Shots were fired near the presidential palace in Honduras where protests erupted after the army ousted and exiled Manuel Zelaya, the leftist president, yesterday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War.

At dawn troops woke Mr Zelaya in his pyjamas and flew him out of the country, ending a bitter power struggle with the military. The National Congress swiftly voted in a new leader.

Later hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters, some masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades of chain link fences and billboards in the centre of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and blocked roads to the presidential palace.

Reuters reported that shots had been heard outside the palace shortly after a lorry arrived at the protest, although it was not clear who had fired them. An ambulance arrived, but one witness said that the shots had been fired in the air and there were no initial reports of injuries.

When Mr Zelaya arrived in Costa Rica, he insisted that he remained president, but a few hours later Congress appointed Roberto Micheletti, the parliamentary speaker, as the country's new leader.

Mr Micheletti then ordered a 48-hour curfew after denying that there had been a coup d'etat on the deposed President Zelaya. "A curfew begins today and ends on Tuesday," he said at his first press conference as worldwide condemnation of the overthrow, led by the United States, continued.

A US State Department official said: "We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other."

Mr Micheletti, a member of Mr Zelaya's Liberal Party, insisted after being sworn in by Congress that he "came to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws."

The first such major upheaval in several decades in the impoverished country was triggered by a tense political stand-off between Mr Zelaya and the country's military and legal institutions over his attempt to secure a second term.

"I will never give up since I was elected the president by the people," Mr Zelaya said in San Jose. He accused Honduran troops of kidnapping him and denounced what he called a "political conspiracy".

But Congress said that it had voted unanimously to remove him from office for his "apparent misconduct" and for "repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions".

Mr Micheletti was appointed to serve out the rest of the term, which ends in January. New general elections are planned for November 29.

Mr Zelaya, elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005, had planned a vote on Sunday asking Hondurans to sanction a future referendum to allow him to run for re-election in the November polls.

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