percent of Venezuelans Say They Want Out



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