In a masterstroke of diplomacy, Micheletti has been reported by the New York Times as saying he supports Costa Rican President Oscar Arias’s second plan to defuse the Honduran crisis, but that he has been “unable to convince” the Honduran congress and supreme court to agree with it. The plan is unacceptable for Mel Zelaya and Hugo Chavez, because although it is very similar, it is much harder to subvert than the first version; It was no coincidence the two condemned it. Zelaya’s delegation didn’t even consider it, but immediately after having heard it, merely stated that they had already declared negotiations as failed days before.

This deftly brings to light a blunt fact the media refuses to acknowledge or report. I’ve said it on this blog, and repeat it once more: Zelaya doesn’t want to sign the Arias accord. A small but powerful clause was inserted by Arias in order to ease Micheletti’s credible fear that Zelaya would use the plan to get back into power, and then set up the constituent assembly anyway. The clause states Zelaya would have to relinquish his plan of a Constitutional Assembly, or the entire agreement would be declared void. If it were declared void, Zelaya’s amnesty would vanish in a puff of smoke, and he could be imprisoned.

Because of this, Micheletti knows Zelaya will never support the Arias accord, and that is only wearing an increasingly uncomfortable sheepskin to cover his ravenous appetite for power.

Image by Michael Agustin, used with a Creative Commons license

Al Jazeera’s Nicholas Muirhead emailed me Monday, to my great surprise. In the last few years, they have sought to establish themselves as a serious alternative news source, and clean up their image after being associated unfavorably with Al Qaeda.

Al Jazeera has a section on its website called The Listening Post in which they publish reports that are created from videos sent by users. Mr. Muirhead told me they are preparing a report on the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya’s government, and that someone recommended me to comment on it, because I had recently been to Honduras.

The questions he asked me to answer are below. Watch out for subtle red-flag words such as “kidnap”, and “coup” that could skew users’ answers.

1. Following Zelaya’s kidnap, what steps did the opposition take to control the media?
2. What has Zelaya’s relationship been with Honduran media? How much influence does he wield over the media?
3. How fair/accurate has international media coverage of the Honduras coup been?

Mr. Muirhead asked me to explain my point of view thoroughly, but apologized that my answers will probably be edited down to 30 seconds in order to fit the program’s format. Answering each question with two or three sentences took twenty seconds each!

To do myself justice, I uploaded the above four-minute video to YouTube. The topic is not the Honduran crisis as a whole, but only the media’s role in it.

I made a video yesterday that I meant to be my blog post of the day, but YouTube gets stuck when uploading it. After two attempts, I’m starting to lose hope. The video was a response to three questions Al-Jazeera Junior Reasearcher Nicholas Muirhead made me about Honduras