An agreement to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras collapsed early yesterday after two rival leaders failed to form a unity Cabinet to heal the damage from a June coup.
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya declared the pact dead just a week after it was signed and called on Hondurans to boycott presidential elections this month because de facto leader Roberto Micheletti moved to form a new government without him.
The rival leaders had agreed to form a so-called unity and reconciliation Cabinet by Thursday, but they then clashed over who would lead the Cabinet until Congress decided whether or not to reinstate Zelaya.
“It’s absurd what they are doing, trying to mock all of us, the people who elected me and the international community that supports me. We’ve decided not to continue this theater with Mr. Micheletti,” Zelaya said.
Earlier, Zelaya declined to name any members to the Cabinet that was supposed to be formed and Micheletti said he was going ahead without them.
“We’ve completed the process of forming a unity government ... It represents a wide spectrum despite the fact that Mr. Zelaya did not send a list of representatives,” Micheletti said in a televised speech to Hondurans.
Ministers from the de facto Cabinet resigned to make way for the new government, which Micheletti said would include names put forward by different political factions.
The impoverished coffee and textile-exporting country has been isolated diplomatically and cut off from international aid since Zelaya was toppled by soldiers and sent into exile in his pajamas in a June 28 coup.
Zelaya snuck back into Honduras in September and has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in the capital ever since.
The worst crisis in Central America in 20 years brought back unwelcome memories of decades of military regimes, human rights abuses and political instability that plagued Latin America during the Cold War.
The US and the Organization of American States (OAS) had pushed the two sides to negotiate a way out of the crisis and celebrated last week’s accord, but it turned out that the pact contained too many internal contradictions to be successful.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of