Honduras will temporarily shut down the Caribbean port of Puerto Cortes, where it ships 80 percent of its exports, after a large earthquake nearby on Thursday, the national port authority said.

"There is damaged machinery and equipment," Roberto Babum, head of Honduras' port authority told local television.

>> The Honduran government has prepared a map of environmentally-vulnerable regions in the country. The map

Canada said on Monday it will pursue World Trade Organisation action against China if it maintains its ban on pork and hogs from the province of Alberta.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced Saturday it had found the H1N1 flu virus in a swine herd in the western province of Alberta, prompting the ban by China.

Whale sharks are a declining species for which little biological data is available. While these animals are protected in many parts of their range, they are fished legally and illegally in some countries. Baseline biological and ecological data are needed to allow the formulation of an effective conservation plan for whale sharks. It is not known, for example, whether the whale shark is represented by a single worldwide panmictic population or by numerous, reproductively isolated populations.

Farmers in the Yoro and Otoro regions of Honduras have organised themselves into agricultural research teams to improve the diversity and resilience of their farms. Supported by local and international organisations, these farmers have diversified their plant genetic resources and developed hardier varieties that grow well on their soils.

The most common causes of migration in the Mesoamerican countries (the region stretching from southern Mexico to Costa Rica) are confl ict and the degradation of the natural environment. In this article we consider both situations and the effect on the region of La Mosquitia in north-east Honduras.

The potential impact of the global financial crisis of 2008 on living standards in the developing world has given renewed emphasis to the importance of social safety net programs. The right policies can be a smart investment in an uncertain world.

The annual report describes the third year activities of the

Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela are closer to ensuring their citizens have the chance to break the cycle of poverty than many of their neighbours in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Bank

The World Trade Organization has ruled against the eu's import tariffs on bananas. It backed the us, which argued that eu import duties of

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