News stories by Estrella Gutiérrez

CARACAS, Jul 22 (IPS) - Microfinance is essentially social, but its expansion and evolution towards diversified financial services for those who are excluded from the conventional system has compelled it to develop new codes and practices to reinforce the message that its goal is people - particularly the poor.

CARACAS, Apr 30 (IPS) - Misogyny is the word on the lips of women trade unionists in Latin America when asked what they have had to fight against to win spaces in the leadership bodies of labour unions in the region.

CARACAS, Oct 07 (IPS) - Following the extreme neoliberalism of the Washington Consensus, which gave rise to a lost decade in social terms, Latin America is experimenting more successfully with a home-grown formula: the Brasilia Consensus, which combines the market economy and social inclusion.

CARACAS, Oct 04 (IPS) - Sunday’s elections in Venezuela will determine whether the era of President Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian revolution will continue or come to an end. The result will have an impact not only on this country but on the rest of Latin America.

CARACAS, Oct 03 (IPS) - Whoever wins Venezuela's presidential elections on Sunday Oct. 7 will do so as a result of the idea of social inclusion, which has become dominant in an electorate whose social and political features have changed radically in the last decade.

CARACAS, Oct 02 (IPS) - "We were used to losing, so a group of us said to ourselves: let's lose something here," said Carmen Caravallo, describing the start of a "bankomunal", a self-managed microfinance fund based on investment, in her rural community in eastern Venezuela.

'It changed our lives' is frequently heard from commuters who use Metrocable, the aerial cable car system that connects one of the poor hillside neighbourhoods in the Venezuelan capital with the city’s public transport system.

The digital revolution is turning people into producers, as well as consumers, of media content. But this new reality has yet to be fully assimilated, and journalists face questions and uncertainties about their social role, their duties and also their rights.

'One day more, one day less,' says María Lourdes Afiuni when she says hello or goodbye to her thousands of followers on Twitter. The Venezuelan judge has spent the last eight months in prison, because she decided that a defendant should be released on bail pending trial.

'One day more, one day less,' says María Lourdes Afiuni when she says hello or goodbye to her thousands of followers on Twitter. The Venezuelan judge has spent the last eight months in prison, because she decided that a defendant should be released on bail pending trial.