Ecuador

After participating in 53 rescue operations, saving a dozen lives and finding 41 bodies in disaster zones, Frida, the beloved yellow Labrador retriever from Mexico’s Navy unit, retires. The Mexican navy celebrated the contributions of their canine fellow honoring her in a ceremony on Monday. “Her bark always gave hope, and in moments of pain and uncertainty she brought relief,”...

After participating in 53 rescue operations, saving a dozen lives and finding 41 bodies in disaster zones, Frida, the beloved yellow Labrador retriever from Mexico’s Navy unit, retires. The Mexican navy celebrated the contributions of their canine fellow honoring her in a ceremony on Monday. “Her bark always gave hope, and in moments of pain and uncertainty she brought relief,”...

President Donald Trump says he’s working on a trade deal with Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno, who on Wednesday became the South American nation’s first chief of state in 17 years to meet with an American president in Washington.

Chile is one of the richest countries in the region. Haiti is the poorest. Ecuador has a centrist government. Bolivia’s is socialist. Yet, from Port-au-Prince to Santiago, furious demonstrators were marching this week to demand fundamental change, part of a wave of often-violent protests that has set tires, government offices, trains and metro stations ablaze across Latin America and the...

“Without smoke, there’s no progress,” said the Amazon rancher in a torn straw hat and cowboy boots caked in red dirt. The rancher, 75-year-old Antonio Lopes da Silva, was talking about the fires that have swept parts of one of the world’s most precious regions in recent weeks. People around the world reacted with shock at what they consider a...

The Vatican formally opened debate Monday on letting married men be ordained as priests in remote parts of the Amazon where priests are so few that Catholics can go weeks or months without attending a Mass. The call for study on the proposal was contained in the working document, released Monday, for an October meeting of South American bishops on...

Ecuador’s highest court authorized same-sex marriage Wednesday in a landmark case seeking to expand LGBT rights in the small South American nation. The decision by the Constitutional Court came after a lengthy legal battle waged by several couples and gay rights advocates. With the 5-to-4 ruling, Ecuador joins a handful of Latin American nations — Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia...

The United States government has formally submitted an extradition request to the United Kingdom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a Justice Department official said Tuesday. Assange faces an 18-count indictment that accuses him of soliciting and publishing classified information and of conspiring with former Army private Chelsea Manning to crack a Defense Department computer password. That indictment, which includes Espionage...

The U.S. filed new charges Thursday against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, accusing him of placing the United States at risk of “serious harm” by publishing thousands of secret and classified documents, including the names of confidential sources for American armed forces. In an 18-count, superseding indictment, Justice Department prosecutors allege that Assange directed former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a London court on Thursday that he wouldn’t agree to be extradited to the United States, where he is accused of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer. Assange, appearing by video link from a London prison, said he wouldn’t “surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that has won many awards and protected many...

Pope Francis denounced the “cruel violence” of the Easter Sunday slaughter of Christians and foreigners in Sri Lanka as he celebrated the most joyful moment on the Christian liturgical calendar by lamenting the bloodshed and political violence afflicting many parts of the world. Francis skipped his homily during Easter Mass but delivered his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city...

At an Easter vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis on Saturday encouraged people to resist cynicism or pursuing the “glitter of wealth,” and to avoid seeking life’s meaning in “things that pass away.” “Do not bury hope!” Francis exclaimed, after noting that when things go badly, “we lose heart and come to believe that death is stronger than life.”...

Court documents reveal federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in late 2017, NBC News reports, more than two months earlier than the indictment disclosed when he was arrested last week. Assange was taken into custody April 11 after spending more than six years under the protection of Ecuador’s embassy in London. A federal indictment unsealed after...

British police on Thursday hauled a bearded and shouting Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy where he was holed up for nearly seven years, and the U.S. charged the WikiLeaks founder with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to get their hands on government secrets. Police arrested Assange after the South American nation revoked the political asylum that...

The battle between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the American government was always going to be epic, involving concepts like free speech, journalists’ rights, national interests, even treason. As Assange settles in to his first night in British custody , his allies and enemies alike are gearing up for what promises to be a long, dogged legal slog, not only...

Ecuador has denied WikiLeaks’ claims that it is set to expel Julian Assange from its embassy in London, rejecting what it called “an attempt to stain the dignity of the country,” NBC News reported. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, hasn’t left the embassy since 2012. He sought refuge there to avoid arrest and potential extradition to the United States for...

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is calling for nationwide demonstrations on Monday to coincide with his planned return to the country.

A very powerful magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck southern Ecuador in the early hours of Friday close to the country’s border with Peru, although no immediate reports of possible casualties or damage were available. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake happened at 10:17 GMT 115 kilometers (71 miles) southeast of the town of Palora, in the Morona Santiago province, at...

A living member of species of tortoise not seen in more than 110 years and feared to be extinct has been found in a remote part of the Galapagos island of Fernandina. An adult female Chelonoidis phantasticus, also known as the Fernandina Giant Tortoise, was spotted Sunday by a joint expedition of the Galapagos National Park and the U.S.-based Galapagos...

A Nebraska entomologist has named three of his eight newest beetle discoveries after the dragons from the HBO series “Game of Thrones” and George R.R. Martin book series “A Song of Ice and Fire.” University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Brett Ratcliffe named the new scarab beetle species drogoni, rhaegali and viserioni, The Omaha World-Herald reported . The names are Latinized versions...