The head of the Honduran military has pledged not to use deadly force against supporters of toppled president Manuel Zelaya after the army gave its backing to mediation efforts.
“We will not fire on our people,” the armed forces commander, General Romeo Vasquez, told Radio Globo, one of the few Honduras media outlets critical of the interim government headed by Robert Micheletti.
Vasquez was a key figure in the June 28 ouster of Zelaya and has defended the expulsion, but has said he was only enforcing a Supreme Court ruling.
Zelaya is now camped out on the Nicaraguan side of the border with Honduras from where he is plotting his return.
On Sunday Zelaya complained that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had stopped using the term “coup” to describe his removal.
“The position of the Secretary Clinton at the beginning was firm. Now I feel that she’s not really denouncing [it] and she’s not acting firmly against the repression that Honduras is suffering,” he told reporters.
In comments carried live on Radio Globo, Zelaya urged mid-level military officers to mutiny against their generals, who he said had betrayed Honduras for money.
“As commander in chief of the armed forces, I ask patriotic soldiers to think of their children, think of their families and to rebel against Romeo Vazquez,” Zelaya said.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
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