Ecuador breaks US trade pact to thwart 'blackmail' over Snowden asylum

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Ecuador breaks US trade pact to thwart 'blackmail' over Snowden asylum

Rory Carroll in Quito
The Guardian, Thursday 27 June 2013 19.56 BST

Ecuador has ramped up its defiance of the US over Edward Snowden by waiving preferential trade rights with Washington even as the whistleblower's prospect of reaching Quito dimmed.

President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request.

Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record.

Betty Tola, the minister of political coordination, said the asylum request had not been processed because Snowden, who is believed to be at Moscow airport, was neither in Ecuador nor at an Ecuadorean embassy or consulate. "The petitioner is not in Ecuadorean territory as the law requires."

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/ecuador-us-trade-pact-edward-snowden

[railsback]

1. The Guardian doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to update this story

Not fitting the meme.