Honduras News Bulletin: Snipers Fire on Zelaya

Radio Globo reports: Snipers fire on Zelaya

Mercenaries and paramilitaries arrive in Honduras

Urgent - Take Action Now!

Call Now - demand and end to the attacks on Zelaya and a restoration of civil liberties.

* Honduras Desk, U.S. State Department 202-647-3482
* State Department Main Switchboard 202-647-4000
* White House 202-456-1111
* OAS Washington Office 202-458-3000

The situation is grave in Tegucigalpa. According to a message from the organization, Pastors for Peace, Radio Globo from Honduras is reporting that snipers are shooting into the Brazilian Embassy where President Zelaya and hundreds of supporters have taken refuge. There is no word yet on injuries.

Also, according to an Oct. 9 AP report, paramilitaries from Colombia are arriving in Honduras now. Many of these paramilitaries were trained in torture and repression at the infamous School of the Americas in the U.S.

Support the people of Honduras in their heroic struggle against the brutal coup regime! Thousands of courageous working people are taking to the streets, in spite of the growing brutality of the criminal right wing forces, who are armed and trained by the U.S.

The following is a report from the delegation of U.S. activists in Honduras, who will be holding a news conference today, October 9, at 5pm EST at the offices of the Bottlers’ Union, a center in Tegucigalpa of the National Front for Resistance Against the Coup:

In the last 24 hours, the situation in Honduras has reached a profound level of urgency. The illegal, de facto Micheletti regime is clearly reaching a point of desperation—and there is a serious danger in this, as the rightwing can and will do anything when they are desperate.

Last night, we received word that at the Brazilian embassy, where President Manuel Zelaya has been seeking refuge, two scaffolds had been erected and two snipers placed on them—one from the Honduran police and one from the Honduran army. Heavy military activity was also occurring on the ground around the embassy, with military convoys placed at strategic places all around the windows and doors of the embassy. The fear is that an assassination attempt on Zelaya’s life may be carried out soon.

Another alarming report relayed to us today from Honduran human rights leaders is of the presence of 120 paramilitaries—experts in killing—from other Latin American countries in Honduras. Many of these paramilitaries have been trained at the School of the Americas based in Georgia.

Today while we were in a meeting, the human rights leader we were meeting with received a phone call that police at the pedagogical university had given protesters there 10 minutes to disperse or face dire consequences. Military convoys had been brought in to surround the protesters.

As this email is being written, members of the U.S. Delegation in Solidarity with the Honduras Resistance are at the U.S. embassy, attempting to meet with representatives there to alert them of the situation and demand the discontinuation of U.S. aid to the de facto regime, a freeze on the assets of the golpista government members, and the abandonment of any electoral process that doesn’t first involve the restitution of President Zelaya, as is the will of the Honduran people.

The delegation also reports that despite the coup government’s announcement that it had lifted the ban on civil liberties, the country still remains under martial law. The coup government is telling the world that it has lifted martial law, but they haven’t told anyone in the police or military, from the top commanders to the troops in the streets. There is still a massive armed presence, and protesters and dissidents are still being brutally attacked and arrested.

That’s why it is so important for us to support the Delegation in Solidarity with the Honduran Resistance. The corporate media is echoing the coup government’s press releases claiming that martial law has been lifted and civil liberties restored, and ignoring the fact that repression is intensifying. We need you to help get the word out.

What you can do now:

Call - Honduras Desk, U.S. State Department 202-647-3482
State Department Main Switchboard 202-647-4000
White House 202-456-1111
OAS Washington Office 202-458-3000

Demand an end to the attacks on Zelaya and Honduran activists. Demand a restoration of civil liberties in Honduras.

Sign the Petition - Demand safe passage for the U.S. delegation - http://www.iacenter.org/honduras/honduras_delegation100609/

Make an emergency donation to help with the expenses of the delegation and to help us spread the word - http://www.iacenter.org/donate/

For daily photos and reports from the delegation, see http://hondurasdelegation.wordpress.com.

To follow reports from the delegation on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/iacenter.

