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Unknown gunmen killed presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio – running on a strong-on-crime, anti-corruption, anti-China platform – on Wednesday night before a massive crowd outside of a campaign event in Quito, Ecuador. Villavicencio was one of eight candidates vying for the presidency of Ecuador. The election remains scheduled to take place on August 20, the result of current President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative, using a constitutional provision to dissolve the National Assembly (the federal legislature) in May and call for general elections. Lasso claimed the unprecedented measure was necessary because leftist lawmakers’ incessant attempts to impeach him had made the regular...

Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead during a campaign event in northern Quito on Wednesday night, according to Reuters. A suspect in the killing of Villavicencio later died from injuries sustained during a shootout, the attorney general's office said on Twitter. "A suspect, who was injured during the shootout with security personnel, was apprehended and moved, badly injured, to the (attorney general's) unit in Quito. An ambulance from the fire department confirmed his death, the police are proceeding with collection of the cadaver," the attorney general's office said. Villavicencio's party Movimiento Construye said on armed men attacked its...

Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been killed, the country’s president Guillermo Lasso has said, vowing the “crime will not go unpunished”. Local media had earlier reported Villavicencio, a former lawmaker who had been polling at 7.5%, had been shot at a campaign event in Quito.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, the news revived a long-simmering debate about the propriety of his revelations of U.S. government secrets. At the same time, it prompted reiterations of a widely-embraced falsehood: that Snowden “fled to Russia.”The disinformation-trafficking wasn’t limited to random people on social media. Among others, The New York Times, The Guardian, ABC, Christian Science Monitor and Canada’s CBC all asserted in the past week that Snowden “fled to Russia” in 2013 after revealing that the United States government had created a mass surveillance regime targeting its own citizens,...

When Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, the news revived a long-simmering debate about the propriety of his revelations of U.S. government secrets. At the same time, it prompted reiterations of a widely-embraced falsehood: that Snowden “fled to Russia.” That disinformation-trafficking wasn’t limited to random people on social media. Among others, The New York Times, The Guardian, ABC, Christian Science Monitor and Canada’s CBC all asserted in the past week that Snowden “fled to Russia” in 2013 after revealing that the United States government had created a mass surveillance regime targeting its own...

Two people killed and eight injured in Ecuador earthquake 5.1-magnitude tremor near capital Quito caused landslide at a quarry that left workers dead People watch dust sweep the pan-American highway after the earthquake near Quito. Photograph: Dolores Ochoa/AP Two people have been killed in an earthquake in Ecuador, with eight others wounded and rescue workers still seeking to free those trapped. The 5.1-magnitude tremor near capital Quito triggered a landslide at a quarry that killed two workers there, the national risk control agency said, adding that firemen were searching for three others. "Obviously the landslide was caused by the tremor,...

SNIPPET: "Three Pakistani men pleaded guilty Monday to terrorism-related charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, according to a release from the U.S. Justice Department. At a hearing before U.S. District Judge John Bates in the District of Columbia, Irfan Ul Haq, Qasim Ali, and Zahid Yousaf pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to provide material support to the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), a designated foreign terrorist organization. Ul Haq, Ali, and Yousaf were arrested in Miami on March 13 and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. The three men allegedly ran an alien smuggling operation out...

Terrorism: The March 1 death strike by the Colombian army against FARC warlord Raul Reyes broke open a trove of contacts in his computer. So why did the name of Barack Obama turn up there?Admittedly, it pales compared with other material from the dead thug's computer — such as FARC efforts to obtain uranium or Hugo Chavez's $300 million support. But the little Obama reference within the 15 FARC letters released by the Colombian government signals a disturbing pattern of contacts with rogue actors. It's not the first time, and Obama has yet to distance himself. In a Feb. 28...

Note: The following text is a quote: https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=96652 YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Quito, Ecuador, Home Invasions CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Americas - Ecuador 29 Jan 2009 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS 16 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: ECUADOR DEMONSTRATION JANUARY 20 14 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: QUITO, ECUADOR, PROTESTS ANTICIPATED JANUARY 15 8 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: ECUADOR DEMONSTRATION JANUARY 8 6 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: ECUADOR DEMONSTRATION JANUARY 6 19 Nov 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: ECUADOR PIRACY WARNING U.S. Embassy Quito issued the following Warden Message on January 29: The U.S....

