News stories by Edgardo Ayala, page 3

SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador, Jul 04 (IPS) - Using a few dry sticks as fuel, Margarita Ramos of El Salvador lit the fire in her wood stove and set about frying two fish, occasionally fanning the flame, aware that the smoke she inhaled could affect her health.

SAN SALVADOR, May 22 (IPS) - Chronic water shortages make life increasingly difficult for the more than 10.5 million people who live in the Central American Dry Corridor, an arid strip that covers 35 percent of that region.

SAN SALVADOR, Mar 24 (IPS) - An open hearing in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Beatriz v. El Salvador case is raising hopes that this country and other Latin American nations might overturn or at least mitigate the severe laws that criminalize abortion.

SANTA CATARINA PALOPÓ, Guatemala, Mar 04 (IPS) - Centuries of racism and exclusion suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala continue to weigh heavily, as demonstrated by the denial of the registration of a political party that is promoting the presidential candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera in the upcoming general elections.

SAN SALVADOR, Nov 21 (IPS) - Police raids against gang members in El Salvador, under a state of emergency in which some civil rights have been suspended, have also affected members of the LGBTI community, and everything points to arrests motivated by hatred of their sexual identity.

SUCHITOTO, El Salvador, Nov 11 (IPS) - Several community-run water projects powered by solar energy have improved the quality of life of thousands of rural families in areas that were the scene of heavy fighting during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s.

SUCHITOTO, El Salvador, Nov 03 (IPS) - The need for potable water led several rural settlements in El Salvador, at the end of the 12-year civil war in 1992, to rebuild what was destroyed and to innovate with technologies that at the time seemed unattainable, but which now benefit hundreds of families.

ASUNCIÓN MITA, Guatemala, Sep 21 (IPS) - The majority of the Guatemalan population continues to oppose mining and other extractive projects, in the midst of a scenario of socio-environmental conflict that pits communities defending their natural resources against the interests of multinational corporations.

SAN SALVADOR, Sep 07 (IPS) - A year after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele decided to make El Salvador the first country where bitcoin is legal tender, the experiment has so far failed, as few of the original plan's objectives have been achieved.

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 23 (IPS) - Getting sick is one of the worst fears facing Jorge, a Salvadoran living in the United States, because without access to health insurance or public health programs, he knows he will not be able to afford the high cost of hospital care.