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Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has cancelled his visit to Israel scheduled for the second half of this year due to “Israeli attacks against the Palestinians”, Xinhua reported on Wednesday, citing Ecuador’s Andes Agency. During an interview with a local radio station on Wednesday, the president reportedly accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. …

The attorney for a Montana man charged in the death of a 17-year-old German exchange student says the teen and a companion had broken into homeowners’ garages three of four times before the shooting. Paul Ryan represents Markus Kaarma, who is charged with deliberate homicide in the April 27 slaying of Diren Dede in Missoula. […] Ryan says the Ecuadorian student told police the boys started “garage hopping” after learning about the practice from other students at their high school. …

Ecuador's government has ordered everyone in the US Embassy's military group, about 20 Defense Department employees, to leave the country by month's end. The group was ordered to halt operations in Ecuador in a letter dated April 7, embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker said Thursday. The Associated Press was alerted to the expulsions by a senior Ecuadorean official who refused to be identified by name due to the information's sensitive nature.

Litigation: After thwarting a $9.5 billion judgment from an Ecuadorean court, Chevron is going after the entire edifice of environmentalist enablers who make such junk lawsuits possible. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. To the surprise of many, the oil giant is suing the tony, white-shoe law firm of Patton Boggs for alleged unethical involvement in an all-out legal attack by environmentalists over rainforest pollution in Ecuador. Chevron accuses the oh-so-respected firm of lying, concealing inconvenient facts, running a public smear campaign and miscellaneous other flim-flammery, all for the sake of the dollar signs spinning in their eyes. This poses...

Venezuela is closer geographically than, and at least as important to the United States as, Ukraine. Yet the persistently blurred focus of the Obama Administration has been far less on violent Cuban inspired repression in Venezuela than on Russian repression in Ukraine. Here's a new presentation by Senator Rubio on the continuing mess in Venezuela: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Uz-9HvRgw] Video linkThe constitutional crisis in Venezuela has apparently been far less disturbing to the Obama Administration, and to the "legitimate" media, than the less violent mess in Ukraine. It has drawn far less media attention than the disappearance of Malaysian flight 370, coverage of which has been extensive and continuous but abysmally uninformed. Here's the best...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Russia’s Threat in the AmericasPosted By Joseph Klein On March 28, 2014 @ 12:08 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments President Obama dismissed Russia as no more than a “regional power” in remarks he made to the press in The Hague on March 25th, where he was attending a summit meeting on nuclear security. “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness,” he said.True, the Russian Federation is a shadow of the Soviet empire in its heyday. And Russia is...

MIAMI — The donations kept pouring in: hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama and more than a dozen members of Congress, carefully routed through the families of two wealthy brothers in Florida. They had good reason to be generous. The two men, Roberto and William Isaias, are fugitives from Ecuador, which has angrily pressed Washington to turn them over, to no avail. A year after their relatives gave $90,000 to help re-elect Mr. Obama, the administration rejected Ecuador’s extradition request for the men, fueling accusations that such donations were helping to keep the brothers and...

This week the environmental movement suffered its biggest defeat since Climategate. And at the hands of its most hated enemy: Big Oil. ... the court ruling by a US federal judge that Chevron should not have to pay $9.5 billion in damages to victims of oil pollution in Ecuador is a victory for common sense and justice which we should all be celebrating. The reason this case is so important is because it very nearly didn't happen. Though environmental activists like Michael Mann, James Hansen and Al Gore often like to claim that their enemies are in the pay of...

BOGOTA, February 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian voting equipment proved to be reliable at municipal election in the South American country of Ecuador, Russian Ambassador in Ecuador Yan Burliay told Itar-Tass by phone on Tuesday. Moscow provided to Quito two sets of electronic voting equipment, which were installed at a polling station in Quito’s district La Morita. Meanwhile, Russia delivered its voting equipment to Argentina and Venezuela. Ecuadorian authorities are testing different types of equipment to evaluate their advantages and shortcomings and to buy equipment they liked to refurbish their voting system. “It can be said for sure that our technology is...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

Archaeologists discovered a building from around 2,200 B.C. in an archaeological and ecological park in the Ecuadorian capital at the foot of Pichincha Volcano, sources at the excavations told Efe. "It is the most ancient archaeological find in Rumbipapa Park and in the city of Quito," park supervisor Bernarda Icaza told Efe, adding that no identification or description has been made of the culture that lived in the area during the Formative Period when the building was constructed. Icaza noted that the find has "enormous" historical importance, because "it opens doors to further archaeological, historical and heritage research." The excavation...

