South America

QUITO, Oct 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ecuadorans vote for a new president Sunday in the midst of a bloody drug war and a rash of political assassinations that cut short the bid of a popular candidate.

The remaining finalists – lawyer Luisa Gonzalez, 45, and banana empire heir Daniel Noboa, 35 – campaigned in bullet-proof vests as a climate of fear grips the once-peaceful country.

Both have vowed to prioritise the escalating violence.

MONTEVIDEO, Oct 15 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — For the first time in many years Uruguayan rice farmers are not complaining about the cereal’s price or asking for some form of government support.

On the contrary the Association of Rice Farmers have admitted to have sold overseas all of this year-s crop an estimated 1,26 million tons out of a total harvest of 1.4 million tons. Uruguay usually consumes 10% of its rice production and the rest is exported.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Frightened by unprecedented violence on the streets and within prisons, Ecuadorians have a universal demand for the president they are choosing Sunday — safety.

The runoff election in the South American country pits an heir to a banana empire, Daniel Noboa, against an attorney, Luisa González. Both have limited governing experience and will undoubtedly have their work cut out.

MANAUS (Brazil), Oct 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Manaus, the largest city in Brazil’s Amazonas state, has for days been engulfed by a toxic cloud of smoke from forest fires lit by what the government labeled “criminals”.

The city of nearly two million people has been forced to cancel some public events including a marathon.

The fires in the Amazon have produced a blanket of grey smoke over the capital of the northern state of Amazonas since Wednesday.

Air quality in the city is among the worst in the world, according to the World Air Quality Index.

SAN JOAQUIN, Venezuela (AP) — The avocado trees across the road from Jose Hernandez’s tin-roofed home help feed several retirees in the rural community of San Joaquin along a highway two hours southwest of Venezuela’s capital.

He and his neighbors cut the avocados with the owner’s permission and sell them to motorists at a nearby toll booth or on the streets of the nearby city of Valencia, which has not emptied out as much as San Joaquin from migration over the last decade.

CARACAS, Oct 13 (NNN-XINHUA) — Venezuela’s government welcomed a new resolution by the UN Human Rights Council condemning unilateral coercive measures (UCM) against countries.

“We celebrate that the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a new resolution condemning Unilateral Coercive Measures,” Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The resolution adopted at the 54th session of HRC is “a new victory for Bolivarian Peace Diplomacy and International Law,” Gil added.

BRASILIA, Oct12 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on the international community to intervene to stop the situation of children who are in the line of fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

‘It is necessary that the Hamas movement releases Israeli children who have been kidnapped from their families. Also Israel should cease bombing so that Palestinian children and their mothers leave the Gaza Strip through the border with Egypt,’ Lula wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

10 October 2023; MEMO: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Maduro made his comment in a televised address on Monday.

GUAYAQUIL (Ecuador), Oct 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ecuador extended by a month a state of emergency in place since the August assassination of presidential candidate and anti-graft crusader Fernando Villavicencio, the presidency announced.

The extension comes shortly after seven Colombians arrested over Villavicencio’s killing were found dead in prison.

Six of the suspects were killed Friday in the Guayas 1 prison in the port city of Guayaquil, while a seventh was found dead Saturday in a prison in the capital Quito.