March 31, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Ecuador crisis gets worse

In Ecuador, the political confrontation between the new president Rafael Correa and Congress has escalated even further, as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal fired a judge, Juan Ramirez, who issued an injunction blocking the dismissal of 57 members of Congress that the Electoral Tribunal had ordered. This situation is reaching bizarre proportions, and the country's institutions are in virtual tatters, as everything seems now to depend on which side has the strongest will power or cunning. See CNN.com.

Students riot in Chile

In Chile, students have confronted police again, as a march commemorating the 20th anniversary of two students being killed turned violent, with Molotov cocktails and water cannons. See BBC. The underlying grievances are hard to fathom, and the violence by students last June seemed to be more an attempt to throw their weight around than anything else.