Free Republic

Mr. Zelaya, a Stetson hat-wearing leftist who is close allies to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, told Venezuela's state-run Telesur television network that he planned to fly to Honduras on Sunday along with Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner and Ecuador's Rafael Correa, also leftists. "We will arrive at the international airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras with several presidents, (and) members of international organizations," Mr. Zelaya told Caracas-based station Telesur, according to the Associated Press. The country's acting leaders, however, don't appear to be bluffing about arresting the president if he returns. In the days after he was sent packing to Costa Rica by Honduras'...

The Honduran Supreme Court has rejected a call from the head of the Organization of American States to return deposed leader Manuel Zelaya to the presidency. ... After the meeting, Insulza told reporters that the interim government remains intent on holding on to power until new elections in November. Insulza said the current government in power and all of the other institutions of government have shown no willingness to reverse their course. A spokesman for the Honduran Supreme Court said justices told Insulza that Mr. Zelaya cannot be restored to power because he is facing a series of criminal charges....

Maria Belen Chapur http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphohZs9nuQ&feature=related Wow, here we go!

Mystery surrounded South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose whereabouts haven't been revealed since Thursday, when he took off in a sport-utility vehicle normally driven by a bodyguard, turned off his mobile phone and stopped communicating with his office, family and close political allies. On Monday, South Carolina elected leaders considered temporarily transferring the governor's power to another state official, according to people familiar with the situation. Officials decided against the move after being told by aides to the governor that they knew Mr. Sanford's location. ... Republican state Sen. John "Jake" Knotts, a former police officer and a political opponent...

The U.S. economy will enter "hyperinflation" approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said. Prices may increase at rates "close to" Zimbabwe's gains, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. Zimbabwe's inflation rate reached 231,000,000% in July, the last annual rate published by the statistics office. "I am 100% sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation," Faber said. "The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be...

THERE has been a battle of wills between North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il and US President Barack Obama. So far, Kim has won. - it also will have to acknowledge his extraordinary success in imposing his own reality, his personal paradigm, on the international system and on the US. .. . It shows a complete failure of political imagination as to what the North Korean political culture really is. It is the same kind of mind that dominates the Obama White House. On May 12, Obama's special envoy on the Korean peninsula, Steve Bosworth, declared: "I think everyone is feeling...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea is preparing to move an intercontinental ballistic missile from a factory near Pyongyang to a launch site on the east coast, a South Korean newspaper quoted a source in Washington as saying on Saturday. The factory north of Pyongyang is the same place where the North manufactured the long-range rocket it fired on April 5 before moving it to the east-coast Musudan-ri missile range for assembly and launch, the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said. Regional powers are waiting to see what the North might do next after it conducted a nuclear test on Monday. South Korea...

Images of Canada's governor general chowing down on a chunk of raw seal flesh have unleashed outrage from animal welfare groups but praise from supporters of the seal hunt. Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean grossed out many Canadians when she popped a piece of bloody seal heart into her mouth during an official visit to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, on Monday. "I'm extremely embarrassed to be associated with a governor general of my country eating raw seal meat in that manner. It's barbaric," said Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. "I wonder what the Queen would think about that."...

The U.S. dollar's day of reckoning may be inching closer as its status as a safe-haven currency fades with every uptick in stocks and commodities and its potential risks - debt and inflation - are brought under a harsher spotlight. Ashraf Laidi, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, said Wednesday a "serious case of dollar damage" was underway. "We long warned about the day of reckoning for the dollar emerging at the next economic recovery," Mr. Laidi said in a note. ... The U.S. dollar slid against most major currencies Wednesday, hitting a five-month low of US$1.3775 against the euro...

China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes - or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion - and confirming years of speculation it had been buying. Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country's reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure. The confirmation of its surreptitious stockpiling is likely to fuel market talk about Beijing's ability to buy secretly and its ambitions...

