Headline
Ecuador Elects Youngest-ever President, Daniel Noboa, To Fix ‘Destroyed’ Country

Car horns in Quito blared in celebration Sunday as banana empire heir Daniel Noboa, 35, became violence-riddled Ecuador’s youngest president-elect ever.
With 90 per cent of votes counted, the electoral authority announced Noboa as the victor.
Moments earlier, socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez conceded defeat and offered her “profound congratulations” to Noboa, “because this is democracy.”
Addressing supporters in Quito, Gonzales also said she would not be claiming fraud.
Ecuadorans voted for 10 hours Sunday with no reports of violence in a country gripped by a bloody drug war and a rash of political assassinations that cut short the bid of a popular candidate.
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Some 100,000 police and soldiers were deployed to keep the vote safe, while Noboa and Gonzalez both cast their votes in bulletproof vests just weeks after a rival was murdered.
Both candidates had vowed to prioritize the escalating violence.
“May we elect the best president because (he or she) will govern a country that is destroyed… to address all these problems such as insecurity,” Indigenous voter Ramiro Duchitanga told AFP in Cuenca in Ecuador’s south.
“It is a critical election,” added Freddy Escobar, a popular 49-year-old singer, citing crime as his main worry. “I am voting in fear, not knowing what will happen.”
The main concerns of Ecuadorans, according to recent polls, are crime and violence in a country where the murder rate quadrupled in the four years to 2022.
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– Drug violence –
Long a peaceful haven between major cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen violence explode in recent years as enemy gangs with links to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.
The fighting has seen at least 460 inmates massacred in prisons since February 2021 — many beheaded or burned alive in mass riots.
The bloodbath has spilled into the streets, with gangs dangling headless corpses from city bridges and detonating car bombs outside police stations in a show of force.
In August, the violence claimed the life of anti-graft and anti-cartel journalist and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, mowed down in a barrage of submachine-gun fire after a campaign speech.
He had been polling in second place.
A state of emergency was declared after Villavicencio’s assassination, and Noboa and Gonzalez both campaigned, and voted, with heavy security details.
– ‘Change this country’ –
Noboa was elected to only 16 months in office — completing the term of incumbent Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap vote to avoid possible impeachment for alleged embezzlement.
He can run again for the 2025-29 presidential term, and the one after that.
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Both runoff candidates were relative unknowns.
Noboa is the son of one of Ecuador’s richest men, who himself has five failed presidential bids to his name.
Ecuador has a poverty rate of 27 percent, with a quarter of the population unemployed or holding down an informal job.
Opinion polls list unemployment as voters’ second concern.
Noboa has promised “progress for everyone” and vowed to prioritize job creation.
Gonzalez was the handpicked candidate of socialist ex-president Rafael Correa, who governed from 2007 to 2017 and lives in exile in Belgium to avoid serving an eight-year prison term for graft — another major concern in the country.
From eight candidates, Gonzalez took the most votes in the first round in August with 34 per cent, followed by Noboa with 23 percent.
Noboa will not an absolute majority backing his projects in the legislature, and with only 16 months in office, will face an uphill battle to push through any reforms, analysts say.
Voting is compulsory for 13.4 million eligible voters in the country of 16.9 million.
After images on social media showed a person appearing to fill out multiple ballots in favour of Noboa, the head of the National Electoral Commission, Diana Atamaint, promised an “immediate” investigation.
AFP
Headline
US Opposes Palestinian State Recognition, Says It’s Reward For Hamas

