Angela Kegler McDowell thought she was doing everything right.

A 38-year-old small business owner, she had bought her own personal health insurance and kept paying her premiums, even as they rose from $293 a month to $804 a month.

The insurance company said it had to raise her premiums when her breast cancer came back and she was forced to undergo expensive chemotherapy.

“When the renewal came up in January, they told me I was a high risk to insure and they were dropping my insurance,” McDowell told Reuters in an interview. “Even if I had a million dollars a month to pay for insurance, I couldn’t get it.”  See her on video here in a related story, young adults.

McDowell has been lobbying her members of Congress to ask them to make sure the healthcare reform plan ensures that private insurance — sure to be part of any reform package –cannot drop patients if their coverage becomes too expensive.

Plans also need to be more affordable, says McDowell, who estimates she spent $42,000 out of pocket on her 20 percent co-pays and wiped out her family’s life savings even before her insurance company dumped her.

McDowell was struggling to hold her company together, battle cancer, and fight with her health insuance company– which she doesn’t want to name because she is still negotiating to be reinstated. “It was truly more than a medical battle. It was a financial battle,” she said.

Congress is considering ways to reform the U.S. healthcare system, which leaves 46 million people without health insurance at all but which also often fails people like McDowell, who did have health insurance and who was willing to pay even high premiums.

A national insurance plan for all, akin to the systems Britain, Canada and France have, is not even on the table — dismissed by conservatives as “socialized medicine”.

Studies have shown that these systems are cheaper per capita than the U.S. system, keep patients healthier by many measures and satisfy their customers.

But Congress is struggling to pay for reform with a budget already deep into deficit and an electorate unwilling to pay higher taxes. McDowell knows the precise language to use when lobbying. “We need an American solution,” she says.

Proponents of a market-based system say people would spend less if they knew, and had to pay, some of the costs.

McDowell has had to do this herself. She decides what follow-up care she needs to make sure her cancer has not returned based not on which test is best, but on how much it costs.

Positron emission tomography or PET scans are considered the best way to see if a tumor has reactivated. But McDowell has learned that a PET scan costs $7,000.

A CT scan - a computerized X-ray- costs $1,000 if you shop around. A mammogram costs $400 to $700. “It’s not as effective as a PET scan” at detecting cancer, McDowell said. “But I usually get the mammogram.”

She is unhappy with the choice.

“People shouldn’t have to choose between losing their house, losing their life savings, losing their business to save their life,” McDowell says.

Just imagine the outcry if Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain had suddenly gone off on their own separate two-week vacations to, say, Mexico, just two months before the November election? Irresponsible! Reckless! Shirkers! Those and as well as other unprintable terms might be among the comments hurled their way.

Yet as unfathomable as it may be for candidates in the United States or many other countries to take a long holiday break so close to an election, in Germany it is just as inconceivable for politicians to continue to campaign actively during the summer holiday season — even if the election is just around the corner. Begging for votes while their countrymen are relaxing on the beach is simply verboten for Germans.

That is why Chancellor Angela Merkel will be disappearing on holiday to a secretive location for the next 2-1/2 weeks while her challenger, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has already left the country, spending several weeks away from the campaign trail on holiday in the Italian Alps. Campaigning during the summer holiday would only be counter-productive, political strategists and analysts say, even if the outcome of the Sept. 27 election is wide open.

Germans do indeed take their holidays seriously — just think of the cliche about all those Germans rising before dawn in Mediterranean holiday resorts to reserve the deck chairs by the pool with their towels. Many Germans only laugh at you when you ask what happened to the “German work ethic”? There is even a federal law, the Bundesurlaubsgesetz, that governs every imagineable aspect of leave eligibility and duration. Most Germans get at least six weeks leave each year, which is one of the reasons they they sometimes call themselves Weltmeister (world champions) when it comes to travel — 64 percent take their holidays abroad each year.

