Honduras President Xiomara Castro announced Tuesday that her government will seek to establish diplomatic relations with China, which would imply severing relations with Taiwan. Castro said on her Twitter account that she instructed Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister Eduardo Reina to start negotiations with China and that her intention is “to expand the borders with freedom.” Honduras is one of the few remaining allies of Taiwan, and Castro's announcement represents a change on its diplomatic views. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying they were “in the process of ascertaining the situation” and had no further details. Also Read: Honduras ex-president Hernández extradited to US China claims self-ruled, democratic Taiwan is part of its territory and sees diplomatic recognition of the island as interference in its affairs. Beijing has isolated Taiwan diplomatically with a long campaign against such recognition under the “one-China” policy. Also Read: US asks Honduras to arrest, extradite ex-President Hernández In January 2022, the foreign affairs minister told The Associated Press that Honduras would continue strengthening ties with Taiwan and establishing a diplomatic relationship with China was not a priority for Castro. It's not clear what made the government change its mind.

Honduras extradited former President Juan Orlando Hernández to the United States on Thursday to face drug trafficking and weapons charges in a dramatic reversal for a leader once touted by U.S. authorities as a key ally in the war on the drugs. Just three months after leaving office, a handcuffed Hernández boarded an airplane with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration bound for the United States, where he faces charges in the Southern District of New York. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernandez “abused his position as President of Honduras from 2014 through 2022 to operate the country as a narco-state.” In court documents, U.S. prosecutors alleged Hernandez was involved in a “corrupt and violent drug-trafficking conspiracy” that moved more than 550 tons of cocaine to the United States. He was charged with participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. Prosecutors charge that Hernandez received millions of dollars from drug cartels, including from notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. They allege he used the money to finance his political campaigns and engaged in voter fraud in the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections. Also Read: US asks Honduras to arrest, extradite ex-President Hernández “In return, drug traffickers in Honduras were allowed to operate with virtual impunity,” Garland said. “We allege that Hernández corrupted legitimate public institutions in the country — including parts of the national police, military and national Congress.” Hernández was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa in February at the request of U.S. authorities. He was shackled and paraded in front of journalists, a sight many Hondurans never imagined seeing. Honduras’ Supreme Court rejected his appeal of a judge’s decision in favor of extradition. “Drug trafficking fuels violent crime and addiction; it devastates families, and it ravages communities,” Garland said. “The Justice Department is committed to disrupting the entire ecosystem of drug trafficking networks that harm the American people, no matter how far or how high we must go.” Hernández has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. In a video message released Thursday, he said, “I am innocent; I have been and I am being unjustly subjected to prosecution.” He has said he is the victim of drug traffickers he extradited who are now lying to seek revenge. Henry Osorto Canales, a retired National Police commissioner who is now an analyst, said that while the extradition was an embarrassment for Honduras, it was also a historic day. “This is a start because it has begun with the largest political piece that the country had and logically the rest of the pieces are going to fall, at least those closest (to Hernández),” Osorto said. U.S. prosecutors have spent years building cases from low-level drug traffickers and local politicians to organized crime bosses who used their political connections and ties to drug trafficking cartels in Colombia and Mexico to move tons of cocaine to the United States. Many of them testified about making payments to Hernández or one of his brothers, also a politician. Hernández’s brother Tony Hernández, a former congressman, was sentenced to life in prison in the same U.S. court on essentially the same charges. Juan Orlando Hernández took office in January 2014 and held the presidency until this January, when Xiomara Castro was sworn in as his replacement. Castro campaigned on rooting out Honduras’ corruption and Hernández was seen as the largest target. On Wednesday, Honduras’ Supreme Court denied an appeal from the former chief of the National Police, Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, better known as “El Tigre” or “The Tiger.” He was arrested after Hernández at the request of U.S. prosecutors on similar charges and is expected to be extradited in the coming weeks. Also Read: Pulisic, Steffen, Robinson start for US vs. Honduras U.S. prosecutors allege Bonilla assisted the movement of tons of cocaine through Honduras, working with Hernández and his brother Tony Hernández, both co-conspirators in the case in the Southern District of New York. Hernández’s transport via helicopter under heavy guard from the police base where he was held to the airport Thursday was covered live by local television outlets. Some Hondurans stood outside the airport’s perimeter fence to catch a glimpse of the former president boarding the plane with U.S. authorities. When Hernández’s plane took off some were seen jumping in celebration. Thousands of their countrymen emigrated from the country during Hernández’s administration, often shouting “Get out JOH!” using his initials as they walked north. They frequently complained of a lack of job opportunities and gang violence.    

