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ROATAN, Honduras – “The president’s been arrested already this morning,” hotel owner Jeff Kuken told my wife and me one Sunday morning in late June.

We had spent months planning a vacation across Honduras, but now Latin America’s first military coup in decades was unfolding on the third day of our trip. Not exactly part of our plans, and definitely not included in guidebooks that painted Honduras as the Next Big Destination for affordable eco-tourism.

“The military flew him out of the country at gunpoint,” said Kuken, a Boston native who owns Casa Calico on this beautiful island known for its scuba diving and snorkeling.

We wondered whether it would be possible to have fun and relax in a beautiful country going through political chaos. The answer turned out to be a resounding yes — with some changes in plans and a bit of luck.

We spent the day of the coup at Gumbalimba Park, where we took a zipline from tree to tree down the side of a mountain and onto a picturesque beach. We spotted iguanas that looked like small alligators and learned about cashew trees. We visited the park’s bird and monkey sanctuary, carrying both on our shoulders and feeding them with the help of their trainers.

Back at our room that afternoon, we watched on state television as Congress defended the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya and swore in the new president, Roberto Micheletti. Micheletti wasted no time imposing a 9 p.m. curfew that would last for the rest of our trip.

On Roatan, an island reachable by a 75-minute ferry ride from the mainland, there were few signs of unrest. We had the white sand beaches largely to ourselves, sipped pina coladas at beachside bars, and treated ourselves to delicious local foods like shrimp coconut soup and fried plantains. We enjoyed fresh Honduran coffee.

We snorkeled in one of the world’s largest barrier reefs, seeing all kinds of exotic fish. No need for a guided tour: the best snorkeling is very close to shore. One tip for travelers: it might be worth bringing your own mask and fins because the quality of rentals can be suspect. We did not scuba dive, but Roatan is a popular place for Americans and Europeans to do so.

With the U.S. Department of State advising against nonessential travel, we decided to cancel trips we had planned across the mainland.

(That advisory has since been softened; State now advises travelers to “exercise caution” but avoid the capital, Tegucigalpa. While the country’s political crisis continues, with the presidential election set for Nov. 29, bus and airline services and daily life are largely back to normal.)

We had planned to visit the Mayan ruins and coffee plantations in Copan Ruinas in the western part of the country and beautiful Lago Yojoa in central Honduras, where we had expected to stay at a bed-and-breakfast that is also the country’s one and only microbrewery.

NEW YORK – Models of the Obama White House, the Obama home in Chicago and the house Michelle Obama grew up in are on display at holiday train shows at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington.

Holiday train shows are also held in other gardens around the country, with each show featuring trains running past miniature versions of local landmark buildings. Other locations for the holiday train shows include the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati.

The trains are garden-scale models, which are about 1/25th the size of real trains. But the most spectacular aspect of these shows is that the model buildings are created entirely from plant material — seeds, bark, pods, stems and the like — by designer Joe Busse and his Kentucky-based company, Applied Imagination.

For example, the front of the replica of the Obamas’ Kenwood home in the Chicago Botanic Garden exhibit is layered with white pine bark and catalpa beans. Tiny flower pots made out of burr oak caps and acorns are set on front steps made from palm stems and sea grape leaves. The front porch is made of honeysuckle, eucalyptus leaves, okra seeds, and magnolia and lotus pod stems. The bricks in Michelle Obama’s childhood home are pine tree bark and the dormers are crafted out of redbud seed pods.

In addition to the Obama home replicas, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Wonderland Express show includes more than 80 other miniatures of Chicago landmarks like Navy Pier, Soldier Field, Millennium Park and the Shedd Aquarium. Wonderland Express is open Nov. 27-Jan. 3, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., (closing at 3 p.m. on Dec. 3 and Dec. 24, and closed all day Dec. 25). Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for children 3-12, and free on Tuesdays through Dec. 23.