Over the years I’ve watched some candidates, such as Helmut Kohl, try to beat the conventional wisdom of “Thou Shalt Not Campaign During Holidays in Germany”. In 1998 Kohl was far behind his challenger Gerhard Schroeder. Seemingly out of desperation, Kohl held some low-key campaign rallies on Baltic beaches. The sight of Kohl in a suit and tie giving a stump speech to holidaymakers sporting bikinis and speedos is something that I’ll never forget, and  interrupting peoples’ vacations didn’t help Kohl any – he lost the election two months later.

However, while Merkel and Steinmeier will be out of the country, they will certainly not be out of touch. Both will give a few relaxed-sounding interviews from their holiday cottages to selected German networks, as well as leading newspapers and magazines. Both will also make sure there are enough photo ops of relaxed-looking political leaders on holiday, although Merkel will be careful to avoid another photo op mishap like in 2006 when the British tabloid the Sun published paparazzi pictures of Merkel changing into her swimsuit in Italy.

PHOTO - Angela Merkel and her husband Joachim Sauer arrive for the Wagner opera festival in the northern Bavarian town of Bayreuth during her holiday in this July 25, 2005 file photo.

Drug violence in Mexico is intensifying even by traffickers’ barbaric standards.

In recent days, heavily armed hitmen launched coordinated attacks on federal police stations in western Mexico and dumped the semi-naked, bloodied bodies of 12 federal agents by a mountain highway, killed two U.S. Mormons in their Mexican community and killed a mayor in a northern ranching town.

A surge of 10,000 troops and federal police in Ciudad Juarez has failed to stop the killings there, which are in fact higher than last year when there were only a handful of soldiers on city streets.

President Felipe Calderon says the violence is a sign the drug gangs are weakening, but with 12,800 drug war deaths since he took office and reports of rights abuses by soldiers, calls are growing for a change of strategy.

Those making the calls include senators from Calderon’s own party, opposition politicians, security analysts, Mexico’s Human Rights Commission and international rights groups. But few if any are coming forward with proposals because the police forces that would replace the soldiers on Mexico’s streets are corrupted and a drive to clean them up could take years. For now, Calderon is sending 5,500 more troops and police to his home state of Michoacan to stop the flare-up there.

One thing Calderon could do to weaken traffickers is to go after their cash. That could have a domino effect on cartels’ power to buy guns and to corrupt officials. Headline-grabbing army operations may seem more impressive than the behind-the-scenes work of tracing money laundering, but U.S. anti-drug officials say it is key to Mexico’s success.

So far, Mexico has fallen short. An International Monetary Fund report published in January found Mexican authorities have only made 25 convictions for money laundering since in 1989 and Mexican law does not allow for the quick freezing of traffickers’ assets. In short, Mexican money laundering laws do not meet international standards and many cases are not properly investigated.

With $40 billion at the heart of the drug war every year, surely it shouldn’t be too hard to find some of the dirty money.

NASA officials admit that Hollywood really is behind the video images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepping onto the surface of the moon 40 years ago this month. Well, the new video, that is. The new, and improved, digitally-enhanced-so-that-you-can-actually-see-something video. The old video — well, they lost that. Erased it to save money. But it’s OK because the new images are way better.

Click here to see the videos.

There is also some cool audio:

1. As the crew members complete their first orbit of Earth after launch, they talk about the beauty of the planet below [Play]

2. The crew members debate the color of the moon before, and after, they fire Columbia\’s engines to enter lunar orbit [Play]

3. After entering lunar orbit, the crew members are amazed at the lunar terrain as they fly 60 miles above the back side of the moon and await Earthrise and to resume communications with Mission Control [Play]

   The natural gas supplies have not been secured and neither have the 8 billion euros to build the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline, but one thing the fanfare surrounding the project’s intergovernmental signing ceremony on Monday may point to is improved prospects for Turkey’s European Union membership.

    Turkish newspapers have called Monday’s ceremony ‘the signing of the century’ and have said that Turkey’s cooperation in the long-delayed project might be the way for Ankara to gain ground on its EU bid at a time when Turkey’s European journey has come to all but a standstill.

