International
Police killed, guards held in gang violence-stricken Ecuador

| By AFP |
Two police officers were killed, two more wounded and prison guards taken hostage Tuesday in the latest wave of attacks in a deadly gang war consuming Ecuador, authorities said.
Officials said “organized crime” groups responded to the transfer of detainees from the Guayas 1 prison with nine attacks using explosives and firearms.
The prison, in the southwestern port city of Guayaquil, is one of the main scenes of a series of bloody prison massacres that have left about 400 inmates dead since February 2021.
“We have had reactions” of “organized crime” in Guayaquil and in the northwestern oil port of Esmeraldas, Interior Minister Juan Zapata told reporters in the capital, Quito.
These included car bomb attacks.
In the early morning hours, two police officers died when their patrol car was attacked by people with firearms in Guayaquil, according to police. A separate attack on a police station in Guayaquil left two officers injured.
In Esmeraldas — the same city where two beheaded bodies were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge on Monday — inmates took eight guards hostage, according to the SNAI prison authority.
A video circulated on Twitter appears to show two guards with explosives tied to their bodies and a man claiming to be an inmate denouncing prison “corruption.” AFP could not independently verify the video.
“If war is what they want, war is what they’ll get,” says the man, his face obscured, adding: “We will use these guards.”
‘Find the perpetrators’
Police commander General Fausto Salinas said at the press conference in Quito that four of the guards were since released.
The SNAI had earlier announced on Twitter that it was moving about 200 inmates from the Guayas 1 prison in Guayaquil. It said the transfers were necessitated by required maintenance to cell blocks. But according to the purported hostage video, the move was the reason for the events at Esmeraldas.
“Given the events in Esmeraldas and GYE (Guayaquil), we activated our tactical and investigative units to maintain order and find the perpetrators,” the police said on Twitter.
Once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen a wave of violent crime that authorities blame on turf battles between rival drug gangs believed to have ties to Mexican cartels.
Hundreds of inmates have been killed — many beheaded or incinerated — as the fighting spilled into prisons. Civilians have increasingly been caught up in the violence, which has included a spate of car bombs.
The violence has claimed 61 police lives since last year. Ecuador has gone from being a drug transit route in recent years to an important distribution center in its own right, with the United States and Europe the main destinations.
The murder rate in Ecuador nearly doubled in 2021 to 14 per 100 000 inhabitants, and reached 18 per 100,000 between January and October this year. In 2021, law enforcement seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine. So far this year’s seizures total 160 tons.
International
Paraguay summons Brazilian ambassador over Itaipú espionage scandal

Paraguay summoned the Brazilian ambassador in Asunción on Tuesday to demand “explanations” and called its own representative in Brasília for consultations following Brazil’s acknowledgment of an espionage operation. The Brazilian government, led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, attributed the operation to the previous administration.
The surveillance effort aimed to uncover Paraguay’s position in now-suspended negotiations with Brazil regarding the pricing of electricity from the binational Itaipú hydroelectric plant, according to reports in the Brazilian press.
The Brazilian government “categorically denied any involvement in the intelligence operation,” stating in a Foreign Ministry communiqué on Monday that the espionage was carried out under former President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration (2019-2023).
“The operation was authorized by the previous government in June 2022 and was annulled by the interim director of the (state intelligence agency) ABIN on March 27, 2023, as soon as the current administration became aware of it,” Brazil’s government asserted.
Paraguay’s Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez announced that Brazilian Ambassador José Antonio Marcondes de Carvalho was summoned “to provide detailed explanations” regarding the operation. Additionally, Paraguay recalled its diplomatic representative in Brasília “to report on aspects related to the intelligence activity conducted by Brazil regarding Paraguay’s government affairs.”
International
Elon Musk to step down as government advisor, per Trump insiders

President Donald Trump has informed his inner circle that Elon Musk will be stepping down from his role as a government advisor, according to a report by Politico today.
Citing three individuals close to Trump, Politico states that the president is pleased with Musk’s leadership at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he has implemented significant budget cuts. However, both have agreed that it is time for Musk to return to his businesses and support Trump from a different position outside the government.
A senior administration official told Politico that Musk will likely maintain an informal advisory role and continue to be an occasional visitor to the White House. Another source warned that anyone thinking Musk will completely disappear from Trump’s circle is “deluding themselves.”
According to the sources, this transition is expected to coincide with the end of Musk’s tenure as a “special government employee,” a temporary status that exempts him from certain ethics and conflict-of-interest regulations. This 130-day period is set to expire in late May or early June.
International
Milei vows to make Argentina so strong that Falkland Islanders “choose” to join

Argentine President Javier Milei reaffirmed his country’s claim over the Falkland Islands (known as the Islas Malvinas in Argentina) and praised the role of the nation’s armed forces during a ceremony marking the “Veterans and Fallen Soldiers of the Malvinas War Day,” commemorating 43 years since the 1982 conflict with the United Kingdom.
Argentina continues to assert sovereignty over the islands, arguing that Britain unlawfully seized them in 1833.
“If sovereignty over the Malvinas is the issue, we have always made it clear that the most important vote is the one cast with one’s feet. We hope that one day, the Malvinas residents will choose to vote with their feet and join us,” Milei stated.
“That is why we aim to become a global power—so much so that they would prefer to be Argentine, making deterrence or persuasion unnecessary. This is why we have embarked on a path of liberation, working to make Argentina the freest country in the world and once again the nation with the highest GDP per capita on the planet,” he added.
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