Jurado's organization, Centro de Investigacion & Solidaridad Obrera a Juárez (CISO), works to review the investigations and to identify and return the bodies to their families. She said the 25 families she works with are angry and frustrated knowing the decision will further delay answers about the murder and disappearance of their loved ones. Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) issued a major report on the murders in 2003 and has been pressuring authorities to investigate. But spokesman Eric Olson agreed, "It's been a very discouraging process." Among 2003 findings by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an agency chartered by the Organization of American States, the investigation of the killings has been impeded by institutionalized discrimination against women.

While the investigation stalls, the killings escalate. In the first five months of this year, 23 murders have been reported -- approximately the same number of murders committed in all of 2004. The level of fear is such that the victim's families now avoid the media so as not to call attention to themselves. According to advocates at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the "ages, identities and backgrounds of victims suggest that a broad curve of violence against women is expanding."

The federal government's position that resolving the femicides rests with the state of Chihuahua puts the onus back on State Attorney General Patricia González Rodríguez -- a situation that Olson calls "gloomy" because of the corruption and ineptitude of state and local authorities. CISO, while crediting the AG's office with making some advances in the murder cases, is demanding more serious investigations.

Many activists argue for a bi-national response, with the United States assisting in investigate the killings. This spring the House and Senate approved identical resolutions urging U.S. involvement in solving the Juárez murders. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), author of the Senate resolution, said Congress wanted to make sure that the investigation and efforts to prevent further murders became part of the diplomatic agenda between the two nations.

Advocates for the murdered women and their families must now turn to the new administration, following recent national elections in Mexico. But AIUSA's Olson said that by backing away from the Juárez murders and offering a "clean slate to the incoming government," the government seemed to be "washing its hands of a very serious and tragic series of events."

Cipriana Jurado, though, is not counting on Mexican authorities to resolve the femicides. CISO is seeking justice through international organizations, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which stated, "resolution of these killings requires attention to the root causes of violence against women -- in all of its principal manifestations."

Ed. Note: While a new arrest was recently made in the case, the Mexican federal government has still not resumed its investigation.

Leslie Fishburn-Clark is an Albuquerque-based journalist.

Earlier reports said that 160 passengers and 10 crew members were on board.

"Nobody survived," spokeswoman for the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry Irina Andrianova said.

"At 3:37 p.m. Moscow time (1137 GMT), the plane sent an SOS signal and at 3:39 it disappeared from radar screens," Andrianova said.

The airliner, a Tu-154 jet owned by Russia's Pulkovo Airlines, was flying from the southern Russian Black Sea coastal city of Anapa to St. Petersburg when it crashed, 45 km north of Donetsk.

The cause of the crash was under investigation, but officials in both Russia and Ukraine indicated that bad weather conditions, not terrorism, was likely responsible for the tragedy.

The crash "was not a terrorist attack," said Leonid Belyayev, acting director of Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry, in St. Petersburg.

According to initial information, the airplane crashed after it entered a zone of severe turbulence, head of the Russian Federal Air Navigation Service, Alexander Neradko said.

"The catastrophe occurred as the result of a lightning strike as the plane flew into a storm front," Andrianova was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Meanwhile, Interfax Ukraine, reported that a fire had broken out on board the plane, shortly before it crashed.

A fire flared up inside the aircraft as it was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters, spokesman for the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry, Igor Krol, was quoted by Interfax Ukraine as saying.

The crew tried to make an emergency landing but failed due to the malfunction of the plane's landing gear, and the jet crashed "on its belly," said Krol .

Ukrainian rescuers have reached the crash site.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko promised to cooperate fully with Russia in investigating the cause of the crash and repatriating the victims' bodies. He declared Wednesday a national day of mourning.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his part, has asked Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to form an investigation team, to find out the cause of the tragedy and declared a day of mourning for the victims' to be held on Thursday in his country.

