News From the Border

Providing the news from a different front but from a war that we must win as well! I recognize the poverty and desperate conditions that many Latinos live in. We, as the USA, have a responsibility to do as much as we can to reach out to aid and assist spiritually with the Gospel and naturally with training, technology and resources. But poverty gives no one the right to break the laws of another sovereign nation.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Correa Named Ecuador President-Elect

Dec 4, 9:17 PM (ET)
By JEANNETH VALDIVIESO
AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa R. of Correa with US Ambassabor Linda Jewell

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Leftist economist Rafael Correa, who calls himself a friend of Venezuela's anti-U.S. leader Hugo Chavez, officially was declared president-elect on Monday by Ecuador's top electoral court.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced that with all the ballots from the Nov. 26 runoff counted, Correa received more than 3.5 million votes, or 57 percent, compared with 2.7 million and 43 percent for banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa.

The vote count had reached 99 percent last Wednesday and victory already was conceded to Correa, who received congratulatory calls from dignitaries such as President Bush.

During the campaign, Correa attacked Ecuador's Congress as a "sewer" of corruption and ran no candidates for the legislature. He now faces a Congress totally in the hands of his opponents but says that's not important.

Correa, 43, who earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois, intends to convene a special assembly to rewrite the constitution to undercut the power of traditional parties.

Correa also says he will cut ties to international lending institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and has threatened a moratorium on foreign debt payments unless foreign bondholders agree to lower Ecuador's debt service by half.

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