HAVANA, Cuba — A unilateral ceasefire declared by the Marxist FARC rebels at the start of peace talks with the Colombian government ended on Sunday after the government refused to join the truce, the group said.

"With pain in my heart, we have to admit that we return to the stage of war that nobody in this country (Colombia) wants," FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez told reporters before going into the latest session of the talks aimed at ending Colombia's long, bloody conflict.

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The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, declared the ceasefire when the talks began on November 19 in Havana, and gave the government two months to also lay down its arms.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the ceasefire from the beginning, saying the government would maintain the military pressure to keep FARC at the negotiating table.

Colombian officials have called the ceasefire a sham to gain international favor and accused the rebels of continuing their attacks.

Government forces have continued to attack and kill the rebels in their remote strongholds in the jungles and mountains of Colombia. They say the rebels may be planning a new offensive.

Marquez did not disclose their plans, but urged Santos to reconsider the decision not to lay down arms.

The two sides have been fighting since the formation of the FARC as a communist agrarian movement in 1964 in what is now Latin America's longest-running insurgency and a relic of the Cold War.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict, which the FARC says is aimed at ending Colombia's long history of social inequality and the concentration of land and wealth in relatively few hands.

Officials say the FARC has been weakened by a U.S.-backed, 10-year-long government offensive.

But the group still has an estimated 9,000 fighters capable of continuing to inflict damage on Colombia's infrastructure and slow the government's plans to increase foreign investment in mining and oil operations.

The agenda for the talks calls for the two sides to address a number of difficult issues, starting with rural development.

In recent days, they have publicly disagreed about a sweeping land redistribution proposal by the FARC to hand over 25 million hectares (62 million acres), or more than 20 percent of the country's land, to the poor.

Government lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle this week called for a quicker pace to the talks, which Santos has said he wants ended by November. 

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Honduras' president on Friday accused a group led by a powerful publishing magnate of plotting to repeat "the crisis of 2009," when his predecessor, Manuel Zelaya, was whisked out of the country at gunpoint in a civilian coup.  

President Porfirio Lobo, speaking at a military event, did not use the word coup, but referred several times to the June 2009 incident that caused a political and economic crisis in this Central American country that in many ways has still not been resolved.  

Both drug trafficking and killing have risen since then in Honduras, where two-thirds of the 8.2 million people live in poverty. With a homicide rate of 91 per 100,000 residents, it is often called the most violent country in the world.

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Lobo said he knows who is meeting and how, though he did not say why they were conspiring or whether they were planning to overthrow his government. Lobo has accused groups in the past of plotting against him without providing details.  

"What they're doing is a danger to the country," he said. "These citizens have not learned. We had a crisis in 2009 and they want to repeat it in 2012."

Gen. Rene Osorio, chief of the armed forces, appeared with Lobo, saying he supports the president. He said he has provided Lobo with intelligence reports but said they are confidential.

"In the armed forces, no one is thinking about a coup d'etat," Osorio said. "We will continue to inform the president with investigation and intelligence to give him our support."

In 2009, the populist-leaning Zelaya was seized at gunpoint by soldiers and flown out of the country in a coup that had wide support among the political elites, including members of Zelaya's own political party.

Zelaya, who lived in exile but has since returned and formed his own political party, expressed support for Lobo on Friday.

"In Honduras, we have a dictatorship by the oligarchy," he said.

A rich landowner like Lobo, Zelaya angered the business elite that had run Honduras for decades with a campaign to rewrite the constitution, promising the poor they would get a voice in shaping the future of the country. He also closely aligned himself with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Zelaya was deposed when he ignored a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum on his grandiose plan.

Lobo was democratically elected in a previously scheduled election later that year and took office in January 2010.

He has been at odds with the same Supreme Court that supported Zelaya's ouster. The court shot down Lobo's plans to build private cities as a means of attracting investment and economic development. The Supreme Court next week is also expected to reject Lobo's plan to clean up the corrupt Honduran national police, which are often involved in killings and organized crime.  

Lobo said the leader of the conspiracy is Jorge Canahuati, owner of Grupo Opsa, which publishes El Heraldo and La Prensa, the country's two largest daily newspapers.

