Free Republic

Latin America: The past week's high political turmoil in Ecuador is about more than oil or bananas. It's about a terrifying descent into instability that could hit every country in the hemisphere. The turmoil in the tiny South American country shows no sign of ending. Another president was thrown out — the third in a decade. His successor is widely regarded as an ignorant weakling. And no one thinks he's going to last. After all, Ecuador has had seven presidents since 1995. Maybe that's why Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned her attention from a milestone NATO treaty signing in...

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...

<p>Madrid, March 12 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S., the U.K. and Spain may withdraw a proposed second United Nations resolution ordering Iraq to disarm because France plans to veto it, Agence France- Presse cited Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio as saying.</p>