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.
Panama on Thursday granted asylum to Ecuadorean newspaper publisher Carlos Perez, one of three executives facing prison after losing a libel suit seen as a key test of press freedoms in Ecuador.
The US State Department said on Monday that if Cuba wants to participate in the coming Summit of the Americas to be hosted by Colombia, it must first fully integrate to the Organization of American States and guarantee the basic liberties of its citizens.
Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa said he was satisfied with having presented an official request for his country to join Mercosur and also called for closer links between Mercosur and the Andean Nations Community, CAN.
Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa again questioned the existence of the Organization of American States, OAS, which should have been disarticulated in 1982 during the Falklands/Malvinas war and insisted that the region’s problems “should be discussed in the region and not in Washington”.
Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa described the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as a “murder” and strongly rejected foreign in the North African country.
An Ecuadorian appeals court has upheld criminal libel convictions and three-year prison sentences for three newspaper directors and a former editorialist over a column that called populist President Rafael Correa a dictator.
The International Press Institute (IPI) blasted an Ecuadorian court’s decision to jail a journalist and three executives of critical opposition daily El Universo for libeling President Rafael Correa, and to impose 40 million dollars in fines against the defendants and the newspaper.
Ecuador’s bonds are rewarding investors with the best performance in Latin America as Chinese loans and higher oil prices boost confidence in the economy two years after the country defaulted on 3.2 billion US dollars in debt.
Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa said China has one of the largest liquid international reserves in the world and could with “a few drops” finance the development of his country and the whole of Latin America.