Ally’s Ouster Gives Venezuela’s Chávez a Stage, an Opportunity

Published by The Washington Post

CARACAS, Venezuela, July 1 -- An ally was in trouble, toppled in a military coup. And the television cameras were rolling. The ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya's most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran eventually succeeds in regaining power.

Obama Has the Power and Responsibility to Help Restore Democracy in Honduras

Published by The Huffington Post

(Huffington Post) -- Viewed from a distance, the streets of Honduras look, smell and sound like those of Iran: expressions of popular anger - burning vehicles, large marches and calls for justice in a non-English language - aimed at a constitutional violation of the people's will (the coup took place on the eve of a poll of voters asking if the President's term should be extended); protests repressed by a small, but powerful elite backed by military force; those holding power trying to cut off communications in and out of the country. These and other similarities between the political situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras, where military and economic and political elites ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup condemned around the world, are obvious. But when viewed from the closer physical (Miami is just 800 miles from Honduras) and historical proximity of the United States, the differences between Iran and Honduras are marked and clear in important ways: the M-16's pointing at this very moment at the thousands of peaceful protesters are paid for with U.S. tax dollars and still carry a "Made in America" label; the military airplane in which they kidnapped and exiled President Zelaya was purchased with the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid the Honduran government has been the benefactor of since the Cold War military build-up that began in 1980's; the leader of the coup, General Romeo Vasquez, and many other military leaders repressing the populace received "counterinsurgency" training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the infamous "School of the Americas," responsible for training those who perpetrated the greatest atrocities in the Americas.

Police clash with demonstrators in Honduran capital

Published by CNN

(CNN) -- Honduran authorities on Monday clashed with supporters of deposed President Jose Manuel Zelaya, but the extent of the unrest appeared limited. Zelaya supporters burn tires Monday near the presidential palace in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. The Telesur TV network showed soldiers advancing on some streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and blue-helmeted police clashing with noisy demonstrators, one day after military troops detained Zelaya and sent him into exile. Other images showed troops, tanks and other military assets deployed around the presidential grounds.

World condemns coup in Honduras

Published by The Christian Science Monitor

Buenos Aires - The ouster of leftist President Manuel Zelaya drew sharp criticism Sunday from leaders in Latin America and across the globe. Mr. Zelaya was attempting Sunday to push ahead with a controversial referendum on whether to extend presidential term limits as other leftist leaders in the region have done in recent years, despite the fact that his country's Supreme Court ruled such a vote illegal. But hours before polls were to open he was seized by the Honduran military and exiled to Costa Rica.

Coup in Honduras?

Published by The Christian Science Monitor

Soldiers arrested leftist President Manuel Zelaya Sunday as he planned to carry out a controversial referendum to extend presidential term limits, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the vote would be illegal. June 28, 2009 By Sara Miller Llana The Christian Science Monitor Buenos Aires - In a move to thwart an attempt to rewrite the Honduran constitution, soldiers have arrested President Manuel Zelaya in what one leader has called a coup and which the European Union has condemned as unconstitutional. Just before polls were to open on a controversial referendum to allow the president more than a single four-year term, which had led to escalating political tensions in this Central American nation in recent days, soldiers surrounded the president's home and took him into military custody.

Obama’s new tune on trade

Published by The Christian Science Monitor

In the heat of last year's Democratic primary in Ohio, when the party's presidential nomination was in the balance, then-Sen. Barack Obama vilified US trade policy – as practiced by both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

Bolivia Becoming a Hotbed of Islamic Extremism, Report Concludes

Published by Fox News

A poor, agrarian, landlocked country in South America with a nearly 100 percent Christian population is hardly the place one would expect to become a hotbed of Islamic extremism in the Western Hemisphere.

RIGHTS-PERU: Activists Urge Obama to Use Trade Pact as Leverage

Published by Inter Press Service

The United States government is coming under intense pressure from rights organisations and environmental groups to redefine its trade pact with Peru, a tool that they charge the government in Lima is using to justify oppression against the indigenous population.

The next tropical paradise?

Published by The Boston Globe

IT WOULD SEEMINGLY require a sadism-tinged sense of leisure for someone to consider Guantanamo Bay a vacation destination. Or it might be just a lack of imagination. Instead of kneeling, shackled, orange-jumpsuited men, picture a pristine bay and protected coastline where endangered hawksbill sea turtles nest, mingling with Cuban iguanas.

‘We are fighting for our lives and our dignity’

Published by The Guardian, UK

It has been called the world's second "oil war", but the only similarity between Iraq and events in the jungles of northern Peru over the last few weeks has been the mismatch of force. On one side have been the police armed with automatic weapons, teargas, helicopter gunships and armoured cars. On the other are several thousand Awajun and Wambis Indians, many of them in war paint and armed with bows and arrows and spears.