QUITO, ECUADOR (April 20/05): Ecuador's Congress dismissed President Lucio Gutiérrez and swore in his vice president in a vain effort to halt a week of violent street protests.

     Schools were closed and municipal workers went on strike as large crowds of Ecuadoreans, angry at the country's corrupt political class, besieged the lawmakers and new President Alfredo Palacio, throwing rocks and setting fire to government buildings.

     Gutiérrez had replaced all supreme court judges with his cronies – who immediately exonerated the thieving exiled ex-President Bucaram, who returned from Panama, and teamed up with Gutiérrez in criminal manipulations of the legal system.

     Gutiérrez has sought political asylum in Brazil, but Ecuadoreans want him brought to justice. Hundreds of people jammed the tarmac of the Quito airport to prevent what they believed to be his plane from taking off.

     ISIL's correspondent in Quito remarked: "Everybody is in a state of euphoric exhaustion after a week or more of street demonstrations. I'm tired from shouting, too."