Democracy Now!

After two Zelaya supporters died in Honduras, ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya vowed on Saturday to return to power through peaceful means and said he would take his case to the International Criminal Court. He declared that it was in the convenience of the United States to withhold a common vision of democracy, and not support the coup d’état.

The Obama administration’s special envoy to Sudan is calling for a major shift in U.S. policy towards the Sudanese government. In May 2007, the Bush administration imposed economic and other sanctions against Sudan, because of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. In the Darfur conflict, due to violence and disease, UN estimates 400.000 people killed and 2 millions displaced.

In Washington state, a Quaker pacifist has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the US government of discrimination for not recognizing his status as a conscientious objector on military draft forms. Conscientious objectors refuse to participate in wars because they are propped up by racism and dehumanization and set the stage for never-ending wars and occupation.

Confirming the May’s announcements, British forces will end the 3,700 troops withdrawal from Iraq by the end of July, this Friday, ending their more than six years as an occupying force. Iraqi lawmakers blocked a vote on an agreement that would have allowed 100 British troops to remain in Iraq beyond the Friday deadline.

The Obama administration took major steps this week toward helping several major US defense contractors sell sophisticated US arms and nuclear technology to India. Increased US-India nuclear cooperation is stoking fears the US is escalating India’s arms race with Pakistan. Both states are declared nuclear states endangering the regional situation.

At the G8 meeting in Italy, world leaders pledged $12 billion for a “food security initiative” for the world’s poorest countries. The total committed falls three billion dollars short of the $15 billion promised by President Obama.

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Washington today for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s Zelaya’s highest-level meeting with a U.S. official since his overthrow last month.

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.

US forces have completed a withdrawal from major Iraqi cities and towns on today’s deadline to hand formal control to the Iraqi military. Iraq has declared a national holiday to mark the pullout, and celebrations have been underway nationwide. Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the pullback a victory for national sovereignty.

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.”