    A much publicised, albeit slightly awkward, high five between Turkish Prime Minister and European Commission President Manuel Barroso during the ceremony was all over Turkish newspapers and seemed like icing on the cake after Barroso said agreement over the terms of the 31 billion cubic metre pipeline would lead to a “new age in relations between Turkey and the European Union.”

    The pipeline, which was planned to cut Europe’s reliance on Russian gas after a 2006 row between Ukraine and Moscow that left much of Europe in the cold, has been marred by political infighting.

    Most famously Turkey has demanded rights to 15 percent of the pipeline’s gas at a cheaper price in order to meet domestic needs or sell on to other countries.

    Turkey’s decision to give up that demand, however, should create some pressure on Ankara’s detractors to bring about the opening of at least the energy chapter of the negotiation process, said Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

     “I think the Turkish government did the right thing because it demonstrates that we can agree on this, and it puts pressure on the (European) Council to open the energy chapter. The Commission can put pressure on the council because Turkey’s energy sector has evolved.”

    Analysts say a move such as the opening of the much-prized energy chapter would be a step toward helping Brussels and Ankara overcome other differences on reforms such as freedom of speech and the opening of Turkish ports to Cypriot vessels.

    Turkey, which has hoped its strategic value as a partner for Europe’s energy security would outshine more endemic problems in its reform process, was enfuriated by traditional enemy Cyprus blocking the energy chapter earlier this year.

    Turkey began accession negotiations in 2005 but talks have been moving at a snail’s pace in a climate of domestic political problems in Turkey and a reluctance among major EU states such
as France and Germany towards further enlargement of the bloc.

    Diplomats have said Cyprus has refused the opening of the energy chapter due to Turkish-led gas exploration in a part of the Mediterranean Cyprus claims as its own.

    Cyprus has been divided between its ethnic Greek and Turkish communities since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup aimed at union with Greece.

    Turkey’s chief European Union negotiator Egemen Bagis however said that now that Turkey had withdrawn its demands from the pipeline consortium it was Europe’s turn to make a move.

    “Still keeping the Energy Chapter closed makes one think,” he told a group of mostly Turkish journalists.

    Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan angered Brussels earlier in the year when he made comments, later taken back, that Turkey would review its support for the Nabucco project if the energy chapter were not opened.

    Turkey has opened 11 of the 35 chapters or areas of policy it must harmonise on to join the bloc since it started negotiations in 2005.

        Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s accusation of genocide in describing the rioting which killed 184 people in China’s northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang should come as no surprise to those familiar with his outspoken, populist style.

    The incident recalls the furore that followed Erdogan’s haranguing of Israel’s president over Israel’s Gaza offensive at the Davos forum in January when he told Shimon Peres: “When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill”.

    That outburst attracted strong approval among Turks and in the Arab world, but was also seen as potentially damaging for predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey’s role as a Middle East mediator.

    His latest comments have drawn an indignant response in China, and Turkish commentators are now voicing concerns that his undiplomatic approach could harm the relations which Turkey
is trying to develop with the world’s third-biggest economy.

    The timing was unfortunate. President Abdullah Gul last month became the first Turkish president to visit China in 15 years, signing $1.5 billion worth of trade deals, according to Turkish media. He also visited Xinjiang during his trip.

    Veteran Turkish political commentator Sami Kohen said it was natural for the Turkish people to show their sensitivity and anger over developments concerning their Uighur ethnic kin.

    “But state policy must be more cautious and moderate. Speeches and reactions since the start of the Xinjiang crisis have created serious doubts on whether a harmonious and consistent policy has been set out,” Kohen said in Milliyet newspaper.

    “It was seen with different incidents in the past that over-the-top expressions have put Turkish diplomacy in a difficult position and did not have any practical results,” he said.

    The genocide label is particularly sensitive in Turkey, which strongly refutes Armenian claims that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One constituted genocide.

    The English-language China Daily has urged Erdogan to take back his remarks, describing them as interference in China’s internal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the accusation did not make sense.

    On July 5, Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China.

    Han Chinese launched revenge attacks two days later in what was Xinjiang’s worst ethnic violence in decades. The death toll included 46 Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told his Turkish counterpart by telephone on Sunday the Urumqi riots were a grave crime orchestrated by the “three evil forces”, Xinhua news agency said, referring to extremism, separatism and terrorism.

    Commentator Cengiz Candar said the situation called for cool heads, given China’s permanent membership of the United Nation’s Security Council, which gives it veto powers in issues concerning Turkey such as the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, neighbouring Iraq and Iran.

    “Now is the time to overcome the ‘tension’ which has emerged between Turkey and China with a diplomacy which is cool, quiet and patient,” Candar said in the liberal daily Radikal.

    That diplomacy could face a fresh test in the near future after Erdogan said last week Turkey would grant a visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who is based in the United States.

     China has blamed the ethnic unrest on exiled Uighur separatists, especially Kadeer, who denies the charge.

By Niluksi Koswanage

Gay Austrian fashionista Bruno will not be making an appearance on Malaysia’s screens this summer for fear of corrupting this mostly-Muslim nation’s youth.

But Malaysia’s parents will still not have it easy as the country’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim  is again on trial for sodomy in a re-run of a 14-month case that in 1998 generated endless sexually explicit headlines and questions from curious children.

Photo: Anwar enters Kuala Lumpur courtoom with wife Wan Aziza Wasn Ismail for his sodomy trial on July 15/ Reuters (Zainal Abd Halim)

I was a teenager then when the former deputy prime minister was first found guilty of
sodomy and corruption in a marathon trial that featured graphic descriptions of anal
penetration, faithfully reported in lurid detail by this country’s government-owned press and on prime-time TV.

(Photo: Anwar arrives in court on July 15, Reuters/

On my way to school, I saw angry protesters take to the streets and heard parents and teachers raging about children getting exposed to gay and straight sex (Anwar was accused of having an affair with a woman as well), accompanied by the kind of graphic descriptions usually reserved for specialist magazines.
 
A columnist in the normally staid government-run New Straits Times suggested at the time that all Malaysians should study a book to be entitled “An intelligent parent’s guide to sodomy and other painful issues,” based on the explicit testimony of Anwar’s former driver who said he had been assaulted by Anwar and his adopted brother. Needless to say, he lost his column.
   
These were pre-YouTube days where sexual images were only available on illicit video recordings  and imported magazines. At the time, it was impossible to ignore the headlines as pro-government newspapers sought to tarnish Anwar’s image.

One of the many ironies of the case was that Anwar, a pious Muslim, had been an education minister who had fervently opposed sex education in schools on moral grounds.  And blushing teachers often skipped or skimmed over the reproductive system in classes.

But with the trial, a generation of school kids were confronted with a court parade of x-rated items from a semen-stained mattress, medical reports on anal tearing to pubic hair samples.

Malay-language newspapers had to invent new words to decribe sex acts and body parts as Arabic loan words were inadequate to explain everything. Slang Bahasa Malaysia words like “pondan”, a derogatory word for homosexual entered the formal lexicon via the courts and media.

The uncovering of Anwar’s alleged sexual crimes in court and in the media was seen by many as a demonisation of a popular Malay politician in a leadership struggle during the Asian financial crisis that rocked Malaysia.

Despite the press palaver, there was no real crackdown on homosexuals during the trial, apart from the Muslim morality police occasionally raiding private gay parties in hotels. They still do that but you can more likely be arrested by the religious police for being in “khalwat” or “close proximity” to a person of the opposite sex.  

What 1998 did bring was protest. For the first time in a country that has now been ruled by the same political party for 51 years, many university students and young professionals took part in daily demonstrations numbering in the tens of thousands.

It also gave birth to Malaysia’s political alternative media that have grown into the main source of news in a country where the printed press is heavily controlled. Websites like Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) got their first breath of life. A widely read Reformasi (reform) diary (a precursor to the blog), which detailed the movement started by Anwar, made its rounds in cyberspace and Malaysian gay websites saw their best business in years with chatrooms like GayMalaysia and SayangAbang (darling brother) filled with inquisitive onlookers. 
  
