Quito  - Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa celebrated Monday the approval of a draft for a new constitution that he had advocated.

The leftist Correa commented to foreign media in Ecuador just hours after a referendum on the proposed new constitution on Sunday passed with 64 per cent of votes in favour, according to official results after roughly 80 per cent of the ballots had been counted.

Quito - The new Ecuadorian constitution, promoted by leftist President Rafael Correa, was approved by 64 per cent of votes cast, election authorities TSE said Monday after counting out roughly 80 per cent of the votes.

According to the figures, around 28 per cent of the 10 million voters had rejected the constitution with the remaining ballot papers being empty or invalid.

For Correa, the outcome marks the biggest success since his election in 2006.

He declared a "landslide" for the "yes" vote after the first projections Sunday night. The constitutional draft was his most important election promise in the 2006 election.

Buenos Aires/Quito - Ecuador's new constitution, approved in a referendum on Sunday, dwarfs its international counterparts by its 444 articles and ambitious goals.

Social justice, cultural diversity, equal rights, environmentalism, strengthening the president's role and more citizen participation, are all enshrined in the new constitution.

As are the protection of national sovereignty, free health care and education, transparent and efficient government and even the right to "Sumak Kawsay," which in the indiginous Quechua language means the "good life," are listed.

Buenos Aires/Quito - The draft and approval of a new constitution with socialist underpinnings is progressing peacefully in Ecuador, in sharp contrast to similar reforms that have taken Bolivia close to a civil war in recent weeks.

Ecuadorians are to vote Sunday in a referendum on the constitution proposed by President Rafael Correa, and according to opinion polls some 55 per cent of the voters will favour the new text, with 444 articles.

However, just as in Bolivia, the conservative and the relatively wealthy in the impoverished northern Andean country are unhappy about Ecuador's apparent swing to the left and about the withdrawal of pure capitalist precepts.

Quito  - Some 1,000 police officers evicted 200 indigenous people from a 70-hectare lot they had illegally occupied for more than a year, Ecuadorian media reported Thursday.

The members of the Kichwa, Shuar and Hoaorani communities had lived on the land in the Amazonian town of Puyo, some 222 kilometres from Quito, since April 14, 2007.

Force was used to remove them after an initial verbal request that the indigenous people leave the site failed to achieve the intended results. Officers brought down the walls of precarious houses and pulled people out of their homes.

According to media reports, one civilian was wounded by a gunshot during the operation.

Quito  - Ecuador has formally notified the United States that it must vacate a base used to combat drug trafficking when the lease expires next year, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Ecuadorian officials informed the US embassy of the plans, which have long been a pledge by President Rafael Correa despite objections from surrounding residents financially reliant on the Manta base.

The US and Ecuador signed a 10-year agreement in November 1999, which expires in August 2009, to establish the base in Manta for counter-narcotics operations. About