Soldiers patrol streets in Ecuador as government and cartels declare war on each other
CBSN
Hundreds of soldiers patrolled near-deserted streets in Ecuador's capital Wednesday after the government and drug mafias declared war on each other, leaving residents gripped with fear.
The small South American country has been plunged into crisis after years of growing control by transnational cartels who use its ports to ship cocaine to the U.S. and Europe.
President Daniel Noboa, 36, gave orders on Tuesday to "neutralize" criminal gangs after gunmen stormed and opened fire in a TV studio and bandits threatened random executions of civilians and security forces. Less than two months after taking office, he declared the country in a state of "internal armed conflict."
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A spokesperson for China's Commerce Ministry said Thursday that Beijing hoped the U.S. would work to de-escalate the trade war between the world's two largest economies after President Trump announced a pause on higher tariffs he had imposed on many other countries.
Russia has released Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason in August last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post early Thursday, offering no information about the terms of her release. The Wall Street Journal first reported Karelina's release, saying she was freed in a prisoner swap orchestrated by the two countries' intelligence agencies.
London — The British government's broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced Wednesday that it is investigating an online suicide forum reportedly linked to 50 deaths in the U.K. Ofcom said it was using new powers granted under British law to look into whether the site's service provider had "failed to put appropriate safety measures in place to protect its U.K. users from illegal content and activity."
London — It was Prince Harry versus the British government on Wednesday as the Duke of Sussex made a rare public appearance at the U.K. Court of Appeal in London for a second consecutive day, hoping to get his full British security detail reinstated.
The country of Liechtenstein is tucked away in a valley between the Swiss and Austrian Alps. It's so tiny you could fit it four times over into New York City and still have room to spare.
The three Americans convicted for participating in a botched coup attempt in Congo last year have been repatriated to the United States, days after their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, Congo's presidency said Tuesday.
A volcano in the central Philippines erupted early Tuesday morning, sending a plume of ash about 2.5 miles into the sky and forcing authorities to suspend school in four villages due to ashfall.
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo — Anthrax poisoning has killed about 50 hippos in Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, which is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, the head of the park told AFP on Tuesday. The toxin is caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, which survives for decades in soil where animals that died of anthrax or were carriers were buried. It is transmissible to humans and potentially fatal in its inhaled form.
Seoul, South Korea — South Korea's military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the rivals' tense border on Tuesday, South Korean officials said.
The funeral of 14-year-old Palestinian-American Amir Mohammed Rabee was held Monday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, one day after the dual national from New Jersey was shot and killed there. Two other teenage boys, one whose family told CBS News he is also U.S. citizen, were shot but survived.
North Korea hosted the first Pyongyang International Marathon in six years on Sunday, welcoming international runners to the isolated autocratic nation that closed its borders to all outsiders in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Moscow — An appellate court in Russia's far east on Monday reduced the prison sentence for an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder, Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, flew to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok to see his girlfriend and was arrested in May 2024 after she accused him of stealing from her, according to U.S. officials and Russian authorities.
People in Myanmar's earthquake-stricken areas braced for thunderstorms late Sunday, after heavy rains and winds the previous night disrupted rescue and relief operations and added to the misery of the many who lost their homes in the disaster and were forced to sleep in the open.