LYCOS RETRIEVER 
El Salvador
built 276 days ago
In this new movement toward criminalization, El Salvador is in the vanguard. The array of exceptions that tend to exist even in countries where abortion is circumscribed - rape, incest, fetal malformation, life of the mother - don't apply in El Salvador. They were rejected in the late 1990's, in a period after the country's long civil war ended. The country's penal system was revamped and its constitution was amended. Abortion is now absolutely forbidden in every possible circumstance. No exceptions.
Source:
El Salvador is a democratic republic governed by a president and an 84-member unicameral Legislative Assembly. The president is elected by universal suffrage by absolute majority vote and serves for a 5-year term. A second round runoff is required in the event that no candidate receives more than 50% of the first round vote. Members of the assembly are elected based on the number of votes that their parties obtain in each department (circumscriptive suffrage) and serve for 3-year terms. The country has an independent judiciary and Supreme Court. Legislative and municipal elections will be held in January 2009.
Source:
As of 2002, the media professionals in El Salvador, of necessity, had a kind of largely unspoken wait-and-see policy regarding political reform and freedom of speech. The FMLN evolved from being a guerilla army into an important political party, winning on March 12, 2000, a plurality in the legislative assembly as well as re-electing the FMLN candidate for mayor of San Salvador. Ironically, Cuba's insistence on leftist unity and that of Socialist European sponsors such as the West Germans, lessened the numbers of the dead, yet the fact remained that over 50,000 people died between the Duarte death squads and the leftist juggling for power. In the early 2000s, understandably, the desire for order and stability was great. Although the traditional El Salvadorean media were not as closely censored and restricted as Nicaraguan media, neither did they illustrate the diversity, plurality, and freedoms of the press of Costa Rica. Enjoying moderate freedom of speech and exhibiting great differences in political points of view, the press of El Salvador was self-censored.
Source:
El Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture is the first to suffer in revolution, since it requires years to rebuild a farm if it is neglected. a handful of wealthy families that operated many farms. El Salvador had tended towards the right politically, and the smaller coffee farmer and coffee workers fared poorly in this climate.
Source:
![[Country Map]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/e/l/-/el-salvador/i/002.jpg)
Under its export-led growth strategy, El Salvador has pursued economic integration with its Central American neighbors and negotiated trade agreements with the Dominican Republic, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Taiwan, Colombia, and the United States. The trade agreement with Taiwan will enter into force in 2008. Central American countries began negotiating an Association Agreement with the European Union in 2007. Trade agreements with CARICOM and Canada are under negotiation, while an agreement with Israel is being considered. Exports in 2006 grew 3.7%, while imports grew 11.6%. As in previous years, the large trade deficit was offset by family remittances.
Source:
El Salvador signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) — negotiated by the five countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic — with the United States in 2004. CAFTA requires that the Salvadoran government adopt policies that foster free trade. El Salvador has signed free trade agreements with Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Panama, and increased its trade with those countries. El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua ... are negotiating a free trade agreement with Canada. In October 2007, these four countries and Costa Rica began free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union. Negotiations started in 2006 for a free trade agreement with Colombia.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
El Salvador