Politics

Barack Obama is getting ready for his first trip to Moscow that will last from Monday 6th of July to Wednesday 9th. This is a re-start of a new area in the relations between Russia and the USA. Depending on those meetings is the future of the bilateral nuclear programme of disarmament and the anti missile shield affair (NMD) that the USA plans to build in Central Europe.

In this Summit a new treaty will be prepared in order to reduce the nuclear strategic arsenal of both countries, to replace the START-1 treaty that will expire on December 5th 2009.

Honduras is facing growing regional and international pressure to restore the overthrown President Manuel Zelaya. Earlier today, the thirty-five-member Organization of American States said it would suspend Honduras unless Zelaya is returned to office within three days. The ultimatum follows Tuesday’s unanimous decision by the UN General Assembly to condemn the coup. Addressing the UN, Zelaya stuck by his vow to return to Honduras on Thursday despite threats of arrest.

President Obama: “President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there. In that, we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States. I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”

This morning, representatives of social and political organisations – the Patriotic Committee of Paso Ancho, the Bolivarian Circle Yamileth Lopez, the Humanist Party, a few media such as Reuters and Pressenza, as well as citizens conscious of the importance of solidarity with the Honduran people – came to the Embassy to talk with functionaries and express their rejection of the coup d’etat in the neighbouring country.

The President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been taken captive by members of the military. In his recent speech to the OAS, he called on the population of his country to take non-violent options or civil-disobedience and calm organisation against the events that were being prepared.

The US and Venezuela have announced plans to restore their expelled ambassadors after a nine-month rift. Both countries withdrew their ambassadors in a dispute over the Bush administration’s destabilization efforts in Bolivia.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday called on Palestinians to unite for the creation of their own state in two years, without waiting for an end to the Israeli occupation.

Russia is ready for deep cuts of strategic nuclear weapons in a new deal with the United States if the U.S. eases Moscow’s concerns about plans for a missile defense system, President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.

On Capitol Hill, the Democratic House leadership is pressuring antiwar Democrats to support a $106 billion supplemental war funding bill. In May, fifty-one antiwar Democrats opposed an earlier version of the bill.

Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik was outsourced to Sudan for torture by Canada. Cleared of all allegations, Canada refuses to let him back home.