Honduran Politics

The former Honduran ambassador to Colombia accepted blame Sunday for a party held at his embassy that reportedly involved prostitutes, but said he was away on vacation when it took place.

The Honduran ambassador to Colombia was forced to resign Saturday after his bodyguard reportedly held a Christmas party with prostitutes at the mission, the foreign ministry in Tegucigalpa said.

The leaders of Mexico and three Central American nations called Monday for a review of anti-drug policies after two US states voted to legalize marijuana.

The Honduran government tolerates illegal groups that operate as death squads, a truth commission said Wednesday in a report on the effects of the 2009 coup against president Manuel Zelaya.

Thousands of people turned out in several cities across Honduras on Friday to protest a wave of journalist killings in the country, where 20 reporters have been murdered in the past three years.

A journalist who was kidnapped a week ago has been found shot to death, making him the 20th to be killed in Honduras in the past three years amid rising gang violence, police said Wednesday.

The US ambassador in Honduras has blamed a fire last month at an overcrowded prison in the Central American country that killed 361 inmates, on official negligence.

US Vice President Joe Biden met with Central American leaders in Honduras Tuesday in talks expected to focus on rising drug violence in the region.

Scores of relatives of the 359 inmates killed in a blaze that gutted a Honduran prison broke through police barriers Monday and opened body bags in a desperate search for their kin's remains.

Hondurans are burying victims of one of the world's worst jail fires as they search for answers about what caused the disaster.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo acknowledged that some inmates caught up in the horrific prison fire this week had escaped, without saying how many prisoners had fled the scene.

Foreign experts on Friday probed a fire in a jail in the Central American nation of Honduras which left 356 dead this week, as questions lingered about the role of the authorities in the disaster.

COMAYAGUA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduras came under international pressure on Friday to fix its broken prison system and allow an independent inquiry into a jailhouse blaze this week that killed more than 350 inmates, many burned alive in their cells.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday urged Chile and Cuba to join him in a "troika" of core nations at the forefront of a new Americas bloc that excludes the United States and Canada.

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras' Congress voted on Tuesday to deploy the army to fight encroaching Mexican drug cartels in a bid to curb violence in the world's most murderous country.

An unusual Nativity creche on display in a Honduran shopping mall memorializes vivid scenes of gang violence, a police purge and the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Moamer Kadhafi among other real life events.

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday hailed the restoration of democracy and constitutional order in Honduras, as he welcomed President Porfirio Lobo two years after a coup rocked Tegucigalpa.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama hailed President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras for his "strong commitment to democracy" on Wednesday, sealing the Central American nation's rehabilitation after a coup in 2009.

Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a 2009 coup and not removed from the presidency in a "constitutional succession" as his opponents claimed, the Honduras Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded.

Honduras was readmitted Wednesday to the Organization of American States (OAS), ending a two-year diplomatic hiatus following the widely criticized coup that drove Manuel Zelaya from power.