If there were long lines to get into the courthouse to witness the downfall of one of the country’s best-known political figures, there were also long queues of straight patrons trying to get a feel of the drum and bass-thumping gay clubs like Liquid Room and the Blue Boy in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

The clubs, like Anwar, are still around today.
   
One young gay reporter even told Time Magazine his sex life had sizzled in 1998 as many people wanted to experiment, inspired by the trial.
   
Will the trial shock as much this time round or are Malaysians just too exposed to sex through MTV, YouTube and MySpace and numerous blogs?

More than 10 years on and two prime ministers later, Malaysia’s conservatism appears to have grown deeper. Its rising political force is an Islamist party, one of Anwar’s staunchest allies.

Will the new trial and publicity damage Anwar or the government? Finally released from imprisonment in 2004 and after a bar on holding office ended, the 61-year old was catapulted back into parliament in 2008 by-election with a huge majority, so it seems not.

Photo:A compilation by Reuters of pool photographs and images provided by North Korea’s KCNA news agency showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from 2004 to 2009. The photograph in the lower right was released this week by KCNA

By Jon Herskovitz

The image the world once had of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, with a trademark paunch, platform shoes and a bouffant hair-do, is gone and may never come back. He has now become a gaunt figure with thinning hair who has trouble walking in normal shoes, let alone ones with heels 8-10 centimetres (3-4 inches) high like he used to wear.

A look at photographs the North’s official media has released of Kim over the past few months indicate he is not a healthy man. There has been an enormous amount of speculation about what is wrong with Kim, 67, including a report from South Korean TV network YTN this week that he has life-threatening pancreatic cancer.

Kim’s health is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the highly secretive North and his actual condition is likely known by a handful of people in his inner circle who risk death or prison camp for themselves and their families if they ever whisper a word about Kim’s problems.

It is a state crime in North Korea to make any comment that questions Kim’s god-like status in the communist dynasty he has ruled since 1994 when his father and state founder Kim Il-sung died.

The most likely way that the outside world will ever receive any reliable information about Kim’s health is if his hermit state invites in foreign doctors to treat him. This appears to have happened about a year ago when he was widely suspected of suffering a stroke. U.S. and South Korean intelligence sources were then able to leak to the media information about what was ailing Kim.

Intelligence sources Reuters spoke to in Seoul would not confirm the latest reports of pancreatic cancer. They did agree on one thing, Kim is still sick.

Kim’s declining health has led to questions in the outside world if the man known at home as the “Dear Leader” still has his iron grip on power over the state he and his father have run since its inception more than 60 years ago.

Within North Korea, images of a weary Kim can actually help him win support among the public.

The North’s state propaganda has built an image of Kim as a person who works tirelessly to better his struggling state. The North’s propaganda says Kim gets little sleep as he travels the country by day and forms its policies at night.

Kim rarely is seen in state media presiding over major state functions or greeting foreign dignitaries. That is mostly left to Kim Yong-nam, the North’s nominal number two leader and its head of state.

If Kim Jong-il looks weak and sickly, it arouses sympathy and support among the North Korean public who feel he has put his own well being at risk working for them.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will likely be more speculation as to what is physically wrong with Kim. Some of the reports will be more reliable than others. But the actual state of Kim’s health will not likely be known until a time the foreign doctors visit again or those nearest Kim feel safe to reveal the secret.

Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya got his strongest endorsement yet from President Barack Obama on Tuesday as the exiled leftist leader returned to Washington to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
 
The United States has joined Latin America in unanimously condemning the military coup in the banana-producing country that ran Zelaya out of town in his pajamas ten days ago.
 
But Washington has been reluctant to slap sanctions on Honduras and cut off U.S. aid. Instead it is cautiously looking for a negotiated and peaceful resolution to a crisis that looks like a win-win situation for the United States' main adversary in the hemisphere, Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chavez.
 
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who turned left in office and signed on to Chavez's growing anti-U.S. coalition, is hardly the best poster boy for democracy. His moves to follow Chavez's example and extend presidential term limits in Honduras sparked the political crisis in which the Honduran Supreme Court, with the backing of Congress, ordered the army to oust the president.
 
