By Arshad Mohammed and David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.
"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.
The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.
The European Union and a string of foreign governments have voiced support for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica in his pajamas.
Obama said he would work with the Organization of American States and other international institutions to restore Zelaya to power and "see if we can resolve this in a peaceful way."
"TERRIBLE PRECEDENT"
"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," Obama said, noting the region's progress in establishing democratic traditions in the past 20 years.
Despite Obama's comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was not formally designating the ouster as a military coup for now, a step that would force a cut-off of most U.S. aid to Honduras.
Under U.S. law, no aid -- other than for the promotion of democracy -- may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup.
"We do think that this has evolved into a coup," Clinton told reporters, adding the administration was withholding that determination for now.
Asked if the United States was currently considering cutting off aid, Clinton shook her head no.
The State Department said it was unable to immediately say how much assistance the United States gives Honduras.
The State Department has requested $68.2 million in aid for fiscal year 2010, which begins on October 1, up from $43.2 million. This covers funds for development, Honduran purchases of U.S. arms, military training, counter-narcotics and health care but does not include Defense Department aid, a U.S. official said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he did not believe Obama had spoken to Zelaya since the ouster.
He said the administration had worked in recent days to try to prevent the coup from happening, and "our goal now is on restoring democratic order in Honduras."
OBAMA CRITICISM
Analysts said quick criticism of the coup by Obama and Clinton on Sunday pleased Latin American countries bitter about the long history of U.S. intervention in the region.
The Obama administration's stance contrasted with the equivocal position taken in 2002 by former President George W. Bush's administration, which was seen as tacitly accepting a coup against Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.
A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition he not be named said that by holding off on a legal determination that a coup has taken place, Washington was trying to provide space for a negotiated settlement.
"If we were able to get to a ... status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome," Clinton said.
(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Xavier Briand)
Obama scoffs at Ahmadinejad's demand for apology
By JENNIFER LOVEN – 3 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's criticism of Iran escalated Friday into an unusually personal war of words. To Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's demand he apologize for meddling, Obama shot back that the regime should "think carefully" about answers owed to protesters it has arrested, bludgeoned and killed.
"The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous," Obama said. "We see it and we condemn it."
The president spoke at an East Room news conference capping his third set of meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of several European leaders who spoke out more forcefully, more quickly than Obama on the unrest in Iran that followed the disputed June 12 elections.
"We will not forget," Merkel said.
Turning to Iraq, where a deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave all cities was just four days away, Obama offered no support for allowing a spate of recent violence to push back the withdrawal. "If you look at the overall trend, despite some of these high-profile bombings, Iraq's security situation has continued to dramatically improve," Obama said.
Of bigger concern than the violence, Obama said, is the lack of movement on laws to share oil revenues and other matters that keep Iraq deeply fractured along sectarian lines. He called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step up his leadership.
Merkel's visit happened to coincide with the day that a sweeping global warming bill came up for a vote in the House amid contentious partisan sniping about its effect on jobs and consumer costs. With the vote still hours away and the outcome in doubt, Obama and Merkel, who has made climate change a top priority, presented the rare sight of an American president and a visiting foreign leader together urging the U.S. Congress to act.
Obama said he had been "very blunt and frank" with Merkel that it will take significant time to turn the U.S. into a world leader on climate change but that the "critical" bill before the House was a good start.
Merkel sympathized with the difficulty of approving such legislation, which would impose the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas pollution and force a shift to cleaner energy sources. "I know what's at stake, when you talk about reduction targets, how tricky that is," Merkel said.
In Iran, the government proclaimed the incumbent hardline president, Ahmadinejad, the landslide winner of the June 12 voting over opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, prompting widespread protests followed by a brutal state-led crackdown.
Ahmadinejad told Obama Thursday to "show your repentance" for criticizing Tehran's response.
"I don't take Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements seriously about apologies, particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran," Obama responded sternly.
"I would suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad think carefully about the obligations he owes to his own people," he added. "And he might want to consider looking at the families of those who've been beaten or shot or detained. And, you know, that's where I think Mr. Ahmadinejad and others need to answer their questions."
It was Obama's first direct criticism of any of Iran's leaders. Even more, it was coupled with his first specific boost for Mousavi. "Mousavi has shown to have captured the imagination or the spirit of forces within Iran that were interested in opening up," Obama said.
The remark sought to clarify what many view as Obama's biggest misstep — saying last week in a television interview that there may not be much difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But it appeared to swing over to an outright endorsement of Mousavi, though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied it was meant that way.
Obama also said for the first time that his offer to loosen the decades-old U.S. diplomatic freeze with Iran through direct talks is now in question.
"There is no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks," Obama said, without elaborating.
Gibbs said Obama was "more stating the obvious" that no talks are possible while developments are still unfolding. And Obama said that an existing system of multilateral talks with Iran over its suspected goal of building a nuclear bomb, involving nations including the U.S., Europe, China and Russia, must continue.
