Army ousts Honduras President

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters/AFP) - The Honduran army ousted President Manuel Zelaya and threw him out of the country on Sunday in Central Americas first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to win re-election.
Eduardo Reina, the Presidents private secretary, told Reuters that shots were fired during the incident, but that could not be independently confirmed.
US President Barack Obama expressed deep concern after troops came for Zelaya, an ally of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, at dawn and took him away from his residence.
A military plane flew Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNNs Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there. Police fired teargas at pro-government protesters in the capital, Honduran radio said, and two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the capital.
The impoverished Central American country had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s, but Zelayas push to change the Constitution to allow him another term has split the countrys institutions.
Zelaya fired military chief Gen Romeo Vasquez last week for refusing to help him run an unofficial referendum on Sunday on extending the four-year term limit on Honduran presidents.
Arriving just hours later, Zelaya said on Costa Rican television that he was a victim of kidnapping and a coup detat, part of a plot by members of the military to remove him from power. He called on Hondurans to peacefully resist the coup. A neighbour told Radiocadena Voces television about 200 troops swooped on Zelayas home just as dawn was breaking around 6:00 am.
and his house remained surrounded by heavily armed troops, an AFP photographer saw.
Pro-Zelaya demonstrators gathered at the presidential palace, which was surrounded by soldiers.
Here, the people are angry, said protester Boris Vanyas.
The Honduran Supreme Court said it had ordered the Army to oust President Zelaya because of his unlawful plan to hold a public vote on presidential re-election.
It acted to defend the rule of law, the court said in a statement read on Honduran radio.