News stories by Daniela Pastrana, page 3

MEXICO CITY, Oct 15 (IPS) - A month after Hurricanes Ingrid and Manuel caused the worst destruction from a natural catastrophe in Mexico in 30 years, another disaster has come to light: hunger in communities that are supposedly served by a rural food supply programme.

MEXICO CITY, Sep 12 (IPS) - On his first day of fourth grade, Efraín found there were no desks or benches in the classroom in his Mexico City school. His parents had to help the teacher haul in furniture from other rooms so the children wouldn't have to start the new school year sitting on the floor.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 13 (IPS) - "We have to understand that information, above all else, is a social service. If we lose sight of that dimension we begin to regulate it as merchandise, but the state has many other obligations, such as to guarantee freedom," said Frank La Rue.

MEXICO CITY, May 06 (IPS) - Radio Totopo was founded in February 2006 in the Pescadores neighbourhood, the oldest and poorest part of the city of Juchitán in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. But the authorities closed it down in late March, even though Congress is debating a constitutional reform that would recognise community radio stations.

MEXICO CITY, Mar 29 (IPS) - Mexico has been a prominent defender of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the battle being waged by some members of the Organisation of American States to curb its authority.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 08 (IPS) - "We will not stop fighting until there is justice for our children," says Araceli Rodríguez, the mother of a young federal police agent in Mexico who disappeared along with seven other people in the western state of Michoacán on Nov. 16, 2009.

MEXICO CITY, Dic 28 (IPS) - Edgar Torres Castillo, 21, has spent two years in the prison of Gómez Palacio, in the Lagunera district between the northern Mexican states of Durango and Coahuila – an arid zone known as one of the most dangerous parts of the country.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 29 (IPS) - Each scarf represents a life cut short. Each stitch, a tear. Each thread, a cry of frustration about death and impunity.

XALAPA, Mexico, Nov 29 (IPS) - Something smells rotten in the state of Veracruz. In Xalapa, the capital of this eastern Mexican state, known as the "Athens of Veracruz" because of its strong cultural tradition, fear is in the air.

TEMACAPULÍN, Mexico, Nov 09 (IPS) - "What do we stand to lose because of the dam? We will lose everything!" said Maria Abigail Agredani, a member of the committee for this indigenous community in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, reporting the damage that will be caused by the hydroelectric complex being built nearby.