News stories by Natalia Ruiz Díaz, page 2

It all started with a warning on the quality of bottled water in Paraguay. But concern has now spread about the extent of pollution of the country's underground water reserves.

Some 100,000 Guaraní people live in the area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge, according to a new map drawn of the indigenous group's ancestral territory, which also highlights the threats, such as expanding soy cultivation, to their natural surroundings.

Freddy Garcete, a 50-year-old painter who works in the construction industry, travelled to Spain in search of better wages two years ago, becoming one of the 500,000 Paraguayans forced to seek work abroad because of the conditions at home.

More and more indigenous women in Paraguay are overcoming sexist resistance in their communities and emerging as leaders within and outside of their villages, fighting for the rights of their people and against discrimination.

After 20 years of fighting for their ancestral lands in Paraguay's northwestern Chaco region, the Xákmok Kásek indigenous community's case has reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Five years after the tragic fire that destroyed the Ycuá Bolaños supermarket in the Paraguayan capital, leaving a death toll of 400 people, the courts at last confirmed the prison sentences of the four principal defendants, although compensation for survivors and victims' families has still not been decided.

Claudia was 13 years old when she came to the capital of Paraguay from her small rural town. Just a few weeks after her arrival she was wandering the streets of downtown Asunción, a victim of sexual exploitation.

Nicolás, a 14-year-old disabled boy, was finally able to open up and begin expressing himself thanks to Open Wings, a project in Paraguay that uses modern dance as a tool to help youngsters with disabilities develop on both the physical and psychological level.

The discovery of the remains of two victims of the 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay has opened a new chapter in the investigation of human rights crimes committed by the regime.

The presidents of South America's main trade bloc, Mercosur, demanded at their summit in Paraguay Friday the unconditional, peaceful return of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.