"The clock is ticking. Iran is developing a nuclear capacity at a fairly rapid clip," he said.
Merkel agreed there must be no letup among nations trying to stop Iran's nuclear development, which Tehran insists is aimed at providing only electric power, not weapons. She said "we have to bring Russia and China alongside," referring to the two nations most historically unwilling to get tough with Iran over the nuclear standoff.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200906290843dowjonesdjonline000272&title=eu-regrets-honduras-coupcalls-for-respect-for-democracy
But Europe says no such thing
EU Regrets Honduras Coup, Calls For Respect For Democracy
BRUSSELS (AFP)--The European Commission on Monday urged that "the democratically elected institutions" be respected in coup-hit Honduras, and called an urgent meeting with Central American ambassadors to consider the future of trade talks.
"I regret the recent events which have taken place in Honduras," E.U. External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after the Honduran army ousted elected President Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile.
"The European Commission attaches the greatest importance to the respect for the rule of law, democracy and the democratically elected institutions," she stressed.
"Therefore, we urge all parties involved to resolve their differences peacefully, in full respect of the country's legal framework, and to promptly engage in a dialogue," Ferrero-Waldner added.
The E.U. commissioner offered "support" in such a dialogue and stressed Europe's "long history of close relations with Honduras and the Central American region as a whole."
However, a spokeswoman for Ferrero-Waldner said the E.U. Commission had arranged a meeting for later Monday with Central American ambassadors to consider the impact of the events in Honduras on efforts to secure an Association Agreement, including a free-trade deal between the regions.
Honduras is part of those E.U. negotiations along with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Ferrero-Waldner will meet the Honduran ambassador separately in Brussels on Tuesday, her spokeswoman said.
"Then we will decide the way forward" for the regional talks, she added.
"The commission attaches great importance to the finalisation of the negotiations with the Central American region and we still hope that we can do this by the end of the year," as scheduled, the spokeswoman continued.
"The ambassadors will have to tell us whether it is still possible," to wrap the talks up this year.
A meeting on the subject between the E.U. executive and the Central American nations concerned had already been set for next month.
Honduras interim leader Roberto Micheletti imposed a nationwide 48-hour curfew after the national congress voted him in as the country's new leader just hours after Zelaya fled to Costa Rica and later Nicaragua.
But UN of course sides with Obama
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup
UN backs ousted Honduran leader
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The U.N. General Assembly demanded the immediate restoration of Honduras' ousted president on Tuesday, but the man who replaced him said Manuel Zelaya could be arrested if he returns home.
The U.N. vote by acclamation added to an avalanche of international denunciations of the coup that removed Zelaya on Sunday, an action that raised fears of more of the military overthrows that have scarred Latin American history.
The world body called on all 192 U.N. member states to avoid recognizing any government in Honduras other than Zelaya's.
Zelaya then thanked the assembly for the "historic" resolution that expresses "the indignation" of people worldwide.
The Organization of American States planned an emergency meeting in Washington hours later to reinforce the pressure to reinstate Zelaya, whose foes claim he was plotting with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to change the Honduran constitution in hopes of extending his rule.
The United States, which had privately expressed concerns to Zelaya about changing the constitution, has stood behind him since masked soldiers sent him, still wearing pajamas, into exile.
President Barack Obama said Zelaya remains "the democratically elected president."
"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," Obama said Monday.
Zelaya also got support from Latin American leaders in Nicaragua on Monday, and said OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza had agreed to accompany him back to Honduras on Thursday.
But the man Honduras' Congress named as interim president, Roberto Micheletti, said Zelaya risks arrest if he returns because "the courts of my country have issued arrest orders."
Micheletti, speaking to Colombia's Caracol Radio on Tuesday, insisted it was Zelaya who had violated the constitution and that his court-ordered removal was legal.
"We have not committed a coup d'etat, but a constitutional succession," he said.
His foreign minister, Enrique Ortez Colindres, told CNN's Spanish language service that Zelaya faces allegations of "violation of the constitution, drug trafficking, of protecting organized crime, diverting multimillions in resources."
"Just entering (the country) he is going to be arrested; we already have the arrest warrants ready," Ortez said, adding that Micheletti "is going to obey what the judges say, but it is most likely he (Zelaya) will wind up in jail."
Ortez alleged that "every night three four Venezuelan-registered planes land ... bringing thousands, but thousands of pounds ... of packages of money that are the fruits of drug trafficking."
He said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had evidence of those shipments, though DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said he cannot confirm or deny the DEA is investigating Zelaya.
About 5,000 anti-Zelaya demonstrators gathered at a main plaza in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday to celebrate his ouster.
"Freedom has won, peace has triumphed, Honduras has won," newly appointed deputy foreign minister Marta Lorena Casco told the crowd. She said Zelaya had planned to make the country a socialist pawn. "Chavez consumed Venezuela, then Bolivia, after that Ecuador and Nicaragua, but in Honduras that didn't happen," she said.