The United States has asked Honduras to arrest former President Juan Orlando Hernández for his eventual extradition to the U.S., officials confirmed Monday. National Police and soldiers surrounded the neighborhood around Hernández’s home Monday night. Honduras’ foreign affairs ministry initially said via Twitter that it had notified the country’s Supreme Court of Justice that the U.S. Embassy had formally requested the arrest of a Honduran politician for the purposes of extradition. The ministry did not identify the politician. But Honduras’ current vice president, Salvador Nasralla, confirmed to The Associated Press that the request names Hernández. Later, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice called an urgent session of the full court for Tuesday morning to choose a judge to consider the extradition request from the United States. Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment. The U.S. State Department referred requests for comment to the Justice Department. CNN en Español first reported that the politician was Hernández, showing the communication from the ministry to the court naming Hernández. Hernández’s attorney, Hermes Ramírez, accused authorities of being unfair to the former president. He said Hernández was inside the Tegucigalpa residence. “At this time the secretary of security is violating the rule of law by wanting to execute an arrest order violating the procedure that is established by law,” the lawyer told local media. “We leave clear the abuse that my client ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández is the subject of.” Over the weekend, Hernández had posted photographs of himself playing with his dogs in an apparent attempt to knock down rumors that he had fled the country. Hernández left office Jan. 27 with the swearing in of President Xiomara Castro. The same day he was sworn in as Honduras’ representative to the Central American Parliament. Ramírez said Monday night that Hernández had immunity because of his position in the regional parliament and insisted that he had a right to a presumption of innocence. With a weak and co-opted Honduran justice system, Hondurans’ hope for justice had rested for years with U.S. federal prosecutors in New York, where a string of revelations against Hernández was closely followed back home. Speculation had swirled for months over whether Hernández would be charged once he was no longer president, because U.S. prosecutors in New York repeatedly implicated him in his brother’s 2019 drug trafficking trial, alleging that his political rise was fueled by drug profits. Hernández strongly denied any such activities. The brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, himself a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced to life in prison on drug and weapons charges in March 2021. At his sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Laroche characterized the crimes as “state-sponsored drug trafficking.” Read: Myanmar says it won’t attend ASEAN foreign ministers meeting In an audio recording sent to his staff that day, the then president said his brother’s conviction “is hard for the family, hard for me personally.” “I find it outrageous; I find it unbelievable that false testimony by confessed killers could have been heard and given weight in this way,” he continued, citing Honduras’ progress in reducing violence as evidence of his stance against organized crime. U.S. prosecutors said Tony Hernández brokered large bribes from drug traffickers to his brother in exchange for protecting their shipments through Honduras. In some cases, members of the National Police and military escorted drug shipments, prosecutors said. They said Juan Orlando Hernández received bribes while still a member of Honduras’ congress and directed bribes to other lawmakers so they would support him as the body’s president. Hernández has long said that the accusations against him come from drug traffickers, who in some cases he extradited and who are now seeking revenge. He has denied any involvement with drug traffickers. Hernández became president of the congress in early 2010. By 2013, he was campaigning to be Honduras’ president and allegedly solicited $1.6 million from a drug trafficker to support his campaign and those of other politicians in the National Party, according to U.S. authorities. Tony Hernández also received $1 million from Mexican kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán to support his brother’s presidential campaign, prosecutors said. They said Tony Hernández had promised the Sinaloa cartel leader that if his brother won the presidency, they could protect Guzmán’s drug shipments through Honduras. Juan Orlando Hernández took office Jan. 27, 2014. U.S. authorities allege he continued receiving drug profits while in office in exchange for allowing drugs to move through Honduras. Hernández was also named as a “co-conspirator” in the case of convicted drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez. Witnesses in the two-week trial shortly before Tony Hernández’s sentencing told of Hernández accepting bribes from Fuentes Ramírez and other drug traffickers from his time as a presidential candidate up through at least 2019. During the Fuentes trial, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, former leader of the Cachiros cartel, testified that he had sent $250,000 to Juan Orlando Hernández in 2012 through his sister in exchange for protection of his smuggling business and to avoid extradition. An accountant testified that he twice witnessed Hernández receiving bribes from Fuentes Ramírez in 2013. Hernández used a friendly Supreme Court to overcome Honduras’ constitutional ban on re-election and won a second term in 2017 in elections marred by irregularities. He was a deeply unpopular president at a time that saw tens of thousands of Hondurans flee the country due to a lack of economic opportunity, street gang violence and natural disasters. Hernández worked to curry favor with the Trump administration, which was focused largely on slowing immigration. The Trump administration was quick to recognize Hernández’s re-election victory in the disputed election. And Hernández announced that Honduras would follow Trump’s lead and move his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. When accusations against Hernández emerged from trials in New York, Hernández would often use photo ops with U.S. officials to show that he had nothing to hide. The Biden administration, however, worked to keep Hernández at arm’s length, frequently repeating that corruption was one of the root causes of migration in the region. Hernández has focused his defense largely on his record of extraditing drug traffickers to the United States and Honduran security forces’ cooperation with U.S. authorities intercepting drug shipments. Honduras changed its constitution in 2012 — while Hernández was president of the congress — to allow the extradition of Hondurans facing drug trafficking charges. And drug traffickers were extradited under Hernández. However, the U.S. government has complained that Honduras in recent years had not extradited others, including some alleged co-conspirators of Tony Hernández. In February, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to yank Hernández’s U.S. visa and sanction him as a “significant foreign narcotics trafficker.”

A new migrant caravan that left Honduras on Wednesday is nearing Mexico's southern border, the Mexican Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Honduras will close 2019 with more than 115,000 cases of dengue and 177 deaths from the disease, local media reported on Sunday.

At least 13 people died from Tuesday to Wednesday morning during the course of Christmas celebrations in Honduras, the majority from traffic accidents, local authorities said Wednesday.

Inmates, some with firearms, rioted at a prison in Honduras on Friday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 16 others, authorities said.