When the Honduran military overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelayas of Honduras on June 28th, they also attacked trade unions and human rights groups. Honduran union have been mobilizing to protest the coup; some members have been arrested by the military. 

The military directly controlled Honduras from 1963 until 1981. The country's poverty rate is 50%, with an official unemployment rate of 28%.

The main port is Puerto Cortez on the Caribbean, one of six ports around the world to get U.S. funding in 2006 under the "Container Security Initiative" that paid for container scanning devices which became operational in 2007.