News stories by Edgardo Ayala, page 14

El Salvador is one of the most violent countries in the world, with one of the highest murder rates. But the authorities cannot agree on whether or not most of the killings should be laid at the door of the youth gangs known as 'maras'.

Two decades after the signing of the Peace Accords, together with the social commitments they contained, El Salvador's levels of poverty and violence are so high that academic and social leaders are proposing new accords to overcome the crisis.

Sitting in the shade under a tree at a careful distance, Francisco Sosa watches his son prepare the land for planting by spraying the weeds with an herbicide from a tank carried on his back.

It was the first time that a Salvadoran judge was holding a hearing to decide whether the case of Roque Dalton, a poet murdered 36 years ago, should go to trial. But the hopes of his family were dashed.

Some 100 rural women in El Salvador demanded that the government halt mining and hydroelectric projects that are harming their communities and establish specific programmes with a gender perspective for combating climate change.

In a country where hard-line policies have failed to make a dent in soaring levels of violent crime, Salesian priest José María Moratalla has produced good results by offering educational and vocational opportunities to juvenile offenders and young people at risk of falling into crime.

A bill for protection, recovery and use of water resources in El Salvador, drafted by a platform of about 100 social, religious and academic organisations, has been bogged down in parliament for the past five years in spite of the country's water crisis.

Eric Saúl Majano stares blankly up at the ceiling in the government office in the Salvadoran capital that he is visiting to seek a disability pension, since he has been unable to work since 2002 due to schizophrenia. But achieving his goal will not be easy.

The guavas grown by Mariana Rosales are big and bright green, and the best thing about them, she says proudly, is that she does not spend a single cent on fertilisers to produce them — something extremely rare in a country like El Salvador.

Lack of budget resources and political will, according to activists, is preventing fulfilment of the provisions of El Salvador's long-awaited new law for the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents.