Honduran interim leader Roberto Micheletti imposed a nationwide 48-hour curfew after the army ousted elected President Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile.
Congress voted Micheletti in as the country’s new leader just hours after Zelaya fled, while insisting he was still president.
Shots were heard in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa late on Sunday and the UN General Assembly was to discuss the crisis in yesterday when Micheletti was to announce his new government.
After some 200 troops swooped on Zelaya’s home at dawn on Sunday, he was bundled away in his pyjamas and flown out of the country. Zelaya traveled to Costa Rica and later Managua to take part in a summit of Latin American leaders. He told reporters he was determined to return and “reclaim his post.”
At the summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the international community should teach the Honduran government “a lesson” and threw his weight behind Zelaya.
But the meeting ended without any specific recommendations. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said leaders were determined to avoid “bloodshed.”
Micheletti brushed off international condemnation of the takeover.
He “had came to the presidency not by a coup d’etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws,” he said.
The curfew would end today, he said.
Micheletti warned Chavez his country was ready to “go to war” if there was interference by “this gentleman.”
The interim leader said he had information that several batallions of troops were being prepared outside of Honduras for intervention.
“I would not want anybody to have the courage to do that because our armed forces are ready to defend the country,” he said.
In Tegucigalpa , shots were heard near the presidential palace late on Sunday.
And a politically powerful union of teachers announced an indefinite strike to protest Zelaya’s ouster.
As planes and helicopters overflew the capital, several hundred Zelaya supporters ignored warnings to stay home and took to the streets of Tegucigalpa shouting, “We want Mel,” the president’s nickname.
The demonstration was halted in front of the presidential palace by troops and armored vehicles.
Zelaya’s overthrow was triggered by a standoff between the president and the military and legal institutions over his bid to secure a second term.
Congress said it voted unanimously to remove the president for “apparent misconduct” and “repeated violations of the Constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions.”
Micheletti was appointed to serve out the rest of the term, which ends in January. New general elections are planned for Nov. 29.
Zelaya, who was elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005, had planned a vote on Sunday asking Hondurans to sanction a referendum to allow him to stand again in the November polls.
The referendum had been ruled illegal by Honduras’s top court and was opposed by the military.
The Supreme Court said on Sunday that it had ordered Zelaya’s ouster to protect law and order.
Also See: Latin America condemns coup
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique