2 dead, 60 injured in Honduras anti-coup protests

TEGUCIGALPA, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from protests against the interim Honduran government installed after a military coup increased to two on Monday after a protestor died in hospital.

The man, a union member, died of injuries sustained in protests against Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president hours after President Manuel Zelaya was seized at his residence by hooded and heavily armed troops and whisked to Costa Rica.

The man had been protesting the change of bosses in state-run Honduras Telecommunications Corp made by Micheletti.

Sixty people were injured and one died in clashes between Honduran troops and Zelaya's supporters outside the Palace of Government, local television channel Canal 51 reported earlier.

A few minutes earlier, Juan Barahona, who leads the United Workers Federation, told Xinhua by telephone that soldiers had opened fire on demonstrators outside the Palace of Government.

"When we were dispersed, I saw several people with bullet wounds," Barahona said. "Two ambulances arrived but so far I don't know if there are deaths."

Local media had reported shooting and tear gas used at the scene, as two helicopters flew over the area.

Hundreds of protesters, their faces covered in red masks, blocked the roads around the presidential residency with iron boards and stones. They waved the national flag, chanting slogans calling the army "betrayers that have toppled the nation."

Shots were heard in the early hours of Monday morning outside the Palace of Government. The president of the Committee for the Defense of Honduran Human Rights said that 27 people had been arrested.

The interim government has tightened control over foreign reporters, and several of them have been arrested.

Micheletti said on Monday that six new cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez Colindre, Finance Minister Gabriella Nunez and Defense Minister Lionel Sevilla, have been sworn in.

Micheletti was appointed interim president by the nation's legislature on Sunday afternoon, in a session that began with the reading of a resignation letter, reportedly from Zelaya but denounced as fake by the president himself.