The odd thing about it all, dread, is that the ban on his account would only be temporary. But notwithstanding this, the guy just disappeared without a trace.

Mr Lautaro, i sincerely hope that his disappearance was not occasioned by any adverse consequences of the hurricane which hit his part of the world. i remember himsaying that he would not evacuate and leave his record collection behind. talk about the captain going down with his ship

Let's pray for his well being then, wherever he is.

Lautaro, I saw your quote and something I read today came to mind that I found amusing. From the neocon Richard Perle:

"There is a story told, perhaps apocryphal, but perhaps true, about Machiavelli on his death bed. A priest was summoned, leaned over to the ailing philosopher and said: "Are you prepared to reject the Devil and embrace the Lord?" There was no response from Machiavelli, so the priest repeated his question, again no response. He asked a third time, and this time Machiavelli raised his head slightly from the pillow and he said: "Father, this is no time to be making new enemies."

Who would have thought about it, neocons do have a sense of humour after all (as rotten as they are).

By Joshua Goodman and Andres R. Martinez



June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Honduras’s deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, will appeal to the United Nations today to help him return to office after his supporters clashed with police last night in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya will address the UN General Assembly as soldiers and civilians who overthrew him grew increasingly isolated following President Barack Obama’s assertion that their coup was illegal. An emergency session of the Organization of American States’ General Assembly is scheduled in Washington in a bid to diffuse the crisis.

Latin American leaders from market-friendly Mexican President Felipe Calderon to self-declared socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood united against the region’s first coup since 2002 at an emergency summit in Nicaragua yesterday. Their unanimous censure contrasted with backing for Zelaya’s ouster by Honduras’s Supreme Court and congress, which named a caretaker until scheduled elections take place in November.

“The marching of the military into the presidential residence, the removal at gunpoint onto a plane out of the country -- this conjures up images of what we thought was part of Latin America’s past,” said Christopher Sabatini, policy director for the Council of Americas in New York.

The capital remained tense last night after police enforced a curfew and fired on dozens of masked protesters who marched in front of the presidential palace.

Taken at Gunpoint

Zelaya, 56, was taken at gunpoint from his home before dawn on June 28, wearing pajamas, and put on a plane to Costa Rica. Congress then ratified his removal, naming Roberto Micheletti, the head of the legislature, as his replacement. No government has extended him recognition.

While Latin American leaders rushed to condemn the coup, the first in Central America since the end of the Cold War, they remained silent on what sparked the crisis: Zelaya’s defiance of congress and the Supreme Court.

Zelaya last week sacked the head of the armed forces for complying with a high court ruling that barred a non-binding vote on rewriting the constitution. With a group of supporters, he then marched into a military base and walked off with the impounded ballots. Opponents in congress were moving toward impeachment proceedings over the poll, whose aim, they say, was to make it possible for Zelaya to run again.

‘Toothless’ Response

Sabatini said Latin America’s response to Zelaya’s actions before the coup was “toothless,” reflecting a steady erosion of checks and balances throughout the region. Democratically elected leaders aligned with Chavez in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, as well as U.S. ally Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, have sought constitutional changes to stay in power beyond their original mandates.

At the OAS General Assembly this month in Honduras, representatives from 34 nations, including the U.S., voted to overturn a 1962 resolution suspending communist Cuba even though its status as the Western Hemisphere’s sole dictatorship flouts the organization’s 2001 Democratic Charter.

“By defending only against coups, Latin America is saying they want people to live under democracy but not enjoy the rights that come with it,” Sabatini said.

Reaction to the coup yesterday reflected the broader political divide between allies of Chavez and more moderate governments. Chavez said he may cut off oil supplies to Honduras and placed his military on alert. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he was closing his border with Honduras to trade. Brazil and Mexico, the region’s two biggest economies, pulled their ambassadors.

‘Unacceptable’

“We can’t allow, in the 21st century, a military coup in Latin America,” Lula told reporters yesterday. “It’s unacceptable. Otherwise, pretty soon it’ll become fashionable again.”

Zelaya, a cattle rancher elected in 2006, surprised many Hondurans and allies in the 118-year-old Liberal Party by last year joining the Chavez-led trade bloc, the Bolivarian Alternative for Our America, know as Alba. Approval of his government fell to a record 30 percent in February from a high of 57 percent in January 2007, according to a nationwide poll by CID-Gallup.

The deposed president said yesterday in a Managua news conference he plans to return to Honduras after the UN speech and wants OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza and other heads of state to accompany him. Insulza said in the Nicaraguan capital that he will travel with Zelaya to Tegucigalpa later this week.

Business leaders supportive of Zelaya’s removal sought to downplay its impact on Honduras’s $12 billion economy, Central America’s third smallest.

Business Groups

Benjamin Bogran, the head of the country’s largest business group, said companies were operating normally. So was Puerto Cortes, the biggest port. Arabica-coffee futures for September jumped 1.05 cents, or 0.9 percent, on concerns supplies from the country may be disrupted.

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy institute, said regional leaders other than Chavez and the nine Alba allies should lead in negotiating Zelaya’s return with his political opponents.

“If he’s still the legitimate president, then he certainly belongs back in power,” Hakim said in a phone interview. “The question is how to do that when there is such strong resistance in Honduras to him. The real test is yet to come.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net; Andres R. Martinez in Tegucigalpa at amartinez28@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 30, 2009 00:36 EDT



Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aB.CAAGPbc_E

Honduras, restricts embassy staff to necessary trips only
By Associated Press

8:49 PM PDT, June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department on Monday warned U.S. citizens to avoid all nonessential travel to Honduras due to the "current unstable political and security situation" there.

Noting the ouster on Sunday by the Honduran military of President Manuel Zelaya, the department in a statement late Monday also recommended that American citizens residing in and visiting Honduras remain close to their homes or hotels "unless their travel is of a life or death nature," or for a scheduled departure from Honduras. It urged U.S. citizens to restrict travel within the country to necessary trips.


It said the U.S. Embassy has restricted the travel of its staff within Honduras to necessary trips.

"There have been regular demonstrations at the presidential palace in central Tegucigalpa, and streets in the vicinity of many government offices are blocked by police or military," the statement said. "In general, the streets of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula are quiet. Reports from the rest of the country indicate that calm prevails, although there have been cases of occasional roadblocks."


Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-honduras-travel,1,3680819.story

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
-- Mark Twain