Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said on Thursday that democracy in the country was “dead,” after lawmakers who backed his ouster in a June coup voted to block his return to power.
In a decision that disappointed Washington, Honduras’ Congress resisted international pressure and voted 111-14 on Wednesday against Zelaya’s reinstatement, throwing his future into question as he remains camped out inside the heavily guarded Brazilian embassy.
A US-brokered deal between Zelaya and de facto leaders who took power after the coup left it up to Congress to decide if he could finish out the last few weeks of his presidency before his term ends in January.
“We’re disappointed by this decision since the United States had hoped that Congress would have approved his return,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela told reporters on Thursday.
The congressional vote reaffirmed lawmakers’ June 28 decision to strip Zelaya of his powers after he was sent into exile at gunpoint. Honduras’ de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti, applauded Congress’ decision.
Zelaya had already said he would not return to office under the deal, saying the agreement was not negotiated in good faith and its implementation would amount to a win for the coup leaders.
“Honduran democracy is dead,” Zelaya told the local Radio Globo station on Thursday from the embassy where he has stayed since he sneaked back into the country in September.
“This is a mockery of the country’s laws. Honduras has no laws any more. Honduras is living in a de facto state,” Zelaya said.
Opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo won Sunday’s presidential election, which was scheduled before the coup.
Valenzuela said the election was carried out in an “open and transparent manner.”
The stance has split the US from Latin American powers like Brazil and Argentina that say it is impossible to recognize an election organized by a de facto government.
Valenzuela said the presidential election was only one step toward restoring democracy and urged Honduras to fulfill the other parts of the agreement by creating a national unity government and a truth commission to investigate the coup.
“Important work remains to re-establish a democratic and constitutional order in Honduras and promote national reconciliation in the wake of the June 28 coup d’etat as the status quo remains unacceptable,” Valenzuela said.
Lobo seemed to echo the US sentiment.
“If Congress’ decision is not accompanied by the agreement’s other points, like the unity government and the truth commission, the suffering will continue,” Lobo told reporters.
“The completion of this accord will allow the international community to open their doors and normalize relations,” he said.
Lobo has avoided questions about Zelaya’s fate but may end up offering him some sort of political amnesty.
The country remains deeply divided by the coup, with Zelaya supporters organizing near daily protests in the capital, although their numbers have dwindled since Micheletti cracked down on marches and pro-Zelaya media outlets.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Through a basement door in southeastern Turkey lies a sprawling underground city — perhaps the country’s largest — which one historian believes dates back to the ninth century BC. Archeologists stumbled upon the city-under-a-city “almost by chance” after an excavation of house cellars in Midyat, near the Syrian border, led to the discovery of a vast labyrinth of caves in 2020. Workers have already cleared more than 50 subterranean rooms, all connected by 120m of tunnel carved out of the rock. However, that is only a fraction of the site’s estimated 900,000m2 area, which would make it the largest underground city in Turkey’s
A small dairy in Tasmania is stocking supermarket shelves with what it says is the world’s first branded milk produced by cows fed with a seaweed that makes them emit lower levels of environmentally damaging methane gas. The livestock industry accounts for about 30 percent of global methane emissions, according to the UN. Seaweed and other feed additives for cattle could reduce these greenhouse gas emissions, but have yet to be widely adopted due to cost. Since February, family-owned Tasmanian dairy producer Ashgrove has been feeding about 500 cows — a fifth of its total — an oil containing a seaweed extract
Soaring high across a gorge in the rugged Himalayas, a newly finished bridge would soon help India entrench control of disputed Kashmir and meet a rising strategic threat from China. The Chenab Rail Bridge, the highest of its kind in the world, has been hailed as a feat of engineering linking the restive Kashmir valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time. However, its completion has sparked concern among some in a territory with a long history of opposing Indian rule, already home to a permanent garrison of more than 500,000 soldiers. India’s military brass say the strategic benefits