APNewsBreak: Ecuador expels US military group

By GONZALO SOLANO12 hours ago

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador has ordered all 20 Defense Department employees in the U.S. Embassy's military group to leave the country by month's end, The Associated Press has learned.

The group was ordered to halt operations in Ecuador in a letter dated April 7, said embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker.

The AP was first alerted to the expulsions by a senior Ecuadorean official who refused to be identified by name due to the information's sensitive nature.

President Rafael Correa had publicly complained in January that Washington had too many military officers in Ecuador, claiming there were 50, and said they had been "infiltrated in all sectors." At the time, he said he planned to order some to leave.

Weinshenker said the military group had 20 Department of Defense employees, not all of them uniformed, and that Washington had provided $7 million in security assistance to Ecuador last year, including technical training for maintaining aircraft and cooperation in combatting drug trafficking, human trafficking and terrorism.

Weinshenker said U.S. military cooperation in Ecuador dates back four decades and that "all the activities we have carried out have had the explicit approval of our Ecuadorean counterparts."

U.S. relations with Ecuador have been strained in recent years, even before Correa provided asylum in 2012 to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose organization published troves of leaked U.S. military documents and diplomatic cables highly embarrassing to Washington.

Correa had previously expelled at least three U.S. diplomats including then-Ambassador Heather Hodges in 2011 in response to a cable divulged by WikiLeaks that suggested Correa was aware of high-level police corruption.

In November, Correa's government said it was asking the U.S. Agency for International Development to end operations in the country, accusing it of backing the opposition.

USAID is to end operations in September when programs it is funding have run their course.

Shortly after first taking office in 2007, Correa purged Ecuador's military of officers deemed to have close relations with U.S. counterparts. He also ended an agreement with Washington that allowed U.S. drug interdiction flights to be based at the Ecuadorean airfield in Manta.

Correa is popular at home for his poverty-fighting programs but widely criticized for stifling civil liberties and using criminal defamation law against journalists.

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Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report."

http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-ecuador-expels-us-military-group-040311682.html

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"EE.UU. ampliará su presencia militar en Guatemala para combatir a los narcotraficantes"

Mientras en algunas jurisdicciones territoriales de los Estados Unidos (U.S.) ciertos y determinados gobiernos permiten inclusive la siembra y el comercio de mariguana... Así está la situación: ¡esas sí que son chingaderas!

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"Fidel Castro, “muy bien” de salud pero "consternado" por muerte de Gabo

PorAfp

vie, 25 abr 2014 11:13

El escritor colombiano Gabriel García Márquez y del líder cubano, Fidel Castro, durante un evento deportivo en La Habana, en 2002. Foto Ap

La Habana. La salud del líder cubano Fidel Castro está "muy bien", aunque está "consternado" por la muerte de su "entrañable amigo", el Nobel colombiano Gabriel García Márquez, aseguró este viernes el primer vicepresidente, Miguel Díaz-Canel.
"Su salud está muy bien, está trabajando intensamente en las cosas que ha tenido estos últimos tiempos y por supuesto se ha consternado con la muerte de García Márquez, que fue su entrañable amigo", dijo Díaz-Canel a la prensa, en la embajada colombiana en La Habana, donde concurrió a firmar el libro de condolencias por la muerte del escritor el 17 de abril.
Interrogado por la prensa ante el silencio guardado por Fidel Castro (87 años) sobre la muerte de García Márquez y cómo le afectó, el número dos de Cuba dijo que "Fidel es un hombre con una gran sensibilidad humana, por lo tanto la pérdida del amigo la siente como la sienten todas las personas que tengan sensibilidad humana".
"Pero también es un hombre que ha estado muy fogueado por todas las batallas que ha tenido que librar en el mundo, también tiene una resistencia para esos problemas", agregó.
El líder cubano, así como su hermano, el presidente Raúl Castro, enviaron sendas ofrendas florales a los funerales del Gabo en México, informó la prensa local.
Castro, alejado del poder desde 2006 por problemas de salud, se mantiene en su casa donde escribe libros, artículos de prensa y atiende a personalidades que lo visitan.
Cuando falleció su también amigo, el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez, el 5 de marzo de 2013, Fidel Castro tardó cinco días en escribir y publicar una reacción."

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/04/25/fidel-castro-esta-muy-bien-pero-consternado-por-muerte-de-gabo-vicepresidente-1704.html

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"ALBA, CELAC, MERCOSUR Y UNASUR CREARÁN MERCADO CO...
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