Ecuador has granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange two months after he took refuge in its London embassy while fighting extradition from the UK, but Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK would not allow Assange safe passage out of the country.
Ecuador said on Wednesday the British government had threatened to raid its embassy in London if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not handed over, and that Quito would make its decision on his asylum request on Thursday.
Mercosur will officially begin negotiation with Mercosur for its inclusion as full member in September announced the Brazilian news agency, ABR on Sunday. The meeting is scheduled for September 15 when the incorporation preliminaries will be addressed.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) described as “contrary to the principles of freedom of expression and press freedom” an order by the Government of Ecuador to withdraw official advertising from independent news media.
An urgent summit of the Union of South American Nations, Unasur, will address the crisis in Paraguay following the removal of President Fernando Lugo, this coming Wednesday in Peru, announced Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, although there has been no official confirmation from Lima.
President Cristina Fernández assured on Friday night that “Argentina does not condone the coup in Paraguay” and anticipated that “appropriate measures” will be taken at next week’s Mercosur Summit, scheduled to take place in Mendoza.
The leading countries of Latin America’s Pacific Rim with the exception of Ecuador and a few Central American countries, agreed to conform the Alliance of the Pacific an ambitious integration project which has good relations with Washington and is targeted to accompany the growing influence of the Asia-Pacific basin.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa confirmed he will not attend this month's Summit of the Americas in Colombia, nor any other gathering that excludes Cuba or fails to address what he calls the region's most pressing issues.
Uruguay’s minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Almagro described on Friday as ‘inadmissible” the exclusion of Cuba from the VI Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April 14/15 in Cartagena, Colombia.
Ecuador's populist president, Rafael Correa, on Monday pardoned three newspaper publishers and a former columnist who had been sentenced to jail and ordered to pay 40 million dollars damages in a libel case that angered media freedom advocates.