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Honduras' anti-corruption prosecutor is pressing for more charges against former President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a coup last year. Leonardo Orellana told reporters Wednesday he has asked a criminal court to charge Zelaya for allegedly diverting $1.5 million in government welfare funds to his campaign for a referendum on reforming the constitution. Soldiers escorted the left-leaning president out of Honduras at gunpoint after he defied a Supreme Court order to drop plans for the vote. Critics say he was trying to extend his rule by lifting a ban on presidential re-election, as his ally Hugo Chavez has done...

Honduran President-elect Porfirio Lobo is actively considering a general amnesty for all political activists involved in the June 28 takeover that toppled Jose Manuel Zelaya and triggered an international crisis over the legitimacy of the de facto government that succeeded Zelaya. Lobo was chosen in a Nov. 29 election that itself was marred by controversy because Zelaya, who sneaked back into Honduras from exile in September, conducted a passionate campaign for return to power from the Brazilian Embassy. The takeover deeply divided Hondurans and led to riots, economic dislocation and partial sanctions against the impoverished state. Both the United States...

TEGUCIGALPA – The National Resistance Front that arose after the June 28 ouster of President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras has abandoned hope for the restoration of ousted the former president and is focused now on convening an assembly to overhaul the country’s constitution, one of the group’s leaders said Thursday. “We have closed this chapter on the restoration of President Zelaya, which didn’t take place,” Juan Barahona told Efe the day after Honduran lawmakers rejected reinstatement of the deposed head of state. The Honduran Congress decisively rejected the restitution of deposed President Mel Zelaya in a vote of 62 to...

final score: 111 against Z 15 for Z.

TEGUCIGALPA — A majority in the Honduran Congress have voted against reinstating deposed President Manuel Zelaya and allowing him to finish out his term of office. A simple majority of 65 lawmakers in the 128-member body voted against Zelaya's return to the presidency shortly before 730 pm (0130 GMT) on Wednesday after more than six hours of debate.

Update: 4:40: Vote is still taking place. Has stalled with a long pro-Zelaya speech by ???. She claims there was 60+ abstentionism on Sunday and is basically repeating the same things we've heard Zelaya say a thousand times. She is quoting several sections of the constitution. Says that Zelaya never submitted a change of the constitution, the court was wrong, .

The State Department recognized Porfirio Lobo's victory in Sunday's election but said the Honduran Congress still needed to vote on the restoration of deposed President Manuel Zelaya and form a government of national unity. "While the election is a significant step in Honduras' return to the democratic and constitutional order ... it's only a step and it's not the last step," said Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. Before the election, the United States tried and failed to have Zelaya reinstated. Its support of the election upset many Latin American nations, including powerful Brazil, which called...

Honduran lawmakers are due to decide on Dec. 2 whether to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya and let him finish his term until a newly elected leader takes office in January. Zelaya was exiled by soldiers in a June 28 coup but has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy since sneaking back into Honduras in September. After he pulled out of a deal to decide his return, Zelaya's future looks even more uncertain. Here are some possible scenarios for Zelaya's prospects: CONGRESS VOTES TO REINSTATE ZELAYA Zelaya's opponents control the Honduran Congress, which voted to strip him of his...

Honduran lawmakers will not decide whether to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya until after upcoming presidential elections, the congressional leader said Tuesday, a decision that could undermine international support for the vote. Congress will meet Dec. 2 — three days after the Nov. 29 election — to decide whether Zelaya should be returned the presidency to finish his constitutional term, which ends in January, congressional president Jose Alfredo Saavedra told local HRN radio station. Several Latin American countries have warned they will not recognize the outcome of the election unless Zelaya is restored beforehand. But the United States has not...

The interim leadership in Honduras has vowed to use all security measures at its disposal to ensure a safe election this month. Leader Roberto Micheletti, installed after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a June coup, has said he expects November 29 elections to bring an end to the worst political upheaval in Central America in decades. He vowed to bring the full weight of security forces to bear on the abridged campaign season and the election itself. 'People should know that we are here to provide security,' said armed forces chief General Romeo Vasquez on Saturday. 'We have put...

Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to block influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras. After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post. "We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will...

Honduras, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says he has pulled out of a deal struck to end the country's political crisis. Speaking to local radio Friday, Zelaya said the deal with the interim government led by President Roberto Micheletti was off as far as he was concerned, The Wall Street Journal reported. "This deal is dead. The other side has failed to uphold their end," Zelaya reportedly said. Under the terms of the deal, a government of national unity would be created and the Honduran Congress would be allowed to determine if Zelaya could return to...

Lawmakers will wait until Tuesday to consider a U.S.-brokered agreement that could return deposed President Manuel Zelaya to power, despite diplomats' pleas to not delay an end to the country's 4-month-old political crisis. Monday is a holiday in Honduras, and many legislators are busy campaigning for Nov. 29 elections that will also elect a successor to Zelaya. Nonetheless, Zelaya said Saturday that he hopes he will be back in office by Thursday, the deadline for the two sides to establish a power-sharing government. "By Thursday, the government of national unity should be installed," he said in a meeting broadcast by...