■ ECUADOR
Correa asks for reversal
President Rafael Correa asked Brazil on Saturday to reverse its decision to cancel a trade mission over a clash with a Brazilian construction firm that has raised tensions between the allies. Earlier this week, Correa turned down an offer by the Odebrecht company to settle a contractual dispute and retain US$800 million worth of contracts with the government. Last month the leftist leader seized the firm’s installations in the Andean country over a damaged dam that the government says was badly built. “I hope the Brazilian government revises its decision,” Correa said during his weekly radio address. “We respect their [Brazil] decision, but we can’t understand it as this is a problem between Ecuador, a sovereign country, and a company.”
■ PUERTO RICO
State power chief sacked
The governor called for the resignation of the director of the state power company on Saturday after the executive blamed high electricity bills in part on insects that short-circuit home electricity meters. Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila said Jorge Rodriguez should step down immediately because he used the same theory to request and receive an adjustment to his own electricity bill. The request raises questions about preferential treatment, the governor said. Rodriguez had no immediate comment, said Maria Quintero, a company spokeswoman who said the board of directors has called him to a meeting on Tuesday. As director of the electricity authority, he made front-page headlines in the US Caribbean territory by saying high energy bills were owed in part to bugs that electrocute themselves in home meters. Rodriguez later said that example was unfairly ridiculed and he did not mean to trivialize the high cost of energy, which depends on oil-fired power plants for 70 percent of its electricity.
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