Zelaya thinks he can force the issue

...by trying to go back to Honduras.

He couldn't get any of his ALBA buddies to get on the airplane with him, nor would the OAS leader. That pretty much rules out the "300 journalists" on the flight, too, although there are certainly seats available now.

He is said to have gotten Miguel D'Escoto, the former regional troublemaker now supposedly gainfully employed as the U.N. General Assembly president, to go with him.

The Honduran Government-in-place is not taking this lightly. Furthermore, given the raft of indictments against M. Zelaya, if he does reach the ground he should be arrested. If D'Escoto would like, he can waive whatever diplomatic immunity he has and be arrested too, but he'd have to ask nicely.

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UPDATE ~1700hrs ('blogtime):

Roughly four hours ago Spanish language media had the aircraft landed in El Salvador. That may well have been a refueling.

In the last hour, Honduras ATC warned off the flight, then Zelaya claimed the flight was circling the airport at Tegucigalpa but the runway was blocked. He shortly thereafter claimed the flight was redirecting "to El Salvador" which doesn't quite jibe with having been their just before... and now the announcement comes that he will be landing in Managua, Nicaragua.

I didn't know Kabuki was popular in Latin America... sheesh.

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If you have time to read one more source... Read Hunter Smith at Honduras Abandoned. His updates #4 and #5 for today are the best on-the-scene reporting out there right now. Shame on the major media outlets...

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Hunter Smith called it, and I got lucky on spotting the staged Reuters wirephoto as it came in. Both he and William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection have kindly tipped the hat to CompHyp for this. Thank you both, gents.

There is reasonable confirmation from multiple sources of 1 dead in the encounter at the airport perimeter fence (*not* the main body of the demonstration, the agitators that pressed on past the stop-line), there may well be 2 dead. What isn't in yet are the medic reports on cause of death. That's another one for us to look to those on-scene to get news out on.

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More on this as it comes in.

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