Brazil

Ecuador’s ousted president arrives

Ecuador’s former president began his life in exile Sunday in Brazil, ending a four-day drama that began when protesters accusing him of abuse of power drove him from office and forced him to take refuge in the Brazilian ambassador’s residence.

A police vehicle whisked Lucio Gutierrez out of the Quito residence through its back entrance before dawn Sunday to avoid protesters, and he arrived in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, seven hours later on an air force jet, Brazilian military spokesman Vladomiro Fagundes said.

Gutierrez’s wife and one of his two daughters accompanied him to Brazil, which granted asylum to the 48-year-old army colonel.

They were immediately flown out of Brasilia military base by helicopter and were headed to a military-run hotel, Fagundes said.

Gutierrez was the third leader of the unstable, oil-rich Andean nation forced from office in eight years.

Japan

China’s history texts now under fire

Japan opened a new front in its dispute with China on Sunday by sharply criticizing Beijing’s history textbooks, signaling continued friction between the Asian powers despite high-profile diplomatic moves to quell tensions.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura refuted Chinese claims that Japanese textbooks gloss over Tokyo’s World War II-era atrocities, firing back in a TV talk show Sunday that China’s schools indoctrinate their students with an unbalanced take on the past.

“There is a tendency toward this in any country, but the Chinese textbooks are extreme in the way they uniformly convey the ‘our country is correct’ perspective,” Machimura said, echoing Sunday’s editorial in Japan’s largest newspaper accusing China of nationalistic education.

A string of violent anti-Japanese protests erupted this month in Chinese cities after Tokyo approved the latest version of a textbook by nationalist historians. China claims the books play down such Japanese wartime atrocities as mass sex slavery and germ warfare.

Iran

Minister says uranium enrichment to resume

Iran will resume uranium enrichment regardless of the outcome of its negotiations with three European powers over its nuclear program, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

Speaking to reporters five days before Iran is to resume nuclear talks with France, Britain and Germany, Hamid Reza Asefi said the Europeans appeared to be serious in seeking an agreement with Iran. But he added that any settlement had to respect Iran’s right, as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium.

The Europeans have been offering economic incentives in the hope that Iran will turn its temporary suspension of uranium enrichment activities into a permanent freeze.

Asefi said Iran would not continue its suspension of enrichment for long.

“It is not a matter of a year, but months,” he said of the suspension, which was imposed last year to boost confidence ahead of negotiations.

Death toll update

As of Sunday, at least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,191 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.

The AP count is three higher than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated at 9 a.m. CDT Friday.

The British military has reported 86 deaths; Italy, 21; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Spain, 11; Bulgaria, eight; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,430 U.S. military members have died, according to AP’s count. That includes at least 1,082 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

Pakistani freed by hostage-takers

Islamabad, Pakistan — A Pakistan embassy official who was kidnapped in Iraq two weeks ago was freed Sunday, the chief Pakistani government spokesman said.

Malik Mohammed Javed was abducted April 9 after he left his residence in Baghdad to attend prayers at a mosque. The Pakistani government said after his abduction he was in the custody of a previously unknown Islamic militant group, Omar bin al-Khattab, that had demanded a ransom for Javed’s release.

Javed’s kidnappers had allowed him to speak to Pakistani officials several times after his abduction and officials in Islamabad had said the government was making all efforts to secure his release.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror in Afghanistan, but it opposed the U.S.-led attacks in Iraq and refused to send troops.