Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Honduras next week to attend the inauguration of President-elect Xiomara Castro, the Central American country’s first female president. Castro, the leftist opposition party candidate, won out over the country’s ruling party in November. She will be inaugurated Jan. 27. She is the former first lady and her husband, José Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the army in a coup in 2009. She rode a wave of popular discontent with 12 years of National Party governance, which peaked in former President Juan Orlando Hernández’s second term.

Brazil Demands Zelaya Be Restored, as the Ousted President, Holed Up in Embassy, Declines Direct Talks With GovernmentTEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya hunkered down in the Brazilian Embassy here on Wednesday for what could be a long standoff with the interim government, while roving bands of his supporters set up roadblocks around the capital, smashed windows, and engaged in sporadic battles with police and army troops. The interim government, which forced Mr. Zelaya into exile on June 28, briefly lifted a curfew that had been in place since shortly after he resurfaced Monday, having sneaked into the...

Honduras's military-backed interim government has made a new offer towards resolving its standoff with Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, just hours after Zelaya's aides said negotiations had failed. Vilma Morales, a representative of Robert Micheletti, the interim president, said that the de facto government was willing to allow Zelaya to appeal directly to the legislature to decide whether he should be reinstated. "Congress could decide [on Zelaya’s reinstatement to the presidency] based on a request that he should formally present to the legislative branch," Morales said on Friday. Micheletti had previously insisted that the Honduran supreme court be the final...

Roberto Micheletti, interrim President of Honduras, steps down today to allow for the peaceful transition of power to the newly elected president of the tiny nation, Porfirio Lobo Sosa. You may recall that Micheletti was appointed after former President Zelaya attempted to overturn the country’s election process (with the assistance of President Obama’s favorite thug, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela) and was promptly, unceremoniously, and constitutionally removed from office... And where is the United States while all this is happening in a tiny democracy well within our sphere of influence? Why isn’t Joe Biden one of the dignitaries congratulating Micheletti for...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Assailants fired an anti-tank grenade toward the building housing ballots for the upcoming Honduran presidential elections, which are taking place under the shadow of a four-month crisis caused by a coup, police said Friday. The grenade overshot the target, exploding 550 yards (500 meters) from the building in the capital of Tegucigalpa, police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said. Residents in several neighborhoods heard the explosion Thursday night, but there were no damages. Police believe the building housing election material was the intended target because the surrounding buildings are mostly residential. They said the Russian-made, rocket-propelled grenade was likely...

Porfirio Lobo, Honduras president elect, said on Sunday he is committed to enable ousted president Manuel Zelaya to leave the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he remains under refuge following a frustrated attempt last week. Honduras now made it clear what it will accept: "It was decided at the highest level of government: it will be a territorial asylum and he may not go to any nation which borders Honduras, ie that is in Central America," said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Milton Mateo. According to the Honduran government, Zelaya will not be allowed to travel to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua...

In reviewing the events which took place this weekend in Honduras, we feel the need to add somewhat of a clarification to the post previous to this one, in which we mentioned that U.S. President Barack Obama seemed willing only to offer rhetoric in the defense of an ousted national leader (Honduran President Mel Zelaya). In making that observation, we appear to have made an error in judgment which we feel compelled to correct. It seems — as our friends at Power Line (the estimable Scott Johnson) have observed — that the military coup that took place occurred at the...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

Unbelievable. The Obama Administration knew that Manuel Zelaya was an anti-democratic anti-Semitic pig whose goal was to become ruler for life like his buddy Hugo Chavez. But, Team Obama decided to support him for the greater good of Latin American relations. Barack Obama even cut off aid to Honduras in order to appease tyrant Hugo Chavez.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...