Hernandez sworn in as Honduras president

Conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez was  sworn in Monday to a four-year term as president of Honduras, one of Latin America's poorest countries and which is battling a soaring crime rate. He took the oath of office in a ceremony at the National Stadium attended by an estimated 30,000 people. Hernandez, 45, a lawyer, inherits a deeply divided country of 8.5 million people where 71 percent of the population lives in poverty and a spiraling homicide rate has reached 20 murders per day, one of the highest in the world. He replaces Porfirio Lobo, of the same National Party. Honduras' Supreme Court last month rejected an appeal to overturn November's presidential election results, which the leftist Libre party claimed was stolen by fraud. Libre candidate Xiomara Castro, wife of party leader and ex-president Manuel Zelaya, officially lost to Hernandez, garnering just 29 percent against 37 percent. She described the results as a "disgusting monstrosity." Zelaya was deposed at gunpoint in a June 2009 coup after he aligned Honduras with the leftist governments of Cuba and Venezuela. The move led to 100 days of unrest that included massive street protests and a crackdown on leftist activists.