Soldiers and police set up a chain link fence before dawn to seal off the area in front of the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, preventing a repeat of Monday's clashes in which security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse pro-Zelaya protesters who were throwing rocks and bottles.
Some local television stations remained off the air and local media carried few reports of any demonstrations in Zelaya's favor.
At least 38 pro-Zelaya protesters were detained, said Sandra Ponce, a government human rights official.
Congresswoman Silvia Ayala said she counted 30 injured at a single Tegucigalpa hospital and an Associated Press photographer in another area close to the palace saw protesters carrying away five injured people.
"In the name of God, in the name of the people, stop repressing the people," Zelaya said in Nicaragua, urging soldiers to return to their barracks.
Zelaya said more than 150 people were injured and 50 were arrested but added that he didn't "have exact figures, because I'm not there."
Mexico and Colombia's conservative governments joined the region's leftist leaders in condemning Zelaya's removal and blocked trucks began lining up on both sides of the border with Honduras as neighboring countries imposed a trade ban.
"They're not letting in loaded or empty trucks," said Salvadoran trucker Carlos Alas, who had been stuck in the border town of El Poy since Sunday trying to ferry Honduran fabric to a Salvadoran factory.
Chavez urged a rebellion by the Honduran people, and vowed to halt shipments of subsidized oil, though Honduras gets most of its oil from other sources.
"I'll do everything possible to overthrow this gorilla government of Honduras. It must be overthrown," the socialist leader said Monday. "The rebellion in Honduras must be supported."
The OAS was considering suspending Honduras under an agreement meant to prevent the coups that for generations spawned military dictatorships in Latin America.
Micheletti vowed to ignore foreign pressure and began naming Cabinet members, including a new minister of defense. But he also told Caracol Radio that he would leave office after serving out the final seven months of Zelaya's term.
The U.S. military, which has close ties with the Honduran military leaders, tried to avoid getting caught up in the dispute.
The more than 800 U.S. military personnel at the Honduran Soto Cano air base were restricted to base except for "mission-essential" tasks such as flying helicopters to the hospital ship Comfort, which is on a humanitarian mission in Nicaragua, said Jose Ruiz, a spokesman for the U.S. military's Southern Command, based in Miami.
The base, 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, is used for counternarcotics, disaster relief and medical and civil engineering missions.
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher, alienated the courts, Congress, the military and even his own party in his tumultuous three years in power but maintains the support of many of Honduras' poor.
Sunday's ouster was the first military power grab in Latin America since a brief, failed 2002 coup against Chavez.
Coups were common in Central America until the 1980s, but Honduras had not seen a coup since 1978, when one military government overthrew another.
___
Associated Press writers Marcos Aleman in Tegucigalpa, Kathia Martinez and Filadelfo Aleman in Managua, Nicaragua, Frank Bajak in Bogota, Ian James in Caracas, Venezuela, and Ben Feller in Washington contributed to this report.
![[THE AMERICAS]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ748_amcol0_D_20090628115958.jpg)
Associated Press 
Relatively few Americans believe the country as a whole is spending the right amount on health care at this point, but there is no consensus on what the problem is. Just as many Americans say we are spending too much on health care (38%) as too little (40%).
While a minority viewpoint, Republicans are roughly twice as likely as Democrats (19% vs. 10%) to say the country is spending the right amount on health care. This viewpoint is particularly prevalent among conservative Republicans, 23% of whom express satisfaction about current levels of health care spending.
Most Americans believe that the nation’s health care system is in need of substantial changes. Four-in-ten (41%) say the health care system needs to be completely rebuilt, while 30% think it needs fundamental changes. About one-in-four (24%) believe that the health care system works pretty well and needs only minor changes.
system needed to be completely rebuilt.
Most Americans favor ensuring health coverage to all Americans, and most also say it is very important to limit the overall annual increase in health care costs. Neither of these objectives, however, receives as overwhelming support as they did in early 1993. When Americans are asked to prioritize between these two goals, most continue to say that expanding health insurance to all is the more important goal. But the share who rate costs as the more important concern is nearly double what it was in 1993.
In the current survey, far fewer say health care expenses are a major problem for themselves and their families than was the case in 1993. Just under half of Americans (48%) say that paying for the cost of a major illness is a major problem, substantially lower than the 63% who said this in early 1993. Similarly, about a third of Americans (34%) say paying for the cost of routine medical care is a major problem for them. In 1993, 40% said this was the case.
But for the most part, it is those who are relatively well off who are feeling more at ease. Just 27% of high income Americans say the cost of a major illness is a major problem for them today, down from 48% in 1993. By comparison, 67% of low income Americans say this is a major problem, little changed from 73% sixteen years ago.
Nationwide, 43% of Americans say paying for the cost of health insurance poses a major problem for them and their family. Fully 59% of Americans with family incomes under $30,000 say health insurance is a major problem for them. Not surprisingly among the low income who currently have no health insurance 73% rate insurance costs as a major problem.
![[Rising Doubts]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AQ346C_POLLf_NS_20090617192417.gif)