United States President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where they discussed differing views on the future of Gaza and Palestinian statehood.
CNN reports that Trump rejected the two-state solution to the crisis in Gaza, saying the idea portrays “reward” for Hamas.
France recently joined the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal to officially recognise the Palestinian state.
Trump opened the Tuesday bilateral meeting by praising Macron’s diplomatic efforts, claiming the French leader had helped him prevent global conflicts.
“Emmanuel has actually helped me with a couple of the wars,” Trump said, in response to Macron’s recent remark that if the US president wants a Nobel Peace Prize, he should “put an end to the war in Gaza.”
When asked about Palestinian statehood, and his latest remarks, it would be a “gift to Hamas,” Trump again pushed back strongly.
“Well, I think it honors Hamas, and you can’t do that because of October 7. You can’t do that. But we want our hostages back,” Trump said.
“You always have to remember, people forget October 7 was one of the most savage days in the history of the world,” the US president said.
In response, Macron, seated beside Trump, emphasised that recognising a Palestinian state does not mean ignoring Hamas’ October 2023 attacks on Israel.
The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel, fought since October 7, 2023, when the Hamas militant group attacked Israel, which has since launched offensive in the Gaza Strip in retaliation.
Headline
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Is Dead

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz, has died at the age of 82.
According to a statement from the Royal Court, the revered cleric passed away on Tuesday morning.
Born in Mecca in November 1943, Sheikh Abdulaziz rose to become one of the most influential religious authorities in the Kingdom.
He served as head of the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta, as well as the Supreme Council of the Muslim World League.
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He was the third cleric to occupy the office of Grand Mufti after Sheikh Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Shaikh and Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Baz.
In its tribute, the Royal Court said King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had extended condolences to the Sheikh’s family, the people of Saudi Arabia, and the wider Muslim world.
“With his passing, the Kingdom and the Islamic world have lost a distinguished scholar who made significant contributions to the service of science, Islam, and Muslims,” the statement read.
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A funeral prayer is scheduled to be held at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh after the Asr prayer on Tuesday.
King Salman has also directed that funeral prayers be observed simultaneously at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, and in all mosques across the Kingdom.
The Grand Mufti is regarded as Saudi Arabia’s most senior and authoritative religious figure. Appointed by the King, the officeholder also chairs the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas.
Headline
Antitrust Trial: US Asks Court To Break Up Google’s Ad Business

Google faces a fresh federal court test on Monday as US government lawyers ask a judge to order the breakup of the search engine giant’s ad technology business.
The lawsuit is Google’s second such test this year, following a similar government demand to split up its empire that was shot down by a judge earlier this month.
Monday’s case focuses specifically on Google’s ad tech “stack” — the tools that website publishers use to sell ads and that advertisers use to buy them.
In a landmark decision earlier this year, Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that Google maintained an illegal grip on this market.
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Monday’s trial is set to determine what penalties and changes Google must implement to undo its monopoly.
According to filings, the US government will argue that Google should spin off its ad publisher and exchange operations. The DOJ will also ask that after the divestitures are complete, Google be banned from operating an ad exchange for 10 years.
Google will argue that the divestiture demands go far beyond the court’s findings, are technically unfeasible, and would be harmful to the market and smaller businesses.
“We’ve said from the start that DOJ’s case misunderstands how digital advertising works and ignores how the landscape has dramatically evolved, with increasing competition and new entrants,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs.
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In a similar case in Europe, the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust enforcer, earlier this month fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.47 billion) over its control of the ad tech market.
Brussels ordered behavioral changes, drawing criticism that it was going easy on Google as it had previously indicated that a divestiture may be necessary.
This remedy phase of the US trial follows a first trial that found Google operated an illegal monopoly. It is expected to last about a week, with the court set to meet again for closing arguments a few weeks later.
The trial begins in the same month that a separate judge rejected a government demand that Google divest its Chrome browser, in an opinion that was largely seen as a victory for the tech giant.
That was part of a different case, also brought by the US Department of Justice, in which the tech giant was found responsible for operating an illegal monopoly, this time in the online search space.
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Instead of a major breakup of its business, Google was required to share data with rivals as part of its remedies.
The US government had pushed for Chrome’s divestment, arguing the browser serves as a crucial gateway to the internet that brings in a third of all Google web searches.
Shares in Google-parent Alphabet have skyrocketed by more than 20 percent since that decision.
Judge Brinkema has said in pre-trial hearings that she will closely examine the outcome of the search trial when assessing her path forward in her own case.
These cases are part of a broader bipartisan government campaign against the world’s largest technology companies. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against such companies.
AFP
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