Amorim spent over an hour on the phone with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, and Honduras was one of the topics of the conversation.

For Brazil, the Honduran presidential election scheduled for next Sunday will not be recognized if deposed Honduran President José Manuel Zelaya is not reinstated in office. However, the US President Barack Obama administration believes “elections are a good starting point” to overcome the crisis and will be sending independent observers to monitor the event.

“There is an obsession that if Brazil does not agree with the United States a beam will fall on our heads. There are not major divergences,” pointed out the Brazilian minister.

What really matters added Amorim is that Brazilian President Lula and Obama always manage to discuss issues in a very friendly tone.

Amorim also pointed out that the Organization of American States (OAS) is not divided on the issue. The Brazilian position is shared by an overwhelming majority of Latinamerican and Caribbean countries, while only the US and Panama are willing to accept Sunday’s results as legitimate.

Their killings on Monday marked the most recent in a series of events that have raised tension between the neighbors.

The closure of the Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Paula Santander international bridges in central-west Venezuela created a scene of confusion for the area’s residents and merchants.

Some clashes between guards and residents were reported. News footage showed people crossing the border on foot, carrying goods and luggage on their backs across a shallow river.

With such a pittance of a vote, the Liberals elected former Defense Minister Rafael Pardo while the PDA chose Senator Gustavo Petro. Alfonso Gomez Mendez, a former Prosecutor General and a presidential hopeful for the Liberal Party said he was “very worried” about the high levels of abstentionism during the election. The hours went idly by, the polling places were empty, the polling officers grew increasingly bored, and the voters stayed home. Oh, democracy!

This primary election was a good indicator of several aspects of contemporary Colombian politics. Above all, the anemic results obtained by both the Liberals and the PDA confirms their status as minority parties. The years they have acted in opposition to the Uribe administration have weakened their constituencies and affected their chances of winning the presidency in the medium term. Before Sunday’s election, former President Cesar Gaviria, now leader of the Liberal Party, declared that “the volume of our votes will show that we are a real option for power in 2010.”