Ecuador's President Rafael Correa on Feb. 18 claimed an overwhelming re-election victory. Reuters perhaps inadvertently noted the contradiction in Correa's program, stating that his sweep at the polls "allows him to deepen his socialist revolution even as he seeks to woo foreign investment in the resource-wealthy Andean nation." Correa in his statements implied he is prepared to pick up the torch of Venezuela's ailing Hugo Chávez, Latin America's leading anti-imperialist head of state, who sent a statement of congratulations. "We will be present wherever we can be useful, wherever we can best serve our fellow citizens and our Latin American brothers," Correa told supporters who massed in front of the presidential palace in Quito, waving the green banners of his ruling Alianza Pais.

Seven men who were detained in March in Quito's southern district of Luluncoto on "terrorism" and "subversion" charges were freed Dec. 20, after a panel of three judges of the metropolitan province Pichincha found that they had been detained in violation of constitutional guarantees against arbitrary arrest. Three women who were arrested along with them remain detained and on hunger strike at Quito's El Inca women's prison. The seven men also went on hunger strike at Quito's Provisional Detention Center three days before their release. The so-called Luluncoto 10 were arrested in an operation code-named Red Sun, and accused of being part of an urban guerilla cell called the Popular Combat Group (GCP), which was supposedly planning attacks in the capital. (El Universo, Guayaquil, Dec. 20; El Comercio, Quito Dec. 17; El Comercio, March 6)

Residents and officials in Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil are protesting a planned gas pipeline that would run from Monteverde, in Santa Elena province on the coast to the west, to El Chorrillo, a town just north of the city—through densely populated areas. Hundreds have marched in protest of the line, and won the support of Guayaquil's municipal government. The city's development director José Nuñez asserts that the government's impact study for the project fails to provide adequate guarantees for the safety of some 300,000 residents in Guayaquil's outlying working-class districts. The city also charges that protests remain ongoing over non-payment of compensation to residents who were relocated by the Libertad-Pascuales pipeline, built some 10 years ago along a similar route, and fear it will be the same with the new line. But Petroecuador's pointman for the new pipeline, Rommel Tapia, insists the project is safe and necessary for Ecuador's energy security. (El Universo, Guayaquil, Dec. 18; El Universo via Ecuador Times, Dec. 17; La Linea de Fuego, Ecuador, Dec. 16; Andes, El Universo, Dec. 14; Andes, Dec. 13)

Hundreds of indigenous people gathered outside the Marriott Hotel in Quito on Nov. 28 at the VII Annual Meeting of Oil and Energy, where the Ecuadoran government announced the opening of the XI Round oil auction, offering 13 blocks covering nearly eight million acres of rainforest in the Amazonian provinces of Pastaza and Morona Santiago near the border with Peru. Led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and the Confederation of Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities (CONFENIAE) and representing seven indigenous nationalities, the group blocked the entrance to the hotel, to be met by military and private security forces as well as police who used pepper spray. Several indigenous leaders succeeded in entering the meeting and publicly confronted Minister of Non-Renewable Energy Wilson Pastor. "CONFENIAE was never consulted about this," said the organization's Franco Viteri. "Our position on oil extraction is clear: We are absolutely opposed."

An Argentine judge on Nov. 8 embargoed the assets of Chevron corporation in the country, in a win for plaintiffs trying to collect on a $19 billion judgment against the company in Ecuador for environmental damage in the Amazon rainforest. Judge Adrian Elcuj Miranda upheld a petition filed by an Ecuadoran court under terms of a regional pact, the Inter-American Treaty of Extraterritorial Enforcement of Sentencies.  The embargo covers 100% of local subsidiary Chevron Argentina's stock—valued at roughly $2 billion—as well as its 14% stake in the company Oleoductos del Valle, 40% of the company's oil sales to refineries, and 40% of the funds it has deposited in Argentine banks. Chevron is the fourth-largest oil producer in Argentina, with output of 35,000 barrels per day in 2011.

On Oct. 9, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Chevron corporation's bid to block global enforcement of a $19 billion judgment by a court in Ecuador, a victory for 30,000 rainforest dwellers who brought litigation over the pollution of their lands. Chevron had asked the high court to uphold an injunction imposed in March 2010 by US Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York that would have barred worldwide enforcement of Ecuador's judgment. That injunction was overturned in January by the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the oil company could challenge the Ecuadoran judgement "only defensively, in response to attempted enforcement," which the rainforest dwellers had not attempted and might never attempt in New York. The Supreme Court's rejection of the case lets the Second Circuit decision stand.

Now isn't this interesting. Keane Bhatt of the Manufacturing Contempt blog on the website of the venerable North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) calls out the mainstream media, e.g. The Economist and the Los Angeles Times, for hypocrisy in pointing out that Rafael Correa's Ecuador, where Julian Assange is seeking asylum, has a less than stellar record on press freedom. By contrast, Bhatt notes, no eyebrows were raised when Emilio Palacio, an editor at the Guayaquil daily El Universo who was convicted of libel against Correa in Ecuador,  fled to Miami last year—despite the fact that the USA doesn't have a stellar record on press freedom either. Bhatt points to the case of Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who was imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay for over six years before being released without charge. He also points to Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a Yemeni journalist imprisoned on dubious charges of al-Qaeda collaboration after reporting on US missile strikes. According to Jeremy Scahill in The Nation, Obama pressured the Yemeni regime to keep him locked up.

Now isn't this precious. We have been struggling for months to bring attention to the fact that WikiLeaks is credibly accused by rights groups of supplying intelligence on dissidents to the repressive regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, "Europe's last dictatorship." Now, just as Ecuador has granted asylum to WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange, it seems that President Rafael Correa's government is considering rescinding the asylum status granted last year to one Aliaksandr Barankov, an exiled whistleblower from—Belarus. Here are the basic facts from the Associated Press, Aug. 21: