Ecuador declared a state of emergency in the Amazon province of Napo on Tuesday after soldiers fired on protesters occupying an oil pumping station and shut down one of the country's main private pipelines.
The state of emergency prohibits protests and marches in the province. Leaders of the protest and a doctor at a local hospital said at least three people were wounded in the shooting. About 600 people were still occupying the Sardina pumping station in Napo, about 90km east of Quito.
"We will not allow anybody to damage state infrastructure," Jose Modesto Apolo, the government general secretary, told reporters in Quito. He said the occupation had to end before there could be any talks with the protesters.
Protesters demanding a bigger cut in oil profits for the Amazon region took over the privately owned pipeline pumping station on Tuesday, even as another group abandoned another government-owned pumping station.
The Sardina pumping station in Napo province was "violently" taken over by protesters, halting operations on the Heavy Crude Pipeline, a spokesman for the consortium of oil companies operating the line said.
The oil line can deliver up to 450,000 barrels of crude a day from the Amazon jungle to the Pacific coast for the US-based Occidental Petroleum, Spain's Repsol and Canada's Encana.
The spokesman said the takeover "did not affect yet" the crude exports of the companies that share the line, but did affect the delivery of the equivalent of 160,000 barrels of crude.
A military spokesman declined to comment, but local television showed troops firing their rifles at dozens of rock-hurdling protesters. Television stations showed footage of wounded protesters lying in a local hospital who said they had been shot by soldiers.
"We want the government to talk to us because this situation is getting out of hand," Julio Perez, a spokesman for the protesters told Reuters. "We did not order people to invade this pumping station.
The takeover of the Sardina pumping station coincided with the re-starting of pumping operations on a separate oil pipeline owned by the government oil consortium Petroecuador. Protesters damaged a pumping station on that line in the Amazon, causing an US$11 million loss in oil sales, according to Petroecuador.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine last year while fighting under contract for the Russian military, an investigation by independent Russian media said. Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on April 4 last year in “Eastern Europe,” an obituary published by his family said. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA in February last year. The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of
RSS