No survivors after UN plane carrying 11 people crashes in Haiti

All 11 people aboard a United Nations plane that crashed today in a mountainous area of south-eastern Haiti have been killed, the world body has confirmed.

UN unrivalled for its ability to bring nations together to solve key issues, official says

The recent series of high-level events at United Nations Headquarters on issues including climate change, disarmament and food security shows that no other multilateral organization has the same capacity as the UN to bring together countries to resolve key issues, a top official with the world body said today.

United States President Barack Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Analysis: Barack Obama wins 2009 Nobel peace prize

From the moment that President Barack Obama - who has won the Nobel peace prize - entered the Oval Office, he made clear that resolving the conflict in the Middle East would be a key priority of his foreign policy

By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 10:44AM BST
09 Oct 2009

His very first phone call was to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and his speech in Cairo sought to cast America as an even-handed peacemaker in the Holy Land. Soon afterwards, Mr Obama also pledged to negotiate a new treaty on nuclear disarmament with Russia.

So far, however, Mr Obama has no concrete achievement to his credit. The Israelis and Palestinians are no closer to a settlement today than when he took office nine months ago. On the contrary, recent violence in Jerusalem raises the possibility of a new Palestinian uprising: an event that would force the “peace process” into reverse.

The only possible explanation for the judges’ decision to reward Mr Obama is that they are betting on his future achievements. They think he might secure an epoch-making settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians as well as a sweeping disarmament treaty with Russia. Having previously given the Nobel Peace Prize to leaders who have made real agreements to resolve real conflicts, the judges now appear to be rewarding effort and possible future accomplishment.

In effect, they are taking out a bet on Mr Obama’s future peacemaking skills. Are they being realistic?

There is a good chance of America and Russia concluding another treaty on reducing nuclear arms. This is for a simple reason: the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal is rapidly deteriorating anyway and a new disarmament deal represents Russia’s only chance of maintaining nuclear parity with America. Concluding this treaty would be a real achievement for Mr Obama - but it would follow three previous nuclear disarmament deals and it would not visibly alter the balance of power in the world.

Meanwhile, the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement are as remote as ever. The intractable problems at the heart of their conflict can be summed up in four words: borders, settlers, refugees, Jerusalem. Put simply, Mr Obama must devise a peace agreement which decides the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, the future of Palestinian refugees driven from Israel at its birth in 1948 and the division of Jerusalem into two national capitals.

Repeated attempts to resolve these issues, notably at the Camp David summit in 2000, have always failed, largely because the concessions required of both sides have been politically unacceptable. They remain unacceptable today. The “core issues” are certainly no closer to being settled than when Mr Obama took office in January.

But the judges appear to be betting that he can defy the odds and resolve them all in the next few years . Anyone who has followed events in the Middle East might not be entirely convinced by their optimism.

Friday, October 09, 2009
23:59 Mecca time, 20:59 GMT

Obama: I do not deserve Nobel prize

The Nobel committee said Obama had reached out to the world in a bid to end nuclear arms stocks

Barack Obama, the US president, has said he is “surprised and deeply humbled” after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, less than a year after taking office.

Speaking in Washington, Obama said he did “not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honoured by this prize”.

The Nobel Committee in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, said that the award recognised Obama’s attempts to foster international peace and create a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama will give his $1.4m reward for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to charity, the AFP news agency reported a US official as saying.

No decision has yet been taken on exactly which organisations will benefit, the official said.

‘Mutual respect’

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, awarded the prize himself in 1984, hailed the award as “a magnificent endorsement for the first African-American president in history”.

But world reaction to the decision has been mixed, with the Taliban in Afghanistan saying it was absurd to give the prize to Obama when he had ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year.

In his speech from the White House, Obama said: “Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

“We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people.

“We must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The president said he would accept the award as a “call to action” for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

“And we must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years,” he said.

