Ecuador's leader seizes global spotlight in asylum fight

Rafael Correa, an economist schooled in the United States and Belgium, was judged among the more cerebral of Latin America's new breed of leftist leaders well before Julian Assange strolled into his country's London embassy and gave Ecuador's president a chance to seize the global spotlight.

Correa's decision to grant asylum to the WikiLeaks founder on Thursday is apt to deeply offend the US, Britain, Sweden and possibly the European Union, and could invite commercial and political retaliation that could hurt his small petroleum-exporting nation of 14 million people.

No such retaliation has yet come, but the standoff is young.