News stories by Danilo Valladares, page 8

'Now I get supplies to feed my children, and I have a family garden where I grow carrots, onions and beets,' Marta Quinilla, a native of Uspantán, an area northwest of the Guatemalan capital that was devastated by the 36-year civil war, says cheerfully.

The countries of Central America should adopt community policing as a strategy to fight organised crime, say experts in the region ahead of a key summit on security to be held Jun. 22-23 in the Guatemalan capital.

Guatemala will become a hub of connection and logistics for world trade when a highway-rail cargo transport corridor linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is completed.

'A year ago the river burst its banks; my house was ruined, I lost everything and I'm still waiting for help,' Candelaria Peneleu told IPS from her modest home in Palín in the southern province of Escuintla, an area of Guatemala that was devastated last year by tropical storm Agatha.

The controversial acquittal of former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo of embezzlement charges was a new frustration for anti-corruption groups who are pushing for reforms to fight impunity in a country where 98 percent of crimes go unsolved.

'She got a divorce because of her ambition and love of money,' shopkeeper Dulce Álvarez told IPS, about Guatemalan former First Lady Sandra Torres' decision to end her marriage in order to sidestep the legal bar to the president's family members running for the presidency.

The violence and the state of siege in the northern Guatemalan province of Petén, following the massacre and decapitation of 27 farm labourers, has been building up for years.

Small and medium-sized companies in Central America are the targets of foreign development aid programmes aimed at fighting the region's high poverty levels.

Poverty, lack of access to education and taboos about sexuality have hampered campaigns for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS among indigenous communities in Guatemala. These constraints have led to the development of new ways of communicating vital information, like theatre.

'If we could export our products, it would open up a lot of possibilities for us, but we don't have any direct support from the government, or training or credit facilities,' said Efraín Patzán, a small-scale furniture maker in the central Guatemalan town of San Juan Sacatepéquez.