I was going to wait until the end of the day, but frankly, I think everyone's waiting for the talks to start tomorrow and there won't be anything else to report today. Litho brings us up to date in his diary from this morning.
The only real news thus far comes from a BBC interview (thanks, Litho, also, for the find) in which Arias expresses his optimism that an agreement can come about by the end of the week, possibly by Sunday.
Reports that both the Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos and Pepe Lobo are both on board with moving up the election date which will definitely help negotiations go forward, if that becomes one of the negotiation items.
Let's hope that Arias is correct and that something does get done, hopefully whereby Zelaya can return, even if for a truncated time period. The other scenario gets messy quick, especially with the US cutting off all but humanitarian aid.
If any updates do come, I'll put them up after the fold.
Update 3:14 - Not sure how big a deal this is, but the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Tribunal), is rejecting the possibility of moving up the election date. From what I know, the inauguration is fixed constitutionally, but election date is not. Let me know if I've got this wrong.
In other news, (and no real surprise) Venezuelan Oil and Energy Minister, Rafael Ramírez, is confirming the formalized suspension of oil shipments from Petrocaribe, which amount to 20,000 barrels a day. IndexMundi putsHonduran Oil consumption at 46,800 per day, so that's a big hole to fill. Mauricio Zablah, Vicepresident of the Honduran Petroleum Distributors Association thinks that there shouldn't be a problem with storage, which is not really the question, is it?
Update 3:55 - Not sure if this is a good housekeeping approved negotiating tactic, or just another example of Mel's 'wild card' streak, but classifying Micheletti as a "gorilla who represents a regime that has committed the crimes of assassinations, human rights violations and especially, treason", probably will help make tomorrow's face to face all that more interesting.
Note - Al finally get a retraction from La Prensa. Translation as follows: "Because of an error in processing, the graphic published in our edition of Monday July 6, of the young man, Isis Obed, who died in Sunday's protests, turn out distorted in the above photo differing from the original. We apologize for this error that contradicts our editorial policy." Jeez, can these 'information laundromats' as Al calls 'em, not be inept as well as corrupt.
Final Update 4:31 - from La Tribuna's twitter feed "Congress tosses about the possibility of leaving ALBA, with a motion to do so possible in the next few days." Hurry up, guys..