Men armed with assault rifles burst into a shoe factory and opened fire, killing at least 18 workers and wounding five, Honduran police said.

Mexico and the USA have secured World Cup qualification thanks to wins over El Salvador and Honduras respectively, in the penultimate round of North American qualifying.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said he has met an interim government official and begun dialogue aimed at ending the country’s protracted political crisis.

Honduras’ interim government reinstated a nighttime curfew for the capital after thousands of anti-coup protesters marched into Tegucigalpa to demand the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

The Organisation of American States lifted a decades-old ban on Cuba’s participation in the group and cleared the way for the island’s return despite initial US objections.

Two Honduran gang members were sentenced to 822 years in prison each for opening fire on a bus and killing 28 people four years ago.

Hurricane Henriette today threatened Mexico’s mainland on a track for the south-western US, while the weakening remains of mighty Hurricane Felix, far to the south, caused flooding, landslides and at least 9 deaths in Central America.

At least 13 inmates were killed and another 30 wounded in a shootout between rival groups inside Honduras’ biggest prison, the latest bloodshed to hit the country’s overcrowded and ageing jails.

Unknown gunmen opened fire on a public bus in northern Honduras late yesterday, killing at least 23 passengers and wounding 16 others, apparently many women and children, police said.

More than 100 Honduran gang members perished after a short-circuit started a fire that tore through an overcrowded prison block.

A short-circuit in a Honduras prison started a blaze which killed at least 90 inmates and injured more than a dozen others today.

Suspected members of a street gang opened fire on passengers in separate attacks on three buses in the coastal city of San Pedro Sula, killing 12 and wounding 18, police said today.