Honduras News Stories

June 27th, 2009

Travel Alert for Honduras

Click the following for the Complete Article

BASIC INFORMATION: The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa alerts American citizens residing in and traveling to Honduras of the possibility of demonstrations and protests related to a proposed national opinion poll that may be held on Sunday, June 28. Protests have been non-violent. All airports and border crossings in Honduras remain open to regular traffic.

The Embassy strongly recommends that U.S. citizens avoid large gatherings, not try to pass roadblocks if they encounter them, and avoid travel in affected areas. U.S. citizens should monitor the situation via media sources, including TV and radio.

For the latest news on Honduras, click here.

To review the various media resources in spanish (espanol) click here.

June 24th, 2009

Honduran Coffee Farmer Wins in Auction

Honduran coffee farmer Bertilio Reyes has won the top price of $18.75 a pound for the country's best beans in the annual Cup of Excellence Internet auction held in Honduras today. The winning lot consisted of 25 bags and was produced at Reyes' farm, El Portillo, which is located near the town El Cielito in the key Honduran producing province of northwestern Santa Barbara. The winning lot of 1,901 pounds were sold at about 16 times the current arabica prices at the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York, said the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, the U.S. nonprofit organization that organizes the Cup of Excellence.

The winning coffee was all of the Paca variety, grown at 1,450 meters altitude and processed as fully washed coffee through wet mill-processing and sun dried at patios. Under the CoE's grading system - which evaluates a coffee on everything from body, acidity, flavor and aroma to aftertaste - the beans from the Portillo farm won a score of 90.75 out of a maximum 100 points, one of the highest scores so far this year among the CoE auctions.

A total of 37 lots were sold at prices between $2.50/lb and $13.60/lb in the Honduran auction that was held earlier this week, and from which final results were confirmed late Tuesday. The Internet auction program was initially started in Brazil in 1999 in cooperation with the International Coffee Organization's "gourmet coffee project" and the CoE, today a program operated by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence.

The first CoE auctions this year were held in Colombia, El Salvador and Costa Rica, while more auctions are scheduled to be held later for coffee from the 2008-09 harvest in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil and Rwanda.

June 23nd, 2009

Honduras Fruit Exports Increase

Honduran exportation of fruit increased by twenty percent over the past year, according to Hector Hernandez, the Minister of the Secretary of Agriculture and Animal Farming (Secretariat of Agriculture and Ganaderia). Avocado exportation is largely responsible. The global economic crisis has caused the demand for certain products to rise, whereas it has fallen for others. Agriculture is a profitable business right now in Honduras, and Hernandez believes the government should encourage farming to ensure that the country, as well as farmers, benefit. His concern, however, is that Honduras fall into a shortage of other agricultural products, and efforts should be made to plant a diversity of products, rather than concentrating solely on what is making money at the moment.

June 22nd, 2009

We've Got Talent

Talent, passion for dance, and discipline were rewarded this weekend, when 32 amazing performers from Honduras walked away with 16 medals after participating in an annual dance competition put on by the Dance Educators of America, in Orlando, Florida.

The Honduran performers were from the Academia de Bellas Artes in San Pedro Sula, and demonstrated their talent in competition for solo dance, choreography, and group dance. The young females were up against strong competition from the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and Panama, but Honduras prevailed, obtaining First Place. The group earned sixteen medals overall in silver, gold and platinum.

June 21st, 2009

Miss Honduras

July 18th, thirty talented women will compete for the title of "Senorita Honduras Belleza Nacional 2009", or "Miss Honduras". The event will take place at the beautiful Quinta Real hotel in La Ceiba. Tegucigalpa will be represented by Mabel Morales, 21, who attends school at Administraci—n de Empresas de la Universidad Nacional Aut—noma de Honduras. La Ceiba will be represented by Alessa Gamez, 24, who attends school at Universidad Nacional Aut—noma de Honduras (UNAH).