El^Salvador

Reuters reported this week that El Salvador’s TACA airline has signed an agreement with Airbus for 12 A320 and three A319 aircraft in a US$1 billion deal.

With already 36 Airbus planes in its fleet, TACA Chief Executive Roberto Kriete told Reuters that the airline was looking to strengthen its routes in North and South America. The carrier sought to double its market share in South America last year through increasing capacity and hiring new staff. The airline recorded 3.4 million passengers last year.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Taiwan procurement delegation, organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), is making a coffee trade inspection tour of El Salvador to study the feasibility of importing the product from the Central American country, a TAITRA official said yesterday.

The official said that during its two-day visit, the delegation, comprised of coffee importers and led by TAITRA Chairman Hsu Chih-jen, will gain first-hand information on El Salvador’s coffee industry, including coffee quality and plantation management.

In the dark days of the early 1980s, anyone brave or foolhardy enough to ascend the majestic peak of El Pital would have been accompanied by a hellish soundtrack of mortar fire and army helicopters.

But as I strolled recently through regal stands of Encino and cypress trees, all was peaceful in this airy mountain lair, which reminds me of a miniature Mesoamerican Yosemite.

San Salvador, Jan 8 (Prensa Latina) Salvadorian Center for Appropriate Technology (CESTA) summoned the Executive and Legislature to speed the passing of the general Safe Water Act and Drinking Water Act.

According to CESTA, the first piece of legislation is to control the distribution of water in the country, while the second will uniquely control water use for human consumption.

For all the tiny taquerias tucked in every crevice of Colorado Springs’ Taco Triangle, there isn’t much variety. The Triangle, made up of a slice of aging sprawl between Galley Road, Academy Boulevard and Union Boulevard, is home to what seems like 95 percent of the city’s true Mexican restaurants — places owned by immigrants and catering to immigrants, where English is as rare as a counter that doesn’t sell phone cards. Adventurous eaters uncover many delights in the Triangle: tongue or beef-cheek tacos folded in steaming soft, corn tortillas with fresh cilantro; rich, red posole soup; tostadas piled with citrusy shrimp ceviche. But after a while, the same pan-Mexican menu starts to repeat itself like the background in an old “Flintstones” cartoon: tacos, burritos, soup. Specialties and regional dishes are rare. And then there is El Poblano. The little lunch spot serves the usual Mexican canon, and does it better than most, but it also has a precious list of Central American dishes you almost never see in Colorado. The humble shop, in a rather dreary strip mall occupied by a Kung Fu center and Mosh Pit Records, bills itself as a pupuseria. Don’t know what a pupuseria is? I didn’t either until I sat down at one of the tidy dining room’s six small tables. Turns out a pupuseria is a place that serves a sort of Central American hot pocket, called a pupusa, that is the national snack of the owner’s home country, El Salvador. Order one ($1.75), and a basket arrives with a thick disc of masa cornmeal stuffed with gooey white cheese or, even better, a mix of cheese, refried beans and chicharrnes (seasoned, fried pig skin). On the side, you get a hefty jar of spicy, pickled cabbage and carrot, called curtido, which can be eaten on the side or heaped on top. Either way, the relish adds a terrific zing to the humble corn cakes. Make sure to ask for a bottle of pupusa salsa — a thin, spicy tomato salsa sequestered in the back, which apparently needs to be requested. Every time I’ve gone to El Poblano (and I really like it, so I’ve gone a lot) I’ve been the only person speaking English, including the staff. I view this as a good thing — proof of quality and authenticity. After all, Central Americans would know best whether the food is any good. And it is.

1719 S.W. Roxbury St.

More than just pupusas (though those here are top-notch), this restaurant and bakery turns out great chicken soup, tamales and other specialties from El Salvador in a bright, whitewashed setting. Baked goods can be froufy or simple. Pick one up on your way out, for later, when you finally get hungry again. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

El Salvador photography by Ben Ciuffa — Through Dec. 31, Just Good Food, 303 N. Rose St. (269) 217-7848..

PANAMA CITY, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Central American countries could attract more foreign capital for their companies by pooling their stock exchanges into a single market, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Luis Fernando Andrade said on Friday.

Andrade, in Panama for a summit of Caribbean foreign ministers, said an integrated Central American bourse could boost economic growth and competitiveness and foster closer economic ties in the region.

–HSBCS’s support and Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) are driven by Fitch’s view that there is a high probability that support from its controlling shareholder, HSBC Holdings plc (Long-term IDR: ‘AA’ with Stable Outlook), would be forthcoming, should it be required. HSBCS’s long-term IDR is constrained by El Salvador’s country ceiling at ‘BBB-’..

