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Quito - Ecuador is set to vote in a presidential contest Sunday, with incumbent Rafael Correa heavily favoured for re- election. Correa, 46, looked poised to secure victory in the first round without a runoff. The election is already historic in Ecuador as the first in which an incumbent president has sought re-election.

Quito - Ecuador is expected to re-elect left-wing populist Rafael Correa as president Sunday amid complaints from his seven weakened challengers that public money is being misused to finance the incumbent's campaign.

Correa, 46, looked poised to secure victory in the first round without a runoff. The election is already historic in Ecuador as the first in which an incumbent president has sought re-election.

Quito  - Rescue teams found another body in the rubble Friday after a military plane crashed into an apartment building in Ecuadorian capital Quito, taking the death toll to eight.

The eighth victim was a handicapped woman who lived alone.

The aircraft crashed into a building amid thick fog Thursday and exploded. All five people on board the eight-seat propeller Beechcraft plane and two people on the ground were found dead shortly after the crash.

Quito  - At least five people were killed when a military aircraft crashed into an apartment building in thick fog and exploded in the capital of Ecuador.

Four other people were injured, one seriously, in Thursday night's crash in Quito, authorities said.

The eight-seat propeller Beechcraft plane was flying low as it prepared to land in Quito and grazed a tree before it flew into the building, witnesses said.

Quito  - Ecuador expelled a US diplomat, the second one this month, accusing the US embassy's first officer, Mark Sullivan, of becoming involved in domestic and police affairs.

The government in Quito on Wednesday gave Sullivan 48 hours to leave the South American country.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry said it hoped relations with the United States would not be adversely affected.

On February 7, the government of President Rafael Correa expelled another US diplomat, Armando Astorga, an attache with the Department of Homeland Security at the US embassy, on similar accusations.