Recently embroiled in an underage prostitute scandal and a number of corruption schemes, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez—is again under federal investigation for helping a pair of South American fugitives whose relatives donated big bucks to the senator. It’s like a never-ending saga of political corruption and cronyism. In the last year alone, Menendez has been implicated in a number of serious crimes—including reported escapades with underage hookers in the Dominican Republic—that have simply fizzled away and left him virtually unscathed. We’ll get into those later, but first let’s delve into the Menendez...

US Sen Robert Menendez (Dim-NJ) is under DOJ investigation for his connections to Ecuadorian bankers who allegedly stole millions, and, as fugitives, absconded to the US, now living comfortably in Coral Gables, Fla. The US has refused to extradite the bankers to Ecuador. The brothers' role in the collapse of Ecuador's Filanbanco cost the country’s taxpayers millions. Menendez is under DOJ federal criminal investigation for efforts he made using his office to intervene to help William and Roberto Isaias stay in Florida after they were sentenced in absentia for according to NBC news....Menendez acted improperly by intervening with Homeland Security...

Upgrading military aircraft – fixed wing and rotary – is a common operation performed all over the world. You take an old platform, reinforce the fuselage and wings, install some new systems and it can fly for many more years. But what Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is currently doing with its old Kfir fighter aircraft is an exception. The Kfir (Lion Cub) fighter is a single-seat multitask fighter built by IAI. The aircraft was first built for the Israeli air force (IAF). The first Kfir was delivered to the IAF in 1975, and entered into service in 1976. The fighter...

LAREDO - One man from Mexico and another man from Ecuador have been charged with assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Mexican National Jose Luis Zavala-Rodrigue, 22, and Johnny Jose Redrovan-Pesantez, 23, of Ecuador are both in custody. Rodriquez is also charged with conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants for financial gain. Both men are expected to make an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Hacker, Friday. The agent required medical attention but survived the attack. Each faces up to 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine. Zavala-Rodriguez further faces an additional 10-year possible sentence on each of...

Big Oil: So what happened to the $19 billion judgment against Chevron over rainforest pollution in Ecuador? Seems the leftist lawyer behind it all now finds himself in the dock on a RICO rap for a massive fraud. This has been going on for years, the oft-repeated meme that Chevron, through its Texaco acquisition, polluted the rainforest floor and poisoned its helpless villagers. Activist Bianca Jagger is emblematic of this disregard for fact. In the Huffington Post, she wrote that while she's no apologist for Chevron's accusers, the bottom line is: "Ecuadorian communities were the victims of exploitation by a...

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...

The older I get the more I fear that I will not be able to afford to live in the country I was born in and thought I would die in. We're basically left with the choice of burning through all of our savings until we end up living out our days on the dole or selling out and moving someplace with a low enough cost of living to allow my wife and I to live out our retirement in dignity. Right now we are looking at Ecuador based on the positive experiences of friends that successfully retired there and...

Michael Grunwald, Senior National Correspondent for TIME Magazine, spent much of last night trying to find the mythical delete from internet button that many before him have sought out so desperately. At 7:25 P.M. on Saturday, Grunwald offered his opinion on how the United States should solve the problem of Julian Assange and his antagonizing position toward the U.S. Here's the tweet:Looking beyond the fact that Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks and Australian citizen, has never been convicted (or charged) with a crime under United States law, Grunwald's use of the phrase "take out" more appropriately describes a Mafia-style hit...

IAI selling upgraded Kfir jets for $20m Israel Aerospace Industries promises very short delivery schedules for the renovated jets, which it claims are even better than fourth-generation jets. 6 August 13 17:45, Yuval Azulai Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) is trying to sell dozens of Kfir fighter jets to foreign air forces, offering a 40-year manufacturer's guarantee. The veteran jets are equipped with new avionics and powerful radars developed by IAI unit Elta Systems, diversified armaments, updated electronic warfare systems, and air-to-air refueling. IAI has told its sales reps to sell the Kfirs to Eastern European countries that...