In a credit environment where CDO values are dropping like rocks and write-downs are sprouting all over Wall Street, one would think that Citigroup (C) would tread carefully when it comes to rolling out new debt products.

“Citigroup has announced a new $165M CDO backed by 30 micro-finance loans to entrepreneurs in 13 countries including Bosnia, Tajikistan, Mexico and El Salvador.

MONTGOMERY The image of the little girl with short brown hair and freckles begging for coins at the El Salvador and Honduras border crossing haunted Ron Hicks long after he returned home from a two-week motorcycle trip in Central America.

A construction project manager in Montgomery, Hicks finally decided to go back to Honduras, find the girl and help her a journey that didnt end with locating the child.

NEW YORK—Travel in 2007 was marked by high gas prices, new passport rules, record lows for the dollar, and record-high air travel.

LATIN AMERICA: Travel by U.S. residents in the first nine months of this year was up 8 percent to Central America and 7.6 percent to South America, according to the Commerce Department.

Why the surge? The dollar goes further in Latin America than in Europe, and “the old image of South American countries - dictatorships and machine guns - is gone,” said Bob Whitley, president of the USTOA. “Instead, South America and Central America are the new hot destinations.”

Travelocity bookings show “Guatemala is up considerably, Panama is a trendsetter destination and with Nicaragua, people are getting curious about what’s there,” Ziff said.

Yahoo! Travel also reports El Salvador and Panama among its up-and-coming destinations for 2008.

“The US and El Salvador are [now] partners in the war on terror,” he beamed.

The law, modeled on the USA Patriot Act, establishes a special terrorism tribunal and allows for anonymous witnesses and undercover agents to participate in those trials. It also criminalizes acts such as public protests, street blockades and “publicly justifying terrorism” with punishments of up to eighty years in prison. More than a year later, this law has turned scores of Salvadoran citizens into fugitives.
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María Silvia Guillén, executive director in El Salvador of the Foundation for Studies of Applied Law, believes the law is being used as a political weapon. It creates “wild cards that allow the concepts and penalties of the law to be invoked or left aside at any given time, influenced by any political motive,” she says.

Pedro Juan Hernández, a professor of economics at the University of El Salvador, concurs. “The objective of these antiterrorist laws isn’t to fight terrorism, because there haven’t been acts of terrorism [in El Salvador] in many years,” he recently told In These Times.

The Bush and Saca administrations maintain close ties. El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops still in Iraq and was the first to sign the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The country receives $461 million over five years in US aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and is home to the controversial US-run International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in San Salvador.
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US economic interests run deep in El Salvador. After the 1996 privatization of the country’s electricity industry, corporations like North Carolina-based giant Duke Energy, once a business partner with Enron, swooped in to invest.

Funes was certified as the FMLN’s candidate at the party’s recent convention. Some 70,000 members celebrated the announcement in San Salvador’s largest stadium, and much excitement has been generated in El Salvador and amongst Salvadorans living in the United States, where more than one million Salvadorans currently live. According to U.S. Census figures, about 60 percent of Latinos in the Washington D.C. region are originally from El Salvador.

The medical exercise is the first of 65 bilateral medical readiness training exercises the command will sponsor in 17 Caribbean, Central and South American countries through Sept. 30, 2008.

Attracted by El Salvador’s dollar economy, she thought she would be able to save money.

But Milagros had been duped.

San Salvador is a noisy, busy city overlooked by a spectacular volcano. The streets are crowded with bars, in many sex is for sale.

Bars, where sex is for sale, line many of the streets of San Salvador

I accompanied Sgt Jose Noe Ayala on a drive around the city to see the places where police have discovered trafficked women and children.

In one of the upmarket areas of the city, he pointed out a non-descript building, this was where Milagros was held.

“We rescued four girls that day,” he tells me.

“Three were teenagers under the age of 18, all Salvadorians. And then there was Milagros, from Nicaragua.”

The campaign included articles in specialized tourism magazines such as Foreign Policy in Spain, Viajes (Travels) in Costa Rica and a special supplement in the prestigious Fortune magazine. To present the country’s new image, the services of the renowned public relations firm Hill and Knowlton were contracted, which set about presenting information on the country to more than 30,000 companies engaged in print journalism and the Internet, giving readers and users a chance to learn what El Salvador has to offer, as well as the latest developments.

Deserving of special mention is the TV program E! Special EL SALVADOR IMPRESIONANTE (Amazing El Salvador), which was broadcast Saturday, December 8, in North and South America.