At the U.S. Botanic Garden, a model of the White House used in past holiday shows was modified this year to add the White House vegetable garden and a swing set used by the Obama girls. Also new to the Washington garden show is a replica of the National Museum of the American Indian. The sizes of the buildings, which include many other Washington landmarks, range from 7 feet across for the U.S. Capitol to 2 feet across for the Jefferson Memorial.

In the U.S. Botanic Garden’s main train exhibit, trains run through miniature depictions of stories and characters from children’s literature, from “The Owl and the Pussycat” to Cinderella.

The U.S. Botanic Garden show runs Nov. 26-Jan. 10. The garden conservatory is free and open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in December).

The New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show features a model of the original Pennsylvania Station, a McKim, Mead and White building that was demolished in 1964. Its destruction is still mourned by preservationists, and is often cited as having helped inspire the modern-day movement to save historic and architecturally significant buildings. The show also includes miniatures of the original Yankee stadium, Hudson River mansions and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections at the New York Botanical Garden, said the show typically attracts 160,000 visitors. It started in 1991 with a dozen buildings, now has more than 140 structures, and has become a tradition for many families.

The managers of Nanluoguxiang, one of Beijing’s most popular streets with a 742-year history, plan to restrict the number of bars and cafes in the popular tourist precinct.

Yu Yongjun, vice-director of the municipal government’s Jiaodaokou office in charge of the street, said it wants to work with rich entertainment companies to turn the street in an area promoting popular culture.

“All businesses in Nanluoguxiang contribute a total of no more than 500,000 yuan in tax every year,” Yu said.

“There are more than 120 shops registered in this area, but they are all family businesses. To play up the cultural aspect of the area, we would prefer to cooperate with entertainment companies and performance theaters with a strong cultural background.”

“We will use a total of 13 million yuan to develop the quality and diversity of culture represented by the street by 2011,” he said.

The street is a popular destination for Chinese and foreign visitors for its local flavor and traditional Beijing architecture. Many artist and performers are also drawn to the area because of its proximity to creative institutions, such as the Central Academy of Drama.

Yu said the street once housed construction businesses, and that printing stores, restaurants and pubs opened from 2006 onwards.

However, Nanluoguxiang store owners were concerned about the changes.

“The rent for a 30-sq-m shop was 1,000 yuan per month back in 2005, but now I have to pay more than 10,000 yuan. The rent has been raised by 10 times, which makes my business tougher,” said Yin Qi, owner of Chinese painting shop Color Together.

In addition, Yin was concerned about the taste of new customers and the future of his store if local authority used the street to promote popular culture.

“There are more visitors coming to my shop now, but fewer of them can understand my products than before. The increase of customers doesn’t bring in any new buyers,” he said.

“I mainly relay on my regular customers to maintain my business, and I am worried that I could even lose them if Nanluoguxiang changes to a so-called culture featured street without the traditional Chinese art elements.”

Customers were also concerned that further development would cost them more money and that the street would lose its local charm.

“I have seen it become more commercialized since I started hanging out with friends here about five years ago,” Yoewi, a 25-year-old visitor from Holland said.

MADRID – A Swiss adventurer hoping to become the first person to fly between continents with a jet engine strapped to his back crashed into the sea on Wednesday while trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar.

Yves Rossy, who successfully jetted across the English Channel in 2008 using his engine and solo wing, ran into trouble shortly after he was launched from a light aeroplane above the Moroccan coast in a bid to reach Spain, his support team said.

Video provided by the team showed the 50-year-old initially soaring though clouds before cutting to images of him bobbing near his parachute in the sea and finally being hoisted into a helicopter.

The former military pilot was not hurt, a member of his Geneva-based press team said.

Rossy had hoped to fly about 40 km (25 miles) to Atlanterra in southern Spain at a cruising speed of about 220 km/h (130 mp/h), strapped beneath a wing carrying 30 liters of kerosene as fuel.

Family members of a couple killed by a lightning strike on the Great Wall will appeal a court ruling that absolved local villagers of responsibility.

