BREAKING (& updated) Paraguay: Fernando Lugo may be about to resign

The rumours out of Paraguay right now are that Fernando Lugo, President of Paraguay, may be about to address his nation and announce his resignation. We'll keep an eye on the happenings today and probably update this post later.

PS, Background: The action follows the death of 17 people in a land eviction operation on June 15th (with both police and squatters killed) and this morning's vote by Paraguay's parliament that approved a call of "bad development of his functions" (the literal translation of the Spanish "mal desempeño de sus funciones" and basically meaning "not doing his job well") by a count of 73 members to one and the start of a judicial inquiry into Lugo's actions.

UPDATE: The President's Secretary, Miguel López, just told AFP that Lugo isn't resigning. However he will address the nation later today and it's now possible that Lugo will be forced to resign by Paraguay's parliament and a type of no-confidence vote in the days ahead.

UPDATE 2: The very same Miguel López just (literally 5 mins ago) has apparently contradicted himself and said that Lugo's resignation is a possibility.

UPDATE 3: All of Lugo's ministers definitely set to resign. Lugo's impeachment will go ahead, but again from another source in this brand new minted report we hear that Lugo isn't going to resign today. We're now at the point where all the crosstalk rumours and opinions need to be settled once and for all by Lugo and his upcoming live TV address. Not much point in a running commentary until that happens.

UPDATE 4: Lugo has just said on live TV that he's NOT resigning. His exact words were...

"Este presidente no va a presentar renuncia al cargo y que se somete con absoluta obediencia a la constitución y las leyes a enfrentar el juicio político con todas sus consecuencias",

...which translates as "This President is not going to present his resignation and will submit himself, with absolute obedience to the constitution and the laws, to the impeachment proceeding and all its consequences."

UPDATE 5: Next door neighbour Evo Morales of Bolivia (and Lugo ally) is calling the events in Paraguay today "an attempted coup d'etat" and to be honest, he has a point. The parliamentary vote was on a snap resolution and we should keep in mind that the (non-Lugo) Colorado Party controls Paraguay's congress, is dying to get back into executive power and is perhaps the single most corrupt political party in all of South America (and believe me folks, that takes some doing). The impeachment resolution now has to go to Paraguay's Senate where in a few days it will need 2/3rds of votes to pass and right now it's anyone's guess how that vote will turn out.

UPDATE 6: Things are moving fast, with the Paraguay Senate now set to debate the impeachment bill as early as tomorrow. Also, regional criticisms of the whole affair is now rising, with the pan-regional Unasur now being called upon to condemn the apparent move to bounce Lugo out of power.The latest is that Unasur has sent a delegation of officials, including the current President of the body Ali Rodriguez (it's a job given to member states on a rotational basis) to Paraguay to oversee proceedings and report on any irregularities, with the plane full of suits due to land in Asuncion at 21h local time tonight. They'll be there for the Senate debate so it's good to see a LatAm political body move fast for a change.