Taliban criticism
——————————————————————————————-
Nobel nominees
US President Obama was one of more than 200 individuals nominated for the 2009 Nobel peace prize. The decision to award Obama the prize was a surprise to those who thought that one of these four candidates would win:

Morgan Tsvangirai - the prime minister in Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government. As opposition leader, he was imprisoned and severely beaten. But he struck a power-sharing deal with his rival, President Robert Mugabe

Piedad Cordoba - a politician and
hostage negotiator in Colombia, she mediated between the government and the rebel group FARC, and was herself
kidnapped in 1998

Hu Jia - currently in jail in China, on charges of subverting state power. After months of house arrest, he was sentenced just before the Beijing Olympic Games for his constant criticism of human rights abuses

Sima Samar - an advocate of women’s rights in male-dominated Afghanistan, she was a senior minister in President Hamid Karzai’s first government and is now head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission
——————————————————————————————
The Taliban condemned the decision saying that Obama has “not taken a single step towards peace in Afghanistan”.

However, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, congratulated Obama, calling the announcement “appropriate”.

An aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, said the award should prompt Obama to begin to end injustice in the world.

“We hope that this gives him the incentive to walk in the path of bringing justice to the world order,” Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad’s media aide, said.

“We are not upset and we hope that by receiving this prize he will start taking practical steps to remove injustice in the world.

Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, both said the prize should encourage everyone to help Obama rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“I think the peace prize was given with such a hope,” Hatoyama told reporters on a visit to Beijing.

Merkel said Obama had shifted the tone towards dialogue in a very short time.

“There is still much left to do, but a window of possibility has been opened,” she said in Leipzig.

‘Extraordinary efforts’

Obama, 48, wins the award while still being the commander-in-chief of US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Nobel committee, said.

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

“Obama has, as president, created a new climate in international politics.

“Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”

The only US presidents to have won the award while in office are Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.

Roosevelt was awarded the prize for his contribution to the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

Wilson received the award for his part in founding the League of Nations.

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, provided in his will for the establishment of the Nobel prizes in 1895.

The possible detrimental use of dynamite is believed to have influenced Nobel in leaving a better legacy after his death.

The Nobel Committee said that Obama had made “extraordinary efforts in international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

SADC Calls For End to Zimbabwe Sanctions

SADC calls for end to Zimbabwe sanctions

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called on the international community to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe, in recognition of the country’s power-sharing agreement.

The power-sharing government was established last September to try to end Zimbabwe’s twin political and economic crises, which came after an estimated 100 MDC supporters were murdered in disputed presidential elections.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who took over as chairperson of the SADC during a two-day summit in Kinshasa, said that continued sanctions could harm the implementation of the power-sharing deal.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had been pushing for a separate summit to deal with Zimbabwe at the meeting in Kinshasa, which ended Tuesday evening.

On Monday his spokesperson said that the SADC was would call a separate meeting, but the body failed to make this commitment.

The SADC also rejected Tsvangirai’s proposal to have the removal of sanctions conditional on the implementation of the power-sharing deal.

Both Kabila and South African President Jacob Zuma called on Mugabe and Tsvangirai to continue talks to resolve the sticking points in the agreement. - Sapa-dpa

Published on the Web by IOL on 2009-09-09 12:58:31

Guinea: UN official fears for witnesses’ safety in probe into killing of protesters

The top United Nations human rights official voiced concern today over the risks to Guineans if the world body launches an investigation into the killing of at least 150 people last month when security forces opened fire on an opposition rally in the West African nation and raped some of the women protesters.

Food aid from UN agency reaches 1.3 million Somalis

Aid from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reached 1.3 million Somalis in the war-wracked Horn of Africa nation last month, but funding shortfalls prevented the agency from assisting millions more in need, it was announced today.

Yemen: UN aid chief warns of critical situation for thousands of displaced

The top United Nations humanitarian official today warned of the increasingly dire circumstances facing a growing number of people in northern Yemen forced from their homes by the ongoing conflict between the Government and the Al Houthi rebels.

Don’t return home, UN again warns Congolese refugees in Burundi

For the second time this week, the United Nations refugee agency today warned more than 2,000 Congolese in Burundi not to return to the strife-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which they fled during ethnic fighting in 2004.

Plutonium production site hosts radioactive rabbit poo

The US’s first plutonium production site has revealed a new surprise: radioactive jackrabbit droppings