Excerpt - QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Ecuador's Energy Minister said on Monday the government would revoke a contract held by Occidental Petroleum and strip the U.S. company of its assets in South America's fifth biggest oil producer. "We accept the demand and petition of Petroecuador (the state oil company) and the country's attorney general and declare the annulment of the contract," Minister Ivan Rodriguez told reporters. The long-running legal row with Occidental has sparked repeated protests by indigenous groups and poor Amazon regions demanding the government expel the company and introduce reforms giving the poor more benefits from oil revenues....

The Brazilian government grants the diplomatic asylum to Gutierrez BRASILIA - the Brazilian government "made the decision to grant the diplomatic asylum" to the president relieved of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez, announced to Wednesday evening with AFP in Brasilia a spokesman of the Brazilian ministry of the foreign Relations. This same ministry had announced a little earlier than Lucio Gutierrez had taken refuge with the embassy of Brazil with Quito and had required asylum. "To give the political asylum is a regional tradition and is registered in the public international law", had indicated the ministry. It had added that the...

Ecuador's controversial leader, Lucio Gutierrez, has been placed under arrest after Congress ousted him, the armed forces withdrew their support and a new president was named. The embattled Mr Gutierrez left the Carondelet presidential palace just as the legislature named Vice President Alfredo Palacio as the new head of state. He travelled by helicopter to Quito's airport, where demonstrators prevented him from leaving the country. He was reportedly heading to Panama, where his wife and two daughters are. From the airport, the helicopter took Mr Gutierrez to a nearby military base, where he is being held. Prosecutor Cecilia de...

QUITO, Ecuador, April 20 (Reuters) - Ecuador's Congress voted on Wednesday to fire President Lucio Gutierrez for "abandoning his post" and named Vice President Alfredo Palacio in his place. A total of 60 congressmen from the 100-seat chamber voted to fire Gutierrez, who became the third Ecuadorean president to be toppled amid popular unrest since 1997. The armed forces, traditional arbiters of power in the country, withdrew their support from Gutierrez, said the Joint Chiefs of Staff head Gen. Victor Hugo Rosero. The opposition had denounced Gutierrez as a dictator for stacking the Supreme Court with political allies last...

QUITO, Ecuador Apr 16, 2005 — Facing growing street protests demanding his ouster, President Lucio Gutierrez declared a state of emergency Friday night in the capital and dissolved the Supreme Court in an effort to resolve an escalating political crisis. The state of emergency placed the military in charge of maintaining public order. Gutierrez, with the military high command standing behind him, announced in a televised address to the nation that under the authority provided by the Constitution, he was dismissing "the judges of the current Supreme Court designated by Congress" in December. "The measure … was taken because Congress...

Ecuador quake fears after hundreds of tremors hit 31 Jan 2005 22:19:00 GMT Source: Reuters QUITO, Ecuador, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Hundreds of earth tremors off the coast of Ecuador in the past 11 days have sparked fears that a bigger quake could strike soon. "This isn't normal," the director of Geophysics Institute at the National Polytechnic School, Hugo Yepez, told Reuters on Monday, "This area is capable of producing big earthquakes. Very big earthquakes." About 320 tremors of more than 4.0 on the Richter scale have shaken the Pacific Ocean off the port of Manta since Jan. 20....

Explosion With Quito: a casualty, an office of American Airlines damaged An explosion which has occurred Tuesday evening in a large hotel of Quito made a casualty and severely damaged offices of the airline company American Airlines, according to the police force and Cross's-Rouge.Un man was wounded by glares of glass during the explosion which touched the buildings of American Airlines, with rez of roadway of a Hilton hotel, in the north of the capital, according to a spokesman of the Cross-Rouge.Les windows of the offices of the company were puffed up by the explosion which occurred towards 17H30...

Link post: Geology Picture of the Week, June 30 - July 6, 2002 Volcano Tungurahua in Ecuador.