After years of U.S. neglect of Latin America during the Bush administration, Obama is trying to improve relations with the region and cannot afford to be on the wrong side of a crisis that many Latin Americans see as a flashback to a dark era of military dictatorships supported by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Pentagon suspended military cooperation with Honduras last week, even though it maintains a U.S. base in the Central American country that served as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the 1980s when the United States was supplying the Contra war against Nicaragua's Sandinistas.
 
Experts on Latin America warn that the close relationship with the Honduran military could lead the United States to do what it had done for decades during the Cold War: side with the elites.
 
"The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reformist president supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.
 
Dan Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue, believes Chavez is well-positioned to benefit from any outcome.
 
"If Zelaya is restored, then another Chavez ally remains in power. If the coup is not reversed, then Chavez has a new issue with which to rally anti-American sentiments in the region. The bottom line is that Chavez is engaged in trying to exploit the Honduran coup to maximum advantage," Erikson said.
    
The hemisphere has still not figured out how to contain a new breed of power-grabbing populist leaders like Chavez who have risen through the ballot box, Erikson said.
 
But whatever their authoritarian tendencies might be, there is broad consensus today --unlike in decades past-- that military coups against democratically elected governments are totally unacceptable.

Reuters photos by Luis Galdamez (Zelaya at San Salvador airport on July 5); Daniel LeClair (soldiers stop a woman), and Henry Romero ( Zelaya supporter protesting after soldiers fire tear gas at Tegucigalpa airport, where troops blocked the runway on July 5 to prevent the ousted president from landing).

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was seized by the military, bundled onto a plane in his pajamas and flown out of the country. The people who took over the country last Sunday say it was not a coup.

The interim government, led by Congress speaker Roberto Micheletti, argue that Zelaya’s ouster was legal as it was ordered by the Supreme Court after the president had tried to extend his four-year term in office illegally. 
 
They say he was acting unconstitutionally and had to be removed. 
 
The rest of the world seems to disagree. From U.S. President Barack Obama to arch-U.S. rival Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, world leaders have condemned Zelaya’s removal and used the term “coup.”
 
In the days before the coup, opposition leaders said they planned to impeach Zelaya over his plan to hold an unofficial public survey to gauge support for letting presidents run for re-election beyond the current one four-year term. They said a congressional committee set up to investigate Zelaya found he had violated the Central American nation’s laws and would ask Congress to declare him unfit to rule. 
 
Does one unconstitutional act justify another? In a democracy, is it ever justified for soldiers to seize a president and spirit him out of the country? Does the fact that Congress quickly elected a successor, who will serve only until presidential elections in November, make any difference?

 
Defining the nature of the “coup” has been troubling lawyers at the U.S. State Department.
 
By law, no U.S. aid — other than for the promotion of democracy — may be given to a nation “whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.” 
 
Two U.S. officials said the legal determination of this was complex despite the fact that Zelaya was grabbed by the military and put on a plane to Costa Rica in his pajamas. 
 
“The military moved against the president. They removed him from his home and they expelled him from the country. So the military participated in a coup,” said a senior U.S. official. 
     
“However, the transfer of leadership was not a military action. The transfer of leadership was done by the Honduran Congress and therefore the coup, while it had a military component … is a larger event,” he added. 
 
Zelaya was unpopular with many in Honduras, particularly the country’s wealthier conservative elite, for his alliance with Chavez. His popularity was down to 30 percent. 
 
Many Hondurans struggle to understand why foreign leaders, from Obama to most of Latin America’s presidents, have backed Zelaya. 
 
“They have only listened to (Zelaya) abroad, they haven’t listened to the population. But that doesn’t matter. We will continue alone,” said Adela Guevara, a hotel worker.  
 
Tell us what you think. When is a coup not a coup?

(Pictures in Honduras by REUTERS/Edgard Garrido. Pictures show: Soldiers crawling through a hole in the fence to enter the presidential residency; members of Congress praying before Roberto Micheletti is sworn in as interim president; Zelaya (L) being welcomed by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez (R) and Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega (C) after his arrival in Nicaragua June 29, 2009. )