(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The opposition Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is El Salvador’s most popular political party, according to a poll by Universidad Tecnológica. 30.4 per cent of respondents would vote for the left-wing FMLN in the next legislative election.

The ruling conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) is second with 28.2 per cent, followed by the National Conciliation Party (PCN) with 4.5 per cent.

There will be elections for president and legislature in early 2009.

For a country that is already severely deforested, the construction boom is a looming environmental disaster.

The bulk of El Salvador's forest cover comes from coffee farms, where aging bourbon-variety trees grow beneath a towering canopy of secondary forest. These "coffee forests" provide the little water table protection and migratory bird habitat that is left.

A report last year by Washington-based think tank Resources for the Future warned that El Salvador faces grave environmental challenges in the near future unless the destruction of coffee farms is halted.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - A vast majority of people in El Salvador are dissatisfied with their president’s performance, according to a poll by Universidad Tecnológica. 70.5 per cent of respondents think Antonio Saca is not tackling the country’s problems adequately.

Saca—a media businessman—was elected in March 2004 as the candidate for the ruling conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), garnering 57.73 per cent of the vote. ARENA candidates have won the last four presidential elections in the Central American country.

Voters in El Salvador renewed the Legislative Assembly in March 2006. ARENA secured 34 of the 84 seats at stake, followed by the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) with 32 legislators.

Polling Data

Do you think Antonio Saca is adequately tackling the country’s problems?

Yes	23.4%
No	70.5%

Representing a tiny country almost half a world away, Castellanos authorized Salvadoran citizenship papers to Jews throughout Europe, making it harder for the Nazis to deport them for execution.

Castellanos is also listed as one of the diplomats who acted as a "savior" to Jews by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

(From the Wall Street Journal) Backed by the largest Spanish-language broadcast network in the U.S., a massive campaign by Latino media and grass-roots groups to spur millions of eligible Hispanic residents to become U.S. citizens is showing results that could influence the agenda and outcome of the 2008 election.

More than eight million green-card holders -- that is, legal permanent residents -- are eligible to become U.S. citizens, and the majority are immigrants of Latin American origin, according to U.S. government data. Now, Unavision Communications Inc. is using its considerable clout with the Spanish-speaking community in the U.S. to turn this latent voting bloc into an active and potentially potent force.

The decision frustrated some immigration policy specialists who are hoping Congress reaches a more permanent solution. The extension affects 230,000 Salvadorans, who gained temporary permission to stay in the United States after the major earthquakes in January and February 2001.