A Pulkovo Airlines executive said that a special flight would leave St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning to fly relatives to Donetsk, the nearest city to the crash site. Once there, they are expected to try and identify the bodies of the deceased.

The crash was the second major incident involving Russia's aviation industry in the last two months. On July 9, an Airbus A-310 of the Russian Airline S7, skidded off a runaway and burst into flames in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing more than 120 people.

"We are cross-examining witnesses, passengers and crew," a Dutch police spokesman said, adding no arrests had been made and the passengers were being questioned near the craft, a 273-seat DC10-30 plane.

Security has been increased at airports worldwide after British police said on August 10 they had foiled a plot to blow up planes in the mid-Atlantic using liquid explosives disguised as drinks.

British prosecutors announced on Monday they were charging 11 people after police found bomb-making equipment, suicide notes and "martyrdom videos." No decision has yet been taken on whether to charge another 11 people who are still being held.

As many as 17 more people, including at least two British nationals, are being held in Pakistan over the suspected plot.

Last month serial bomb blasts hit commuter trains in Mumbai, killing more than 180 people. Indian police said on Tuesday they had foiled another possible attack in the city after they shot dead a suspected Pakistani national.

A spokeswoman for Dutch counter-terrorism said the level of security alert had not been changed at Schiphol airport -- Europe's third largest cargo airport and fourth biggest passenger hub -- at midday on Wednesday.

The Netherlands' security alert level has been at "substantial" since bombings in London last year, the second highest in a four-stage warning system.

An Iberian Airlines flight bound for Madrid was turned back to the Netherlands in April after a woman raised the alarm about a passenger she thought was acting suspiciously. The passenger was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

The Dutch secret service AIVD warned in March that the war in Iraq and the presence of Dutch troops in Afghanistan acted as motivation for possible attacks and for recruitment of home grown Islamist militants.

The 2004 murder of a filmmaker critical of Islam by a Dutch Moroccan shook the country and highlighted the activities of home grown militants. Nine young Muslim men were sentenced to jail this year on the charge of belonging to a terrorist group.

Two roadside bombs killed three Afghan civilians as renewed bloodshed in the south underscored the persistent threat posed by resurgent Taliban militants to efforts to extend the reach of the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Tuesday's NATO airstrikes were in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold, said alliance spokesman Maj. Scott Lundy.

Fifteen militants were preparing an ambush on a main highway but fled into a compound after realizing they were being watched. A subsequent bombing raid killed 11 militants, Lundy said. It was unclear what happened to the other four.

NATO troops killed one Afghan youth and wounded another after a suicide bombing Tuesday in Kandahar city that targeted a Canadian convoy, killing one soldier and wounding three, the alliance said.

Troops fearing a follow-up attack after the blast fired a single bullet at the two youths as they approached the scene of the bombing on a motorbike, a NATO statement said. The bullet hit both youths, killing one and wounding the other.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, which also killed one child.

Two Canadian soldiers were also wounded Tuesday in a separate attack in the south.

On Wednesday, two roadside bombs struck a truck and a motorbike in the Kandahar district of Daman, killing three civilians and wounding one, said Dawood Ahmadi, the provincial governor's spokesman.

Ahmadi blamed Taliban militants for the bombs, which were planted on a road usually used by NATO and Afghan forces. It was unclear if any soldiers were in the area at the time of the blasts.

More than 1,000 people, mostly militants, have died amid in an increase in violence in the last three months. Thousands of NATO and Afghan forces are battling Taliban fighters, believed to be backed by armed opium dealers, in southern provinces to extend the reach of Karzai's government.

It's the country's worst violence since the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001 by U.S.-led forces for hosting
Osama bin Laden.

Karzai's office said Wednesday he will travel to Washington "in the near future" following an invitation from
President Bush.

Bush telephoned Karzai on Tuesday to extend the offer and pledge continued American support, Karzai's office said.

"Both presidents talked about the situation in Afghanistan and the region," the statement said. "They discussed the progress Afghanistan, with the help from the United States, is making in fighting terrorism and rebuilding Afghanistan."

