Some 4,000 supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya blocked the main road linking Tegucigalpa with San Pedro Sula and the north of Honduras for two hours July 10. Juan Barahona, leader of the Popular Bloc that organized the action, pledged to keep up the protests until Zelaya is returned to power. Campesino leader Rafael Alegría said "we will maintain these actions as long as the dialogue in San José continues." Pro-Zelaya protests were also held in San Pedro Sula, Choluteca and Puerto Cortés. A teachers' strike in protest of the coup has closed pubic schools and universities. Supporters of de facto President Roberto Micheletti in the Civil Democratic Union also announced rallies the be held over the weekend against the return of Zelaya. (AFP, July 10)

Both ousted President Manuel Zelaya and de facto President Roberto Micheletti, arriving in Costa Rica July 9 for talks on the Honduran impasse, denied that there is anything to discuss. "I am not here to negotiate," Zelaya said at a press conference upon his arrival in San José. "Not to advocate the return of a democratically elected president would be ridiculous." Saying that international opinion is behind him, he added: "We hope during the next 24 hours, tomorrow that is, we have a clear response by the golpistas who broke the democratic process in the country." (Inside Costa Rica, July 9)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced July 7 that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias will serve as international mediator in the Honduran crisis. Clinton made the announcement at the State Department after meeting privately with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. She said Zelaya as well as the Honduras' de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, agreed to recognize Arias as mediator. Clinton also said she had spoken to Arias that day, and noted that he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for helping broker an end to Central America's civil wars. "He is the natural person to assume this role," she told reporters.

Father José Andrés Tamayo, an activist Honduran priest who was the Central American recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for 2005, went into hiding shortly after the June 28 military coup that removed President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from power, according to phone calls he made on July 1 to New York's Spanish-language daily El Diario-La Prensa and the US-based Catholic News Service.

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, barred by the military from landing at the airport in Tegucigalpa on July 5, has been shuttling between Managua and San Salvador, and plans to fly to Washington July 7 to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In Nicaragua, he insisted to reporters: "I am going to return to Honduras, of this there can be no doubt. I'm not going to tell them how, because then they will be prepared, but they can wait for me in any municipality or any department" of Honduras. (AFP, July 7)

The Cuban newspaper Periodico 26 July 3 notes claims by the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) of the "undeniable involvement" of former US under-secretary of state Otto Reich and the DC-based Arcadia Foundation in the coup d'etat in the Central American country. The account says OFRANEH accuses Reich of "heading misinformation and sabotage operations, with close ties to international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and the Cuban-American mafia in Miami." The account also names an anti-Zelaya civil coalition, the Movimiento Paz y Democracia, which was apparently funded by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Ousted President Manuel Zelaya attempted to return to Honduras July 5, but was denied permission to land the jet in Tegucigalpa, where military vehicles were arrayed on the runway. Soldiers lined barricades surrounding the airport, and police fired warning shots and tear gas at several thousand protesters who had vowed to protect the ousted president with a human cordon. Organizers said several people were wounded in the clashes.

The Latin American business blog Inka Kola News is running a translation of an interview with the new Honduran chancellor (foreign minister) Enrique Ortez, recently appointed by de facto president Roberto Micheletti, in which he disses world and regional leaders who reject his coup-installed government in contemptuously condescending terms—and refers to Barack Obama as a "little black man who knows nothing."