Canahuati denied any involvement in a statement published on his newspapers' websites. It called Lobo's comments reckless, unfounded and intimidating and said they are "endangering freedom of expression."

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WASHINGTON -- Democratic governance declined throughout the world in 2011, showing that gains made in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring are very fragile and in its chaotic aftermath leaders may slip back into authoritarian rule, a U.S. watchdog group said Monday.

Only Tunisia has improved markedly its overall governance score among the Middle East and North African countries that were surveyed in the latest "Countries at the Crossroads" report published by Freedom House. Bahrain slipped backward and Egypt edged up only slightly.

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Across the world, declines in the quality of governance far exceeded improvements, led by a worsening of government accountability and the rule of law in civil and criminal matters, the U.S. research group said.

'Slip back' to authoritarianism?
The deterioration raises an alarm for pro-democracy advocates who had hoped that the overthrow of brutal authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt marked a dramatic breakthrough, said Vanessa Tucker, project director.

"It is unclear whether the popular dismissal of the old models of authoritarianism will translate into enduring public support for novice representative government and contentious institutional reforms," she said.

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"There are limits to citizens' patience with respect to political instability, economic disruption and physical insecurity, and the desire to return to a less chaotic environment may allow the leaders to slip back into the familiar habits of authoritarian rule," she said.

Tucker also said the recent unrest in many Muslim countries triggered by an anti-Islam video demonstrated the weakness of governments in many parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

Rights group blasts 'repressive' crackdown in Tunisia, birthplace of Arab Spring

"After decades of corrupt and repressive rule, citizens in these states are facing brutal and ineffective security forces, habitually divisive and confrontational politics, and a lack of productive avenues through which to lodge their grievances and assert their rights," she said in a statement.

The Freedom House measure of governance is used widely by development groups in helping them decide whether a government can use foreign assistance effectively. The report covers the period from April 2009 to December 2011.

Four criteria are used to assess the 72 countries surveyed in Countries at the Crossroads: accountability and public voice; civil liberties; rule of law; and anti-corruption and transparency. Half of the countries are updated each year, while Egypt and Tunisia were surveyed for both of the past two years.

Freedom House says a country score of five out of a total of seven is the minimum standard for effective democratic governance, which it views as essential to an open, just and prosperous society.

Tunisia sees gains
In the latest report, Tunisia improved in all categories led by a sharp rise in accountability and public voice, pushing its overall country ranking to 4.11 from around 2.36 before the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. One area of concern the report flagged was women's rights, saying Islamist political parties have stoked fears of a rollback in existing rights.

While it uses monitors and experts on the ground and an advisory board, such rankings can be controversial and there have been accusations of imposing subjective and Western viewpoints.

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Accountability and public voice also rose in Egypt after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, but other measures were flat leading to only a small rise to 2.25 from 1.98 the prior year, despite open elections.

Restrictions on the media, hostility to non-governmental organizations and efforts to restrain women's political activity through "virginity checks" by the military were cited as areas of concern.

Bahrain, once seen as one of the more developed countries in the region, saw its score decline across the board, pulling its country average down to 2.03, the level of pre-uprising Syria, from a recent peak of 3.27 in 2004.

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Other findings in the report were:

• Latin America saw increases in violence and organized crime hurting scoring in the countries surveyed there. The trend included high rates of violence against journalists in Mexico and Honduras, and growing interference by organized crime in the electoral process in Guatemala and Mexico.

• Asia suffered major setbacks in the face of power grabs by the executive branch and ruling parties, particularly in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. 
• Freedom of expression was also constricted as the Indonesian and Cambodian governments and others cracked down on the media.
• South Africa suffered score declines from the increasing dominance of the ruling African National Congress and the government's efforts to limit media freedom. 
• Electoral abuses in Malawi and Uganda, in addition to growing corruption in Tanzania, were also responsible for significant score drops in African countries assessed in the latest report.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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CARTAGENA, Colombia -- Unprecedented Latin American opposition to U.S. sanctions on communist Cuba left President Barack Obama isolated at the Summit of the Americas on Sunday and illustrated Washington's waning influence in the region.

