News Tidbits

Honduran President Ousted By Military: Honduran military forces have ousted President Manuel Zelaya and exiled him to Costa Rica hours before a controversial constitutional referendum vote was set to begin . Honduran lawmakers named their leader, Roberto Micheletti, to replace President Zelaya. The expulsion came on the day President Zelaya had chosen for a referendum on whether to change the constitution to allow him to run for a second term in office. The president pressed ahead with the vote in defiance of Honduras' Supreme Court, which had declared the measure illegal. President Zelaya is a political ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Honduras is to hold presidential elections in November. The country's 1982 constitution bans President Zelaya's re-election.

Booker Rising response: Sounds to me like the military ain't the only one who is gangsta here.

Kenya: Controversy Over Inclusion Of Tribal Identity In Census: A spirited attempt to block a census question that would make it possible for Kenyans to know the number of people in each of the country's 42 tribes has been rejected even as it emerged that the government was planning to deploy monitors to help prevent rigging of the August national census. Donors wanted the question dropped from the official census questionnaire on grounds that it will frustrate efforts towards national healing after last year's bloody post-election violence. Ministry of Planning officials have decided to press on with the questionnaire bearing the tribe question, arguing that fears that it was too emotive were overblown.

Booker Rising response: Now, see, this is what our girl Dambisa Moyo has been decrying. Why the hell do Western donors have any say over how Kenya conducts its own census?