News stories by Natalia Ruiz Díaz, page 3

'Silvino was riding his bike on a dirt road near our home when he was poisoned by toxic agrochemicals, sprayed on a nearby field of soybeans. He died soon afterwards. He was 11,' said his mother, Petrona Villasboa, a rural activist in southern Paraguay.

Video camera in hand, Isidro Romero is getting ready for another day of classes in the Paraguayan capital. He is studying Communications as part of a programme aimed at breaking down the barriers that have blocked access to university level studies by the country’s small indigenous minority.

Analysts in Paraguay expected Monday’s media coverage to focus on an announced shakeup in the cabinet. But reports that President Fernando Lugo fathered a second child while he was still a Roman Catholic bishop hijacked the news agenda and tarnished celebrations of the first anniversary of his historic victory at the polls.

Olga is 39 and María is just 14, but both of them are looking for the same thing while they stay at a centre run by missionary sisters in the Paraguayan capital: a position as a live-in domestic.

Graciela Samaniego has her bags packed. Along with a number of fellow nurses, she is ready to leave her job at a public hospital in the Paraguayan capital and fly to a city in northern Italy, where she will work in a nursing home.

Paraguayan society is marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) amid uncertainty surrounding the loss of power of the Colorado Party, which ruled the country for 61 years.

Whether or not the so-called Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) -- which claimed responsibility for the recent theft of arms from a remote military post -- actually exists is a subject of debate among activists, academics and political leaders in Paraguay.

Whether or not the so-called Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) -- which claimed responsibility for the recent theft of arms from a remote military post -- actually exists is a subject of debate among activists, academics and political leaders in Paraguay.

The first indigenous person to hold a ministerial post in Paraguay became the first casualty of the cabinet of President Fernando Lugo.

Agribusiness and landowners’ associations in Paraguay began two days of demonstrations around the country Monday, demanding a stop to invasions of large estates by landless farmers.