In contrast to the rock-star status he enjoyed at the 2009 summit in Trinidad and Tobago shortly after taking office, Obama has had a bruising time at the two-day meeting in Colombia of some 30 heads of state from across the Americas. 

Eleven Secret Service agents and five military personnel were caught in an embarrassing prostitution scandal, Brazil and others have bashed Obama over U.S. monetary policy, and he has been on the defensive over calls to legalize drugs.

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Thanks to the U.S. and Canadian line on Cuba, the heads of state were unable to produce a final declaration as the summit fizzled out on Sunday.

"There was no declaration because there was no consensus," said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who hosted the summit.

"That is not a failure, on the contrary," he said, trying to spin the outcome and frank exchange of different views as a sign of strength.

At a press conference with Santos, Obama responded to a question about Cuba by saying that while his administration has eased travel by Cuban Americans to Cuba, the Cuban government had not taken steps toward democracy and "has not yet observed basic human rights."

The prostitution saga, above all, was a major blow to the prestige of Obama's Secret Service bodyguards and turned into the unexpected talk of the town in the historic city of Cartagena.

For the first time, conservative U.S-allied nations like Colombia are throwing their weight behind the traditional demand of leftist governments that Cuba be in the next meeting of the Organization of American States.

"The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, looking the other way, have been ineffective," Santos said.

A major U.S. ally in the region who has relied on Washington for financial and military help to fight guerrillas and drug traffickers, Santos has become vocal over Cuba despite his strong ideological differences with Havana.

In an ironic twist, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went dancing after midnight on Sunday at a Cartagena bar called "Cafe Havana" where Cuban music is played.

Havana was kicked out of the OAS a few years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, and has been excluded from its summits due to opposition from the United States and Canada. Latin Americans also oppose Washington's trade embargo on the island.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who has insisted Washington recognize its claim to the Falkland Islands controlled by Britain, left the summit on Sunday morning, before its official closure.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa boycotted the meeting over Cuba, and fellow leftist Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua also stayed at home. The leftist ALBA bloc of nations - including Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and some Caribbean nations - said they will not attend future summits without Cuba's presence.

"It's not a favor anyone would be doing to Cuba. It's a right they've had taken away from them," Ortega said from Managua. "At this meeting in Cartagena, I think it's time for the U.S. government, all President Obama's advisers, to listen to all the Latin American nations."

Though there were widespread hopes for a rapprochement with Cuba under Obama when he took office, Washington has done little beyond ease some travel restrictions, saying democratic changes must come on the island before any further steps can be taken.

Obama has not spoken of Cuba in Colombia, though he did complain that Cold War-era issues, some dating from before his birth, were hindering perspectives on regional integration.

"Sometimes I feel as if in some of these discussions, or at least the press reports, we're caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yankees and the Cold War, and this and that and the other," the 50-year-old Obama said.

"That's not the world we live in today."

The controversy at the summit added to strain on the Washington-dominated system of hemispheric diplomacy that was built around the OAS but is struggling to evolve with changes in the region. 

Perceived U.S. neglect of Latin America has allowed China to move strongly into the region and become the leading trade partner of Brazil and various other nations.

Regional economic powerhouse Brazil has led criticism at the summit of U.S. and other rich nations' expansionist monetary policy that is sending a flood of funds into developing nations, forcing up local currencies and hurting competitiveness.

Cheering the mood a bit, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement will come into force in the middle of May.

With a presidential election looming, Obama has portrayed his visit to the summit as a way to generate jobs at home by boosting trade with the region.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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HAVANA -- No surprise to anyone that we're hearing tough words during the Latin American tour of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Swinging through Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador, the Iranian leader seems to be at home among America’s united enemies — and the left leaders equally comfortable with him.

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First and foremost, Ahmadinejad seems to be on his tour to defend his country’s nuclear program. While Iran claims that the nation’s nuclear program is solely for energy and other peaceful purposes, the United States and Western allies accuse Tehran of secretly building nuclear weapons.

During Monday’s stop in Caracas, Ahmadinejad addressed the issue head on and charged the Obama administration with making unjust threats. 

