El Salvador news

All of El Salvador is busy watching the World Cup, although El Salvador's national team could not qualify after 14 members of the team received lifetime bans from the sport for fixing gamges.  Meanwhile, there is a lot of hard news coming out of the country:

The Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Court ordered that a confidentiality order on the corruption case against former president Francisco Flores be lifted.   Flores is accused of corruption in connection with millions of dollars of aid/gifts received from the government of Taiwan.   He has fled the country and has been reported to be in the Dominican Republic or Panama.

The Constitutional Chamber also ruled on Friday that the election of the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Eugenio Chicas, was invalid.   The Chamber ruled that this position must be non-partisan and that Chicas' ties to the FMLN disqualified him.  Chicas received high marks from most observers earlier this year as he guided the TSE through the two rounds of the presidential election including the razor thin second round and subsequent challenges to the vote by ARENA when it lost.

El Salvador's Chaparrastique volcano near San Miguel showed a "drastic increase" in seismic activity last week to a level higher than the activity prior to last December's eruption.   The activity has remained elevated thought the weekend.   The area around the volcano remains under orange alert and local authorities met to review disaster and evacuation plans.   Despite the threat, many families refuse to leave their homes and fields in the middle of the growing season.  

El Salvador's National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment recognizing the country's indigenous peoples for the first time.   All political parties except ARENA voted in favor of the measure.  According to AFP, there are 13,300 indigenous persons in the country, totaling 0.2% of the population.

 

Comments

Unknown said…
Tim, you seem to have a good handle on what's going on in El Salvador.. What sites do you use for your English Language news about the country?