by the El Reportero’s news services
Manuel Zelaya
Former President Manuel Zelaya plans to return to Honduras in May, in the wake of efforts started this month with the mediation of Venezuela, Deputy Coordinator of the National People’s Resistance Front (FNRP) Juan Barahona announced.
Barahona said that the FNRP fully trust the mediation of President Hugo Chavez so that institutional order can be restored in Honduras.
Leaders of the resistance front participated along with Zelaya in a meeting on Saturday in Caracas with Chavez, who expressed his willingness to contribute to restore peace and democracy in Honduras. Zelaya’s return is a main demand made by the international community to Honduran President Porfirio Lobo so that the country can be readmitted into the Organization of American States.
Mexico Rercovers stolen archeological pieces
Authorities in Hessen locality, Germany, returned a lot of 49 Pre-Columbian pieces to Mexico, which were seized at Frankfurt airport in 2004, local press reported on Saturday.
A joint text of the General Attorney of the Republic and the Foreign Affairs Secretariat says that among the stolen objects are a stone-carved mask and another 42 pieces made of gray and green granite rock.
Mexican and German investigations revealed that the lot is directly linked to operations staged by Leonardo Augustus Patterson, internationally known as an alleged smuggler of Pre-Columbian pieces.
Patterson is also linked with the robbery in Spain of an important lot of archeological pieces coming from different Latin-American countries, which is already saved in Munich for returning to their countries of origin.
The joint note also expresses the appreciation of the Mexican government for the cooperation offered by Hesse’s authorities, who especially made possible the checking of the lot and preserved it in peak condition.
Fernández divides and rules
President Cristina Fernández announced on April 18, a series of new benefits for Argentina’s pensioners and extended the child benefit program, Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH), to include pregnant women in their second trimester. Government critics slated the move as a preelectoral and populist stunt by the government ahead of the Oct. 23 general election.
Likewise, the opposition has cried foul over the revised (and reduced) allocation of media air time for the 2011 campaign, arguing that it puts the government, which is not affected by the new regulations, at a clear advantage. However, while the opposition complains (and bickers internally), the (undeclared) Fernández is making full use of the state machinery to boost her image.
Peruvians opt to live life on the edge
Two candidates at either extreme of the political spectrum will contest the second round of Peru’s presidential elections on 5 June.
After the first round on 10 April, many Peruvians will be puzzling over how they have been left to choose between two options which 40 percent of voters apiece consider unpalatable: a left-wing ethnic nationalist, Ollanta Humala, and a right-wing populist, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a former president who ran an authoritarian kleptocracy and has been convicted of corruption and human rights abuses.
The run-off will be very closely contested and could hinge on which way the centre-right, urban middleclasses in Lima, who distrust both candidates, sway.
