Ecuador, long a victim of resource extraction schemes and corporate malfeasance, has offered a ‘no questions asked’ asylum to the founder of the whistle blower site, Wikileaks.
“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.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ecuador+offers+WikiLeak+founder+Assange+residency+questions+asked/3902251/story.html#ixzz16jMjZvgo
BP Sued in Ecuadorian Court For Violating Rights of Nature
A coalition of environmentalists have filed a groundbreaking lawsuit in Ecuador against the oil giant BP for violating Ecuador’s constitution which recognizes “the rights of Nature” across the globe. Plaintiffs include Nnimmo Bassey, the president of Friends of the Earth International and the Indian scientist Vandana Shiva.
Vandana Shiva: “This morning we filed in the constitutional court of Ecuador this lawsuit defending the rights of nature in particular the right of the Gulf of Mexico and the sea which has been violated by the BP oil spill. We see this as a test case of the rights of nature enshrined in the constitution of Ecuador—it’s about universal jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of Ecuador because nature has rights everywhere.”
Ecuador’s struggles with Chevron are chronicled in the documentary Crude Impact
As Wikileaks is not only expected to release more diplomatic cables and spill the beans on a major US bank.
