Ecuador's president on Saturday said he planned to challenge several bilateral investment treaties after the South American country was ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages by overseas courts. "We are going to take on these treaties as soon as we have the majority in the legislature" President Rafael Correa said referring to the session set to start May 14. His supporters won an overwhelming majority in a February 18 vote. He was alluding to two of 23 treaties that Ecuador has signed since 1993. They have allowed US oil firms to sue Ecuador in foreign courts.

Quito, Feb 18 (EFE).- Incumbent Rafael Correa romped to victory in Ecuador's presidential election, taking nearly 57 percent of the vote in a field of seven candidates, the CNE electoral council said Monday. With 69.53 percent of the ballots counted, the left-leaning economist had 3.48 million votes, compared with 1.4 million - 23.22 percent of the total - for his closest challenger, former banker Guillermo Lasso.

QUITO, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Beaming after his re-election last weekend, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said on Thursday he is not planning sweeping reforms and instead hopes to attract investors and diversify the economy from its dependence on oil exports. Since taking office in 2007, the U.S.-trained economist defaulted on $3.2 billion of debt, rewrote contracts with oil companies to squeeze more revenue from them, and pushed through a new constitution that gave him more power.

Fresh from a landslide re-election victory, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa was hoping to follow up with the sweeping legislative win needed to clear the way for deeper socialist changes. If the activist-leftist can secure an absolute majority in Ecuador's National Assembly he would have free rein to regulate the media, redistribute land and make other controversial changes.