Newly weds Wei Junwei, who worked at the State Intellectual Property Office, and Peking University PhD candidate Chen Yunyun died after being struck during a storm on the Jiankou Great Wall in Huairou district on Jun 13.

The pair was on a day trip with three colleagues and each of the five spent 20 yuan to enter an eco-tourism park to access a restricted section of the wall, which lies 1 km to the west.

The couple’s family members sued the eco-tourism park and the village committee which controls the park for negligence and asked 600,000 yuan in compensation.

However, the Huairou district court rejected their request yesterday.

“There is a certain management fault existing in the village committee and eco-tourism park, but the couple’s death was not directly caused by the management,” the court said.

Chen’s father, Chen Sijun, told METRO that the family would appeal to the Beijing No 1 Intermediate Court.

“The judgment is unfair, and the Jiankou village committee and the eco-tourism park are operating the Great Wall for profit,” Chen said.

He said the village committee and the eco-tourism park operated the Jiankou Great Wall as a business and it should be responsible for safety of tourists, including the installation of lightning rods and road maintenance.

Chen Yujiang, head of Xizhazi village committee, said they were sympathetic, but were not responsible for the accident.

Chen said the Great Wall is a national monument owned by the central government and it is impossible for a village to manage.

Jiankou Great Wall is between Yanxi town and Bohai town. Bohai town manages the west side of the Great Wall and Yanxi town, where the Xizhazi village is located, manages the east side.

However, the couple died on the west side of the wall, so it fell under the jurisdiction of Bohai town.

Chen said that although the eco-tourism park is open to tourists, the Jiankou Great Wall is a national cultural relic, and tourists are not allowed to go there.

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After the world was wowed by the National Day parade in Tian’anmen Square, young people in Beijing came up with the idea of “square fashion”, which combines the latest trends and functionalism.

Local fashion company Eve de Uomo was in charge of all 10,000 costumes in the parade. Chairperson Xia Hua says square fashion takes the stylish and useful elements in costumes at the parade, and has rearranged them into a new line.
Xia says the most important feature of square fashion is function. There were thousands of children who had to stay in the square for more than 20 hours, holding flowers and banners. Xia’s team created a pair of trousers with seven pockets.

“Children could put all they needed during the day in seven pockets, saving them a lot of trouble,” Xia says. “This will certainly become in vogue next season.”

Currently, adults can also find these slim-cut seven-pocket pants from the men’s brand Notting Hill. The brand copied the style of the pants children wore in the square.

Costumes of the female soldiers’ marching squad also influenced women’s wear this winter. Curved cap peaks and white berets are now seen in the latest collections of H&M, Zara and Mango. Pink and white are popular this season, because they reprise the suit-like pink outfits, with white inner shirts, belts and boots.

“These light colors deliver feminine beauty well. Pink and white are ladies’ colors,” Xia says.

Other square fashion trends are Mao-suits and red-star dcor on dresses. Though the style is traditionally Chinese, it can be mixed-and-matched in a modern way.

Slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, according to studies released Wednesday and published in a special issue of The Lancet British medical journal.

Global and U.S. health officials unveiled the results as they pushed for health issues to take a more prominent role at upcoming climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. Also on Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced that he would go to Copenhagen at the start of international climate talks. US health officials said the timing was not planned.

“Relying on fossil fuels leads to unhealthy lifestyles, increasing our chances for getting sick and in some cases takes years from our lives,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a telecast briefing from her home state of Kansas. “As greenhouse gas emissions go down, so do deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. This is not a small effect.”

Sebelius, British health officials, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the head of the World Health Organization all took part in briefings based in Washington and London.

The journal Lancet took an advocacy role in commissioning the studies and timing their release before the Copenhagen summit, but the science was not affected by the intent, said journal editor Dr. Richard Horton.

