Ecuador

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update," constantly updated throughout each day. The blog tracks stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks but also follows stories related to freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, freedom of expression, and sometimes the national security establishment of the United States because each issue/topic helps one further understand WikiLeaks and vice versa. All the times are GMT.

23:35 PM Before leaving to Brazil to participate in the 7th International Congress on Investigative Journalism in São Paulo, Kristinn Hrafnsson gave an interview to Brazilian magazine Época where he states that Wikileaks is in possession of so much material to go through already that fixing its sabotaged submission system was not considered a priority.

He also stresses the organization’s capacity to survive and adapt to any circumstances involving its members : It’s not an idea that depends 100% on a single person or a small number of people.

22:55 PM A Pública continues its analysis of diplomatic cables related to Brazil, including the government’s intention of building a hydroelectric plant in territory disputed by Venezuela and Guyana in an ‘effort to consolidate Guyana’s claim to the area’.
During Wikileaks Week about 50 articles total will be published based on Wikileaks material.

El País: La corrupción policial en Ecuador es generalizada (Police corruption is widespread in Ecuador)

"La corrupción "es generalizada" en las filas de la Policía Nacional de Ecuador y quien fuera su comandante, Jaime Aquilino Hurtado, utilizó su poder como la máxima autoridad del cuerpo para extorsionar, acumulando así dinero y propiedades, facilitar el tráfico de personas y obstruir las investigaciones contra compañeros corruptos. (Corruption is widespread "in the ranks of the National Police of Ecuador and who was their commander, Jaime Aquilino Hurtado, who used his power as the ultimate authority to extort the police, accumulating money and property, to facilitate the trafficking and to obstruct investigations against corrupt colleagues.)"

Read more (Spanish) Google Translate

El País: El fiasco de las pruebas de la CIA (The fiasco of the CIA evidence)

"El CD Rom facilitado por Microsoft Corporation a la CIA con los correos electrónicos de varios sospechosos de enviar desde España suicidas a Irak contenía información explosiva, pero en los tribunales españoles no sirvió de nada. (The CD Rom supplied by Microsoft Corporation to the CIA with the emails of several suspected suicide bombers sent from Spain to Iraq containing explosive information, but in the Spanish courts to no avail.)"

AFP reports that the government of Ecuador has offered Julian Assange residency:

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told the Internet site Ecuadorinmediato.

"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forums," he said.[...]

Lucas said even though Ecuador's policy was not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, it was "concerned" by the information in the cables because it involved other countries "in particular Latin America."
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