Ecuador Visit Brings Deals, No Recognition

Queen meets new Australia in its infancy

The Queen's two-week tour of Australia last night rolled towards its conclusion just as it had begun, with an unequivocal statement of praise and affection for a head of state who 45.28 per cent of its citizens wish to depose.

In the final speech of her visit in front of 600 guests on the rolling lawns of Government House in Perth, the Queen delivered a touching message of thanks to her many hosts across the country, and especially to republicans who had treated her with courtesy and respect during her progress through four states and two territories.

The Queen spoke of a diverse, but not disparate country bound together by its shared vastness and natural wealth, and above all by the vigour, openness and humour of its people.

"This natural generosity o f Australians everywhere has been much in evidence during this visit. I shall depart tomorrow looking forward to a return next year, and with my abiding affection and respect for Australia and Australians confirmed and renewed," the Queen said.

"Prince Philip and I have been given the warmest of welcomes from everybody we have met, whatever views and aspirations they might have for the future of this country. This has been true of people from every background, age or walk of life."

Throughout her tour pro-republican politicians have bent over backwards to assure the Queen that their desire to abolish the monarchy is nothing personal against her, and many have praised the Royal Family's contribution to the past century of Australian history.

Ecuador Visit Brings Deals, No Recognition

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Thursday made his first visit to Moscow, where he signed a series of deals while admiring the Kremlin palace but kept mum on a widely anticipated recognition o f South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Correa’s visit to the Kremlin was the first in the history of diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Russia and yielded a strategic partnership agreement that covers politics, trade, culture, tourism, sports, science, technology and the environment.

“It’s so beautiful here that I don’t want to work — only sit and admire what I’m seeing!” Correa exclaimed in the Grand Kremlin Palace, where the talks took place, Interfax reported.

The two leaders also oversaw the signing of general partnership agreements in nuclear energy, as well as memorandums of cooperation in energy and telecommunications.

In his recent bid for foreign aid, Correa started out playing hardball.

Earlier this week in London, Correa proposed that European countries give his country money in exchange for not extracting some 850 million barrels of oil, or 20 percent of the country’s reserves. The oil is located under the Yasuni rainforest, an area of the Amazon in eastern Ecuador known for its biodiversity, and concerns have been raised that drilling could seriously damage the ecosystem.

Correa took a different energy policy route in Russia, instead signing a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Energy Ministry.

“We want to repair roads and develop electrical infrastructure. We want to reconstruct our oil refineries and continue developing our oil and gas reserves,” Correa said at a joint news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev. “In all of these projects we can expect enormous help from Russia, made possible by its technological and financial capabilities.”

Medvedev said he had hoped to “develop full-fledged, full-format relations with the region’s countries” and that “Ecuador is one of our strategic partners on the Latin American continent.”

Russia has been intensely courting Latin American countries, and the leaders of Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba have all visited Moscow this year to renew bilateral contacts.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29