Honduras News the 25th/ 8 / 2009

High-level delegation aims to end Honduras deadlock
AFP. August 24, 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht6TWXsRj–fmCd0MYsnT5ZWTaYA

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Seven foreign ministers from the Americas and a top regional official were in Honduras Monday in a bid to end the crisis set off by the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya almost two months ago.

The polarized Central American nation hit political deadlock after the June 28 military coup backed by the country’s courts and Congress.

The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, arrived with the foreign ministers, including those of Canada, Argentina and Mexico, at an airbase near the capital, Tegucigalpa.

The official aim of the two-day visit was to convince the interim government of Roberto Micheletti to accept a proposal by conflict mediator and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to reinstall Zelaya as president.

However, the defiant de facto leaders are still seeking support for their position that a constitutional succession, not a coup, took place in Honduras, because Zelaya violated the law by seeking to change the constitution.

The Supreme Court on Saturday rejected the Costa Rica-brokered deal and sternly warned that Zelaya faced arrest if he returned.

The foreign ministers of Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama and the Dominican Republic are taking part in the latest mediation bid.

Foreign governments and observers from Venezuela to the United States have condemned the coup, but international pressure, including frozen aid and withdrawn ambassadors, has so far failed to impact the de facto leaders.

Masked intruders destroyed the transmitters of two pro-Zelaya radio stations — Radio Globo and Canal 36 — late Sunday, their journalists said Monday.

Radio Globo broadcast from an emergency transmitter in parts of the capital on Monday, while Canal 36 was off the air.

Hundreds of taxi drivers blocked streets Monday to demand Zelaya’s return, before being moved on by police and soldiers.

Several thousand protesters were due to take part in further street protests on Monday, a union leader told AFP.

Zelaya was originally elected as a moderate but took a sharp turn to the left while in office, aligning himself with Venezuela’s firebrand leftist President Hugo Chavez.

Latin America News Round-up

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Seven foreign ministers from the Americas and a top regional official were in Honduras Monday in a bid to end the crisis set off by the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya almost two months ago.

The polarized Central American nation hit political deadlock after the June 28 military coup backed by the country’s courts and Congress.

The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, arrived with the foreign ministers, including those of Canada, Argentina and Mexico, at an airbase near the capital, Tegucigalpa.

The official aim of the two-day visit was to convince the interim government of Roberto Micheletti to accept a proposal by conflict mediator and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to reinstall Zelaya as president.

However, the defiant de facto leaders are still seeking support for their position that a constitutional succession, not a coup, took place in Honduras, because Zelaya violated the law by seeking to change the constitution.

(VIDEO) mass gatherings around the new Education Law in Venezuela, but nobody wrote about that. Hmm

United States targets Brazil and Venezuela for their natural resources

Caracas, Aug 21 – The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, affirmed that the United States has a perverse interest on the considerable natural and energy resources that Brazil and Venezuela have.

Venezuelan GDP recovery is unstoppable due to increase of oil prices

Caracas, Aug 21. ABN.- The oil incomes that Venezuela is going to register in the third and fourth trimesters of this year will make unstoppable the recovery of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), because the positive behavior of the Venezuelan oil, which is near to 70 dollars per barrel, will mark the tendency of the national economy.

That was the estimation made by Fernando Travieso, oil analyst, making reference to the 1% contraction suffered by the GDP in the first semester of 2009, which, in his opinion, it is a consequence of the drop on oil prices and the rest of the commodities at the international market, which was in turn caused by the global financial crisis.

Venezuelan GDP drop is lower than other countries of the region and Europe

Caracas, Aug 20.- The Venezuelan Gross Domestic Product only dropped 1.0% during the first semester of 2009. However, such result is really low when it is compared with the reports of other bigger and more industrialized countries around the world.

For instance, according to the expectations made by the Mexican newspaper “El Economista” (The Economist), the GDP could fall in that country between 10 and 11 percent.

The analysts interviewed by the newspaper explained it as part of the effects the global financial crisis has on diverse economic systems. The Mexican manufacture is one of the most affected industries due to its close links with the United States automobile sector.

Venezuela continues with positive economic growth

Caracas, Aug 23. – In the second trimester of 2009, Venezuela continued with positive numbers on economic growth and development on essential items despite the world crisis and the fall of the Latin American economy in general.

The statements were on Sunday made by the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, during his weekly radio and TV program “Alo, Presidente.”

Chavez underscored that some of the main rates that have kept a sustained growth are agriculture (1.6%) and construction (4.0%).

Stiglitz Sees Risk to Dollar, Need for Reserve System

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) — The dollar’s role as a good store of value is “questionable” and the currency has a high degree of risk, said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

“There is a need for a global reserve system,” Stiglitz, a Columbia University economics professor, said at a conference in Bangkok today. Support from countries like China should ensure orderly discussions on a new reserve system, he added.

Chavez: Agreement with Brazil will build industrial power in Venezuela

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, thanked the government and businessmen of Brazil for their interest in contributing to industrial development of the country and predicted that with the 8 new agreements signed today, under the bilateral brokerage , “will arrive in Venezuela to build power.”

From the Ayacucho Hall of the Miraflores Palace, where on Thursday night were initialed the new cooperation agreements with the Brazilian delegation, headed by Minister Miguel Jorge, the head of state said to have been the results of the abyss by brokerage, that said, surpassing the most optimistic expectations that both delegations had.

“All of these conventions and agreements have been signed, are added to those already there, but they are concretions. There are many other …”, reported, commenting that 74 Brazilian companies participated in this meeting in Caracas, alongside the 250 Venezuelan companies in 7 sessions, which assessed several areas including food and beverage, automotive, construction, machinery, technology, information, chemicals and plastics.

Uribe in Colombia which gets chased Zelaya of Honduras, but Now all the propagandists are silenced

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has made the first so that Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez and the deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, tried at the time without much success, particularly the last.
The Colombian Senate on Thursday approved the call for a referendum to vote on whether Uribe re-elected or not for a third term.
The process is not finished. The House of Representatives should approve it first to turn this proposal into law and then the Colombians in the polls to decide whether or not amending the Constitution.
Uribe has not found much less opposition, which took Zelaya. The Liberal Party and the leftist Polo Democrático left the room in protest at what is called re-election but as described in the case of other presidents is nothing more than an attempt to perpetuate itself in power.
Harassment and demolition to Zelaya
The case is different from Honduras for several reasons. Campaign against Honduran came from afar. The oligarchy of the country was not in favor of the philandering Zelaya, wealthy family, with Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Honduras was received with open arms in the Bolivarian Alliance for the peoples of our America (ALBA) and began to benefit from what that meant. A good example is that oil from Venezuela could rebir with perfect conditions: payment at 25 years and an interest of 1%.