News stories by Danilo Valladares, page 3

'Midwives in Guatemala attend to women during pregnancy, the birth and the post-partum period. They give the women warmth and support, because they speak the same language and belong to the same culture,' said Silvia Xinico with the Network of Organisations of Indigenous Women for Reproductive Health.

'People haven’t been coming in for the past month or so because they are afraid again, like during war-time,' complained Juan Gaspar, a shopkeeper in the northwestern Guatemalan town of Santa Cruz Barillas, where a fierce battle is raging between locals opposed to a hydropower dam and the security forces.

Overwhelmed by climate change, worried about speculation in international prices and still hurting from the effects of the crisis in 2000, coffee growers in Guatemala are trying in various ways to recover the production levels they achieved 12 years ago.

Rightwing President Otto Pérez Molina is keeping his promise to take a hard line on soaring crime in Guatemala, but his government is neglecting prevention measures. Analysts warn the strategy, along with upcoming legal reforms, may jeopardise human rights.

The economic crisis plaguing many countries in the European Union has forced Central America to look at preventive measures to mitigate the effects in this region, which could include a decline in tourism, migrant remittances, exports and investment.

'It’s very hard for them to put food on the table, but they are very noble people,' Diego Orozco, one of the thousands of young urban Guatemalans who spent last weekend with a poor rural family, told IPS.

'We're making a three-dimensional educational video game. The idea is to create virtual worlds where children can explore and interact with other people and objects,' said Carlos Villagrán, seated at a computer in the Campus Tecnológico in the Guatemalan capital.

Teenage pregnancies are on the rise in Guatemala, along with the drop-out rate in schools, family breakdown and many other related social ills.

The lack of adequate management of electronic waste in Guatemala is posing a serious threat to the environment and health, as demand for electronic devices has soared to the point that there are more cell phones than people.

'We want land where we can live and grow food to feed ourselves,' said Pedro Ichich, one of several thousand indigenous farmers who marched to the Guatemalan capital to demand solutions to the ageold conflict over land.