Kim Jong Il has expressed "great satisfaction" that North Korea succeeded Sunday in launching a satellite into orbit. The North Korean leader's satisfaction, as state news media explained it Monday, was in no way diminished by a worldwide expert consensus, based on tracking data, that the satellite did not go into orbit, but instead plopped into the Pacific, where it apparently sank. "It is a striking demonstration," Kim was quoted as saying, "that our scientists and technicians developed both the multistage carrier rocket and the satellite 100 percent with their own wisdom and technology and accurately put the satellite into...

IN TODAY’S gut-wrenching markets, winners are as rare as a house that sells for the asking price. Even Warren Buffett is looking less than sagacious after his holding company posted its worst year ever. But one investor who continues to win plaudits is John Paulson. His hedge funds have had a superb crisis. They clocked up triple-digit returns in 2007 betting against subprime mortgages, netting him $3.7 billion personally—a sum that made George Soros’s winnings from currency bets in the early 1990s look modest. ... He targeted BBB-rated tranches, the lowest in subprime securities. With credit spreads so low because...

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski isn't thrilled his team got snubbed by the leader of the free world. "Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets," Krzyzewski told a reporter from the Associated Press on Wednesday. Related: Obama's Final Four picks revealed The president filled out his NCAA bracket for ESPN on Tuesday, and the Blue Devils weren't among his Final 4 picks. Instead, he has Coach K's squad falling to Pittsburgh in the...

The eye-popping national debt surpassed $11 trillion Monday, the largest in U.S. history. The new Treasury Department figures on the national debt were released as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to project that the annual budget deficit will be higher than previously estimated by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The debt, which refers to the cumulative amount of money the government owes, hit $10.9 trillion on Friday. The whopping number has major ramifications for President Barack Obama, who is trying to push through a raft of big-ticket bills on health care, energy, education and climate...

Congressional Democrats careened between the circular firing squad and the three-ring circus Tuesday as they struggled with their new reality: playing defense on the economy. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) blamed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for letting bailed-out insurance giant American International Group pay $165 million in bonuses to its employees, saying he wrote a letter to Geithner two weeks ago warning him of just such a possibility. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), tagged by Republican aides for sponsoring an amendment to the stimulus bill that allowed the bonuses, shifted the blame to the Treasury Department and “the bill conferees,” saying he...

The following are a few highlights from the documents, which are linked in full below: * In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?…[T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case’…” The email also notes that Pelosi’s office had, “a history of canceling many of their past requests.” * One DOD official complained about the “hidden costs” associated with the speaker’s last minute changes and cancellations. “We have…folks...

The man who predicted the current financial crisis said the US recession could drag on for years without drastic action. Among his solutions: fix the housing market by breaking "every mortgage contract." "We are in the 15th month of a recession," said Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, told CNBC in a live interview. "Growth is going to be close to zero and unemployment rate well above 10 percent into next year." Echoing a speech he made earlier in the day, Roubini said he sees "no hope for the recession ending in 2009 and...

Just how low can stocks go? Despite Friday's small gain, the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked its fourth consecutive week of losses as it tumbled through the 7000-point mark and spiraled to new 12-year lows. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is trading below 700 for the first time since 1996. As earnings estimates are ratcheted down and hopes for a quick economic fix fade, the once-inconceivable notion of returning to Dow 5000 or S&P 500 at 500 looks a little less far-fetched. A decline to 500 on the S&P is 183.38 points and 27% away. The index already has...

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America. In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. “She’s made her point,” he said. “Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.” I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere. “Someone should tell Michelle...

Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency on a campaign that was all about hope. Six weeks of missteps and relentless market declines later, investors are wondering where the hope has gone. Despite a late-day rally that pushed U.S. indexes higher yesterday, the S&P 500 still lost 7 per cent this week, while the Dow Jones industrial average shed 6.2 per cent, making it the worst week yet in what has been a very bad 2009 for stocks. The U.S. market had fallen in eight of nine weeks in 2009, wiping out about one-quarter of the market's value since the year...