The News
El Salvador’s Parliament voted to overturn a ban on metals mining, a win for controversial-but-popular President Nayib Bukele but a defeat for environmental groups.
The country banned mining in 2017, a move Bukele called “absurd”: His party holds 57 out of 60 seats and overturned the ban easily.
After transforming El Salvador’s security situation in his first term — his draconian anti-gang policies locked up 2% of the population with little regard for human rights, but brought murder rates down 40-fold — Bukele wants to boost its economy in his second.
He claims it has $3 trillion in gold deposits, which he wants to access to help reduce the country’s high tax burden. But environmentalists worry that new mines will pollute water supplies.
AD