Briefly

Ecuador

Munitions dump blasts kill at least 7 people

Ecuadorean highlanders searched through remnants of their homes Thursday after an army ammunition depot exploded and set off blasts that ripped through a Riobamba neighborhood. At least seven people were killed and more than 140 injured.

The smell of gunpowder still hung in the air a day after the explosions shattered windows, knocked down brick walls and ripped roofs from homes across seven blocks in the mountain city of 150,000 people.

President Gustavo Noboa visited the city Thursday and declared a state of emergency.

The 20-minute chain of explosions began Wednesday afternoon when a hand grenade went off and detonated the ammunition dump at a tank base in Riobamba, 100 miles south of Quito. Noboa said the grenade was accidentally dropped during an inspection at the storage site.

Three soldiers and a civilian were killed on the base. The other three fatalities were in the city.

Venezuela

Business, labor leaders issue call for strike

Opposition leaders said Thursday they would call a nationwide strike Dec. 2 to force Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to resign or agree to an immediate referendum on his rule.

The strike call, issued by a coalition of anti-Chavez business and labor groups, increases the pressure on the controversial president and heightens tension in the country battered by months of massive demonstrations, political violence and three previous national strikes.

Opposition leaders hope the strike will paralyze this oil-rich South American nation of 24 million people and leave Chavez with no choice but to negotiate early elections, something he has repeatedly refused to do.

Chavez backers condemned the strike call and predicted it would fail. They said the opposition was trying to remove Chavez by force.

Experts say the strike call represents a last-ditch effort to break the political stalemate and force an election before August 2003, when Chavez said the constitution allowed for a referendum on his presidency.

Pakistan

Presidential ally elected prime minister

President Pervez Musharraf’s candidate was elected prime minister Thursday, easily defeating a pro-Taliban candidate in a signal Pakistan will keep supporting the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

Parliament’s election of Zafarullah Khan Jamali to lead the first civilian government since Musharraf’s bloodless 1999 coup relegated a coalition of hard-line Islamic parties to opposition benches, where they likely will be fierce critics of the pro-U.S. stance.

The vote paves the way for formation of a coalition of the pro-army faction of Jamali’s Pakistan Muslim League, dissident members of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s party and independent parliament members.

Jamali, 58, made clear that Pakistan would continue supporting the fight against terror.

“Pakistan has become a front-line state, will remain one,” he said after his election. “Pakistan is going ahead as a respectable country.”

Mexico City

New ambassador cites ‘special relationship’

A friend of President Bush who grew up on the Texas-Mexico border arrived Thursday as the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico at a time when the once-fervent friendship between the two countries seems to have cooled.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza will present his credentials today to Mexican President Vicente Fox. He was sworn in Monday during a ceremony at the Oval Office.

Garza, a second-generation American whose four grandparents were from Mexico, said he had a “special relationship with Mexico, principally for having been born and grown up close to the border.”

Garza’s appointment comes in time for him to participate in top-level meetings of U.S. and Mexican officials scheduled next week in Mexico City.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mexico Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda and other officials are expected to discuss a number of key issues, including trade and migration.