Instead of looking at the health ills caused by future global warming, as past studies have done, this research looks at the immediate benefits of doing something about the problem, said Linda Birnbaum, director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. That agency helped fund the studies along with the Wellcome Trust and several other international public health groups.

The calculations of lives saved were based on computer models that looked at pollution-caused illnesses in certain cities. The figures are also based on the world making dramatic changes in daily life that may at first seem too hard and costly to do, researchers conceded.

Some possible benefits seemed highly speculative, the researchers conceded, based on people driving less and walking and cycling more. Other proposals studied were more concrete and achievable, such as eliminating cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal and other polluting fuels in the developing world.

And cutting carbon dioxide emissions also makes the air cleaner, reducing lung damage for millions of people, doctors said.

“Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change,” said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The calculations are based on proposals that would cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050. To accomplish that, industrialized countries have to cut emissions by 83 percent. Obama’s proposal, also unveiled Wednesday with his Copenhagen announcement, is in sync with that.

Wilkinson said the individual studies came up with numbers of premature deaths prevented or extra years of life added for certain locales.

For example, switching to low-polluting cars in London and Delhi, India, would save 160 lost years of life in London and nearly 1,700 in Delhi for every million residents, one study found. But if people also drove less and walked or biked more, those extra saved years would soar to more than 7,300 years in London and 12,500 years in Delhi because of less heart disease.

Outside scientists praised the studies and said the research was sound.

“The science is really excellent; the modeling is quite good,” said Dr. Paul Epstein of the Harvard School of Medicine’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. “It really takes the whole field a step farther.”

SINGAPORE – Fresh from a makeover, luxury leather goods and clothing label Bally is out to woo fashionable Asians, but not at the expense of European and American customers who have been harder hit by the downturn.

Bally, founded as a family-owned business in Switzerland in 1851 and now part of the Labelux luxury brand group, is the latest in a long line of high-end retailers to boost their presence in Asia, a bright spot amid the gloom of the past year.

Luxury goods have largely fallen out of favor in Europe and the United States, but as many Asian economies were not as badly affected, the appetite here remains relatively healthy.

Newly appointed CEO Berndt Hauptkorn said Bally, like other retailers, would only increase their stake in Asian markets, but added that did not mean his company would neglect other so-called flagship destinations in its bid to build the brand.

“It’s very important for us to position ourselves as a luxury company,” Hauptkorn told Reuters in Singapore, where he was opening Bally’s largest store in Asia.

“The Asian market is very important for us, but while other companies solely focusing on, say, China, we are also focusing on key markets in Europe and flagship locations worldwide, despite the economic situation. That’s what long-term investors do.”

Asia currently contributes 35 percent of Bally’s business, and is home to 61 of its 180 self-branded stores.

Opening a store in Singapore, home to the worlds’ highest density of millionaires and which is positioning itself as a center for luxury living, make sense for a brand raising its profile, but Bally has also recently opened shops in Rome, Milan and New York.

A Las Vegas store will open later this month and one in Vienna in 2010.

“Our customers are sophisticated, fluid, worldwide travelers and as part of our need to refresh the brand, we have to be in locations that are seen as references for others. It’s good image-building,” Hauptkorn said.

Some studies have shown that up to 40 percent of luxury goods purchases in Europe in the past year were done by Asian visitors.

And in a bid to distinguish itself from the legions of luxury goods competing for diminishing resources, Hauptkorn said Bally would leverage its heritage — the brand turns 160 in two years time — to appeal to consumers in a contemporary way.

“Bally is a brand very well known for its competence, but not many people know it was was involved in the production of the shoe for the moon landing. Himalayan expeditions of the 1940s wore Bally shoes,” he said.

“We plan to pick stories from our past and make them relevant to our customers today, as people like to associate something exciting with products. We want to make sure we have merchandise that also has something to say.”

In select Asian stores, there are limited edition bags emblazoned with a tiger motif, the horoscope animal of the coming Chinese new year. In Singapore, limited edition, intricate men’s and women’s shoes reproduced from 1930s designs are on offer.