News stories by Marcela Valente, page 20

Agricultural analysts are predicting a strong grain harvest for Argentina, where soy, maize and wheat are among the engines driving the national economy. But farmers are more circumspect as they plant this year's crops in the southern hemisphere spring season.

The death of former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) Wednesday brought to an end the political partnership he formed with his wife, President Cristina Fernández. Now all eyes are on her.

Wednesday is census day in Argentina, and an army of census-takers will be knocking on doors to collect data on, among other things, the number of blacks and indigenous people, and same-sex couples, in the country. But it is happening under a cloud of controversy and distrust.

Neither hurricanes nor floods, nor the devastating January earthquake or Haiti's chronic political instability managed to wipe out the organic gardening initiative underway in that country since 2005. The seed was planted in Argentina twenty years ago.

Poor indigenous and peasant farmers who have developed initiatives to gain access to land have been invited to take part in a global competition that will award prizes for innovative, effective approaches to the struggle for property rights.

An exchange programme was launched this week for university students in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, to foster a broader sense of belonging to South America's Mercosur bloc.

'My name is Maximiliano Muñoz. I'm 23 and I'm studying engineering,' says the young man smiling into the camera. The television spot is part of an awareness-raising campaign in Argentina on the rights of people born prematurely.

With the 2009 coup d'etat in Honduras still a fresh memory, the presidents of the Unasur bloc gathered as quickly as they could to vigorously condemn Thursday's attempted coup in Ecuador and warn that they would not tolerate any such assault on democracy in the region.

Environmental organisations in Argentina are celebrating the passage of a law restricting the extraction of minerals, oil and gas near glaciers, in order to protect these vast freshwater reserves.

Heartened by the passage of a same-sex marriage law in Argentina, women's organisations in this South American country stepped up their demands for the legalisation of abortion, on the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean.