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Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez declared a state of emergency in the capital city of this Andean Mountain country and dissolved a Supreme Court he and his allies had appointed last winter, saying the unpopular judges were the cause of three days of pot-banging street protests in Quito.

Although they had opposed the court that was stacked by Gutierrez, his political foes immediately labeled its summary dissolution an act of a dictator.

Speaking in a televised address to the nation Friday night with his military high command standing behind him, Gutierrez said he was using the powers granted him by the constitution to dismiss the justices. In explaining their dismissal, he said opposition to their appointments was causing the protests.

Street protests began Wednesday in response to an impromptu suggestion of a local radio station that residents of Quito form a nocturnal pot-banging caravan. They increased in numbers until at least 10,000 people banging pots and sticks and shouting "Get out, Lucio!" were marching in the streets as Gutierrez made his announcement Friday.

Early Saturday morning, the military command went on television to give its implicit support to Gutierrez. Adm. Victor Hug Rosier, head of the armed forces, said the only purpose of the state of emergency was "to recover the order, peace and tranquility lost during the last days."

The state of emergency placed the military in charge of public order and suspended individual rights, including the right to free expression and public assembly. The court crisis was set in motion in November when the former justices sided with opposition politicians in a failed effort to impeach Gutierrez on corruption charges. Gutierrez then assembled a bloc of 52 lawmakers in the 100-seat unicameral congress, which voted in December to remove the judges. Legal experts said the vote ran contrary to Ecuador's constitution.

Gutierrez was elected president in November 2002 after campaigning as a populist, anti-corruption reformer. But his left-leaning constituency soon fell apart after he instituted austerity measures, including cutting subsidies on food and cooking fuel, to satisfy lenders like the International Monetary Fund. Opponents say Gutierrez cut a deal with former President Abdala Bucaram to stack the Supreme Court and clear Bucaram of corruption charges as payback for key votes Bucaram's political party provided last year blocking the impeachment drive against Gutierrez in congress.

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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I

Responses:
American Citizens
President George W. Bush
American Oil Companies
American Republican Christian Conservatives
All of the Above(United States of America)
 

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In March 2000, Ecuadorian Congress approved a series of structural reforms that also provided the framework for the adoption of the US dollar as legal tender. Dollarization stabilized the economy, and growth returned to its pre-crisis levels in the years that followed.

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My reason for making this thread is to support the claim, made by many Heroes Community members, that America has an empire.

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(**copied from CNN website**)

Leftist nationalist Rafael Correa, a friend of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, defeated a pro-U.S. banana tycoon in Sunday's presidential election, according to an unofficial quick count of sample votes. The quick count gave Correa 56.9%  of the vote compared to 43.1% for Alvaro Noboa.

The citizens election watchdog group Participacion Ciudadana conducted the count based on sample votes from 1,607 voting stations that reflected the voting in 80% of Ecuadorian territory. In all there were more than 36,000 voting stations. The group said the margin of error for the count was less than 1%.

Correa sounded confident of his victory at a news conference after the count was announced: "We receive this very high honor that the Ecuadorian people have bestowed on us with profound serenity, with profound hope," he told reporters. Correa is a leftist, U.S.-trained economist who pledged radical reforms to clean up corruption. He has called President Bush "dimwitted" and is a friend of anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez whose tirades about Bush have included calling the U.S. president the "devil." He served just 106 days last year as finance minister under interim President Alfredo Palacio, who replaced Lucio Gutierrez in the midst of street protests in April 2005. Correa rattled investors by threatening to reduce payments on Ecuador's $16.1 billion foreign debt, which could shift the nation into the leftist camp with Chavez who is seeking to extend his influence throughout South America.

~"Lesser of two evils"~
The officially declared winner of the tight race will face the tough task of ruling this poor, politically unstable Andean nation, which has had eight presidents since 1996, including three who were driven from office by street protests.

Known as Ecuador's wealthiest man, billionaire Naboa (56-year-banana baron) often rubbed shoulders with America's rich and powerful. A deeply religious man, Noboa's campaign speeches were often laced with references to God. It was his third run for the presidency. Ecuador is an oil-exporting country, but three-quarters of its 13.4 million inhabitants live in poverty, and Noboa had directed much of his campaign to them.

"I'm voting for Correa because he's the lesser of two evils and because he represents a new option," Georgina Cornejo said Sunday. The 59-year-old housewife waited to vote in a middle-class suburb on Quito's south side. "We're hoping he doesn't let us down."

In the coastal city of Guayaquil, Noboa's stronghold, Arnulfo Napoleon, a 50-year-old security guard voting at a school in a poor neighborhood, said his vote was going to Noboa. "He's lost two elections. It's time he win so that he can help the neediest as he has been up to now giving away so many things," he said. The election ends a vigorous fight for the country's highest office. Noboa crisscrossed Ecuador from its Pacific coast to the Andes and eastward to the Amazon jungle, handing out computers, medicine and money. He promised to build 300,000 low-cost homes in a year, finance them through government bonds, and create jobs by persuading his rich foreign friends to invest in Ecuador.

Correa pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes. He also copied Noboa's promise to double to $36 a "poverty bonus" that 1.2 million poor Ecuadorians receive each month. Earlier Sunday, Correa said he was concerned that his opponent might try to commit fraud, including having ballots switched as they are moved from voting stations to election tribunal offices for counting. "No one should try to buy votes in the lines. Buying or selling your vote can land you in jail," he told reporters over breakfast Sunday at his home in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Quito.

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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I

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Reduce gasoline prices? Are you mad? They should be doubled, or even tripled some places!

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The increase in fuel costs isn't that bad, in a way.

Running out of fuel isn't a problem that we need to worry about. We should worry about burning it and all that, but running out of it isn't a major concern.



There's still plenty of oil left in the world, it's just hard to extract (and expensive), like in Russia. At the old prices, people can work out the cost vs the price of oil and see that it's just not worth it. But now with people paying a fortune for a barrel, it's starting to look more like a better idea.

There we go, more oil, prices go back down.

But then when we start to question the reasoning behind oil as fuel and start seeing money in other, cheaper alternatives that they avoided earlier because they are expensive to create and research.

It's all about making money. Not enough people want to do anything unless they're getting paid, not enough to make any real difference. So people have to selfishly WANT to make this world a better place, and I think the raise in oil prices is doing that.

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Government type: Republic

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