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ECUADOR

Branch of Citibank bombed in Guayaquil

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador -- A bomb exploded early yesterday outside an office building housing a Citibank branch, blowing out windows and causing some other damage, but no injuries, police said.

The so-called Group of People's Combatants, or GCP by its initials in Spanish, claimed responsibility for the attack. An e-mail sent to the Associated Press, claiming to be from the group, said the blast was in opposition to free-trade talks among Ecuador, Peru and Colombia with the United States.

AUSTRIA

Parties punish senator for pro-Nazi remarks

VIENNA -- Austrian political parties from the right and left yesterday reached a compromise to prevent a senator who sparked a national outcry with pro-Nazi comments from becoming the president of the country's upper house of parliament.

Leaders of the conservatives of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's People's Party and the parliamentary opposition of Social Democrats and Greens reached agreement on an amendment to the constitution to prevent Siegfried Kampl from becoming the head of the Bundesrat next month.

Mr. Kampl, who represents Carinthia, said in an interview in April that he deplored the "brutal persecution" of Austrian Nazis by the Allies' denazification campaign after World War II.