Word: el
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...years since Central America's last major civil-war battle, the isthmus is actually more dangerous today. Thanks in large part to exploding gang violence and useless justice systems, Central America has seen 79,000 murders in the past six years, more than the 75,000 people killed in El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war or the 50,000 killed in Nicaragua's 1980-1990 contra war. (See pictures of El Salvador's gangs...
...sure, Central America has shed some of its banana-republic baggage. Democratic elections have replaced right-wing death squads and Marxist guerrillas. This year, Salvadorans for the first time elected a President, Mauricio Funes, from the party of El Salvador's erstwhile leftist rebels. But life after elections remains as dysfunctional as the ubiquitous tangles of pirated electrical lines that hang above Tegucigalpa's streets. "The region has a greater understanding of the rule of law today," says Mark Rosenberg, president of Florida International University in Miami and an expert on Honduras and Central America. "But it's very incomplete...
Citing a desire to bolster development, China pledged $10 billion in low-interest loans and other economic benefits to African nations. In Sharm el-Sheikh to announce the plan on Nov. 8, Premier Wen Jiabao dismissed suggestions that the initiative is merely an attempt to broaden China's business interests on the continent. The package--coming on the heels of a $5 billion pledge in 2006--includes clean-energy projects, debt cancellations and tariff exemptions...
...El Salvador...
...devastating rainstorm spawned El Salvador's worst natural disaster in more than a decade, as heavy flooding and punishing mudslides killed at least 160 people in the capital, San Salvador, and the province of San Vicente. The deluge on Nov. 7 and 8 damaged or destroyed at least 2,000 homes--many nestled into hillsides that later gave way--and left much of the country without power or clean water. The low-pressure system also wiped out broad swaths of crops, leaving 10,000 people in need of food aid. Officials fear that the death toll will climb as rescuers...