PERU: Fighting Hunger with Native Crops
By Milagros Salazar
PAUCARÁ, Peru - As if he were showing off a treasure, Dionicio Sarmiento holds up his seed potatoes with a smile. "Look how nice they are, all ready to plant. It'll be a good harvest," says the peasant farmer from Huancavelica, Peru's poorest province, where most of the population depends on subsistence farming.
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RIGHTS-MEXICO: State Held Responsible for Three Juárez Killings
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - The families of three young women murdered in Ciudad Juárez, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua on the border with the United States, had to wait eight years for justice, which they finally obtained through the inter-American system.
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CHILE: Mapuche Detainees Say They Were Framed
By Daniela Estrada
TEMUCO, Chile - "This lie has got to end," said a sobbing Luisa Marilef, a 55-year-old Mapuche woman who says her son's arrest and prosecution under Chile's anti-terrorism law was part of a set-up by the police and prosecutors.
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CLIMATE CHANGE-MEXICO: A Policy of Pretence
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - Although it is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Brazil, and will be hosting next year's United Nations climate meeting, Mexico is heading to the Cophenhagen summit practically empty-handed.
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BIODIVERSITY: Plants Finally Get DNA Barcodes
By Stephen Leahy*
MÉRIDA, Mexico - Advances made in genetic profiling could be used to fight illegal timber trading, provide authentication of herbal medicines and map entire food chains, according to experts at a conference of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.
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CLIMATE CHANGE-URUGUAY: Adaptation Is the Name of the Game
By Raúl Pierri
MONTEVIDEO - Uruguay must start focusing on efforts against global warming, and work in a coordinated manner with its South American neighbours, said one of the scientists consulted for the First Regional Report on Climate Change produced by Tierramérica, which was released Thursday.
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NICARAGUA: Despite Efforts, Corruption Still a Problem
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA - Two national surveys and the latest report on perceptions of corruption by Transparency International support the view that a culture of graft continues to undermine the foundations of Nicaraguan society, in spite of efforts to fight the problem in the last few years.
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Q&A: Impact of Crisis in Latin America Less Severe than in the Past
By Darío Montero interviews MARTÍN HOPENHAYN, ECLAC's social development director
GUATEMALA CITY - Thanks to effective social policies and measures that have strengthened the economy, most of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have managed to weather the impact of the global recession, although poverty has risen slightly for the first time since 2002.
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CUBA: Dissidents' Plight Unchanged Under Raul, Charges HRW
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - While Cuban President Raul Castro has implemented some economic and administrative reforms, his three-year-old government has continued to isolate and persecute political dissidents, according to a major new report released here Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
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Q&A: "If You Find Yourself in a Minefield, Shout for Help"
By Constanza Vieira interviews ANDRÉS, a teenager in a war zone
CALOTO, Colombia - Putting on a white t-shirt or wearing olive-green pants can be life-or-death decisions in the conflict zone in the steep Andes mountains in western Colombia where 14-year-old Andrés lives and attends eighth grade.
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