Karzai last visited Bush in May 2005, when the two leaders signed a strategic partnership agreement that ensures long-term U.S. support for Afghanistan in economic, security and other sectors. Bush also made a surprise visit to Kabul in March.

The insurgency has precipitated an eruption of doubts about Karzai, widely viewed as having failed to attend to a range of problems that have left Afghans asking what the government is doing.

Corruption is so widespread, the government apparently so lethargic, and the divide between rich and poor so great, that Karzai is losing public support, warn officials like Ahmad Fahim Hakim, vice chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"Nothing that he promised has materialized," Hakim said, echoing the comments of diplomats and others in Kabul, the capital. "Beneath the surface it is boiling."

For the first time since Karzai took power four and half years ago, Afghans and diplomats are speculating about who might replace him. Most agree that the answer for now is no one, leaving the fate of the U.S.-led military involvement in Afghanistan intimately tied to Karzai's own success or failure.

On Tuesday, Karzai's office announced that he had spoken that day with President George W. Bush, who assured him of continued American support. Karzai had also accepted Bush's invitation to visit Washington.

Karzai, a consummate tribal politician, has been the cornerstone of the U.S.-led effort to create a centralized democratic government in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban government driven from power in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

To his supporters, he has managed to keep the peace in a fractious society by giving regional warlords and armed leaders a stake in power, while managing to set the country on the road to a democratic future.

"The perception of growing insecurity has affected the psyche of the Afghan people," Jawed Ludin, the president's chief of staff, said in a telephone interview from Kabul. But he called it a reality check rather than a crisis.

He said that people "still trust" Karzai and "still think he can lead them."

But the costs of his compromises are becoming harder to stomach for average Afghans and some foreign donors. Critics say they have insulated many people from the benefits of democratic change and have hampered the running of the president's administration and local government.

Riots in Kabul on May 29, which killed 17 people in the worst violence in the capital since the Taliban were ousted, were a wake-up call, many there say.

The violence came after three Afghans were killed by a runaway American military truck, and four more killed when American soldiers fired into an angry crowd.

Protesters later rampaged through the streets, attacking foreign offices and chanting "Death to Karzai," an indication of how he is blamed for the growing disenchantment.

"He was shaken," said a Western diplomat, asking not to be named because of the political content of his remarks.

Recriminations against Karzai have continued, and his own missteps have not helped redeem his political standing.

In a reaction to the riots, Karzai appointed a powerful local commander with known links to organized crime as police chief of Kabul. He also appointed to senior police posts 13 former commanders who were to have been weeded out under long-awaited improvements in the police system.

Karzai's aides indicated that the steps were necessary to ensure security in the capital. But the appointments further alienated foreign diplomats and aid workers as well as ordinary Afghans.

"He is too accommodating," said Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a policy research organization. "The police reform was incredibly disappointing."

Recent interviews with a range of Afghans illustrated a common theme of complaints against corrupt and self- serving government officials.

Earlier this month, 60 members of the Parliament, which has until now been largely supportive, signed a statement protesting the appointment of certain officials and the poor performance of his government.

A group of elders from Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, said they had come to Kabul to seek the replacement of their governor, who they said was concerned only with his own power and did nothing for his people. But they had no success.

"We just want a neutral, impartial governor," Abdul Shukur Urfani, one of the representatives, said. "People will start demonstrating because they are dissatisfied with what the government is doing."

Karzai has dismissed many such problems as petty corruption, but the range of corruption in fact runs both large and small.

At one end of the scale is a housing scandal from three years ago, when cabinet ministers, in Karzai's absence, awarded themselves and friends prime real estate in Kabul, where land prices have shot up since the U.S. invasion.

An investigation was quietly dropped and the officials were allowed to build their ostentatious villas, which now tower above passers-by as a constant reminder of official excess. Elsewhere, though corruption is small in scale, it has an enormous impact on the poor, which is most of the population.