While the impact of flu viruses and the issues surrounding them is making life increasingly difficult in Mexico, churches in the USA are seeking to respond rationally and with care to a situation where panic can be a major part of the problem.

Health promoters, community and church workers in Mexico are asking why people in their country are dying from swine flu, while wealthy countries panic and the virus spreads around the world. The answer, they say, is that the poor are always the first victims.

A deal brokered with Mexico's government has freed 145 prisoners after campaigning by thousands worldwide. The Catholic Church has successfully helped broker a deal with Mexico's Chiapas state government to free the political prisoners.

CAFOD and other UK-based development groups are critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, finalised this month. It will impoverish Mexican workers, they say. Radical economic, trade and financial reform is needed.

he Methodist Church in Britain has launched an emergency appeal for funds following the devastating floods that have swept through South Mexico in the wake of the heaviest rains to hit the country for 40 years. Grants are already being made.

Two women theologians from Mexico and the Democratic Republic of Congo due to speak at a Mennonite-sponsored conference for women of colour were denied visas by the US State Department, which cited "lack of assets" as a reason for excluding them.