Tegucigalpa, Honduras – The month-old mediation effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve Honduras’s political crisis is foundering under the near-universal opposition of Honduras’s top leaders to permitting deposed President Manuel Zelaya to return to power.
Political, business, church, and media leaders say they can’t trust Mr. Zelaya to keep the commitments that would limit his authority under the Arias plan because, they say, Zelaya repeatedly violated the Constitution in the days that led up to his June 28 ouster over a proposed public vote that they think was …

The Honduran interim government defied international pressure on Wednesday and vowed there was “no chance at all” of ousted President Manuel Zelaya returning to office.
World leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have told the new rulers of the Central American country to restore Zelaya, a leftist who was toppled by the army on Sunday and sent into exile after a dispute over presidential term limits.

South Korean ex-President Roh Moo-hyun, who apparently jumped to his death on Saturday, rose to office as champion of a generation that hit the streets to fight for democracy, but left it largely written off as a failed leader.
A self-taught lawyer whose formal education ended at high school, Roh’s most celebrated moment came when he went to Pyongyang in 2007 for a summit with Kim Jong-il in what was only the second meeting of leaders of the divided peninsula.
The left-leaning Roh, 62, won the 2002 presidential election by riding a …

Roh Moo-hyun was the 16th President of South Korea.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai registered to run for re-election on Monday, but was criticised for naming a former guerrilla chief accused of rights abuses as his senior running mate.
As the Aug. 20 election draws closer, Karzai appears to be approaching an all but unassailable position, with the opposition struggling to name a contender with a broad enough support base to win.
“I have taken this decision for the welfare and interest of the people of Afghanistan,” Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since 2001, said of his decision to seek a second …

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (born September 9, 1949), is an Indonesian retired military general and the sixth and current President of Indonesia.

The EU’s foreign policy chief has hailed a decision by the Afghan electoral commission upholding August 20 for the country’s second presidential vote.
“The European Union attaches the utmost importance to the holding of free and inclusive elections in Afghanistan,” Javier Solana said in a statement Wednesday.
“The elections are essential to guarantee the participation of the people of Afghanistan in the democratic process of state-building.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans streamed through the streets of Caracas on Saturday to protest leftist President Hugo Chavez’s second attempt to change the constitution to let him govern as long as he wins elections.
Opinion polls give a slight lead to Chavez ahead of a February 15 vote on whether to allow the president and other politicians to run for reelection as many times as they like in South America’s top oil exporter.
In 2007, voters rejected a similar proposal.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s allies swept to victory over Shiite religious parties during last weekend’s provincial elections in Iraq — a rousing endorsement of his crackdown on extremists, according to official results released Thursday.
The impressive showing, which must be certified by international and Iraqi observers, places al-Maliki in a strong position before parliamentary elections late this year and could bolster U.S. confidence that it can begin withdrawing more of its 140,000 troops.

An indirect presidential election was held in Somalia on 30 January 2009. Due to the security situation in Baidoa, it was held in Djibouti.
The election was necessitated following the resignation of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed on 29 December 2008. He resigned over the dismissal of the government of Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein which was not approved by the Transitional Federal Parliament.