"They say we're making a bomb. ... Everyone knows that those words ... are a joke, something to laugh at." Ahmadinejad claims Washington is just "afraid" of Iran’s development.

For his part, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Washington of demonizing Iran and trumping up false claims about the nuclear issue "like they used the excuse of weapons of mass destruction to do what they did in Iraq."

Chavez even joked how Ahmadinejad’s tour was making America nervous: "When we devils get together ... it's like they go crazy," Chavez said.

From Caracas, Ahmadinejad headed to Managua for the inauguration of Daniel Ortega to another term. He called Ortega his "brother president" while Ortega praised Ahmadinejad for his "peace" efforts. Once again, Ahmadinejad dismissed the accusations about Iran's nuclear program.

Wednesday morning, Ahmadinejad landed in Havana.

In each country so far, Ahmadinejad secured the backing for his controversial nuclear program. Don’t expect less from the Cubans.

Fidel Castro is on the record defending Iran's right to develop nuclear energy and ridiculing the Obama administration for claiming that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Receiving an honorary doctorate in political science from Havana University, Ahmadinejad spent almost his entire acceptance speech accusing the West of being the world's "bully." The wars in the Middle East, he charged, have been all about winning elections in the West and about controlling oil reserves.

Ahmadinejad was also expected to meet with the Castro brothers during his one-day visit. Again, we should expect to hear more of the same given that the two countries see eye to eye, especially when it comes to the United States. Since the start of Iran’s nuclear program, Havana has unflaggingly defended Tehran's right to develop nuclear technology while openly ridiculing the Obama administration for its claim that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

And for Iran's part, the Islamic nation has repeatedly condemned the U.S. economic embargo against the island nation.

But, for as much as this trip is about criticizing U.S. policies, it also seems to have a practical edge to it. Ahmadinejad is talking up the importance of trade in Latin America.

In Venezuela, Iran has already invested in the construction industry along with factories producing farm machinery, trucks and food products.

Cuban-Iran economic ties are fairly strong too.

Back in 2003, the two countries agreed to support mutual foreign investment and expand bilateral trade. Since then, Iran has extended 200 million in euro credit to the island, which the island has used primarily to upgrade its rail system. There is discussion to increase that line of credit to 500 million euros. Cuba is helping to build a plant in Iran that produces vaccines and medicines. The bilateral trade is said to be as much as 30 million euros a year.

From here, the Iranian leader heads to Ecuador as the last stop on his whirlwind tour.

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Venezuela's consul general in Miami was ordered Sunday to leave the United States after allegations surfaced that she discussed possible cyber-attacks on U.S. soil.

The State Department said it had declared the diplomat, Livia Acosta Noguera, persona non grata and given her until Tuesday to leave the country.

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State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Venezuelan government was notified of the decision on Friday, giving her 72 hours to depart under standard diplomatic procedure. There was no immediate reaction from the Venezuelan government.

Toner would not discuss the reason for the expulsion, but said it was done in accordance with Article 23 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. That article does not require the expelling state to explain its decision.

The move follows an FBI investigation into allegations contained in a documentary aired by the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision last month.

According to the documentary, "The Iranian threat," Acosta discussed a possible cyber-attack against the U.S. government when she was previously assigned as a diplomat in the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico.

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The documentary was based on recordings of conversations with her and other officials, and also alleged that Cuban and Iranian diplomatic missions were involved.

Citing audio and video obtained by the students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Univision said Acosta was seeking information about the servers of nuclear power plants in the U.S.

After the documentary aired, the State Department said the allegations were "very disturbing" and officials said the FBI had opened an investigation into the matter.

The New York Times reported that there was no indication American officials had been able to substantiate the allegations aired by Univision.

However, it said, the decision to expel the diplomat coincided with the Obama administration's expression of disapproval for Venezuela's willingness to maintain friendly relations with Iran.

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Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, expelled the American ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick D. Duddy, in September 2008, charging that the United States was backing a group of military officers plotting a coup against him.

In response, the United States expelled the Venezuelan ambassador.

Despite the breakdown in diplomatic relations, the two countries continue to have deep economic ties. Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, the NYT said.

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The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.