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Paraguay: President Lugo to Forgo Salary

lingua → pt · fr · bn · es · zht · zhs · jp · sw

Fernando Lugo's presidency started with an announcement that he would forgo his monthly salary. “I don't need that salary, which belongs to the poor,” said Lugo. Different local bloggers see things differently, as one applauds the decision and another wonders how Lugo will pay for his own expenses.

Carlos Rodríguez of Rescatar [es] summarizes the reactions of some in the press who are downplaying the gesture by pointing out that the former priest does not have a wife or children to support, while others wonder whether he will spend the reserved funds at his disposition. However, Rodríguez sees things in a different light:

En ese contexto, el anuncio de Lugo de renunciar a su salario, nosotros lo interpretamos como un mensaje de “no vengo por el dinero”.
Trascendente y crucial mensaje en una nación en la que un elevado porcentaje de políticos, elevadísimo más bien, se lanza al ruedo en busca de poder político para alcanzar lo más pronto posible el poder económico, justamente robando.

In this context of Lugo's announcement to forgo his salary, we see it as his message that “I am not here for money.” It is a transcendent and crucial message in a country where a high, a very high, percentage of politicians, enter the field in search of political power to reach economic power as soon as possible, by stealing.

However, Jorge Torres Romero of Detrás del Papel [es] does not quite see things the same way and thinks it was not a smart move:

Al día siguiente de este anuncio de Lugo, algunos medios de prensa lanzaron la pregunta si quien se animaba seguir el ejemplo del presidente. Obviamente, nadie. Federico Franco, por ejemplo, aclaró que tiene una familia que mantener y vaya razón más que suficiente para no desprenderse de ese derecho legítimo de cobrar su salario.

¿De qué va vivir el presidente?¿Quién pagará por su ropa, su comida y otros gastos que pueda tener?¿Es tanto el ahorro que tiene?¿Vivirá de la renta de sus inmuebles?¿Estará pagando sus impuestos? ¿O esperará la colaboración, los regalos e invitaciones de los amigos?

The day after Lugo's announcment, some members of the press asked the question of who is willing to follow the example of the president. Obviously, no one. Federico Franco (the new Vice-President), for example, said that he has a family to support and that he won't give up his legitimate right to earn a salary.

What will the president live off of? Who will pay for his clothes, his food, and other expenses that he might have? Does he have that much in savings? Will he live off the rent from his properties? Will he pay his taxes? Or will he wait for help, gifts and invitations from friends?

Thumbnail picture by Fernando Lugo APC and used under a Creative Commons license.

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Russia, Georgia: Unilateral Recognition of Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's Independence

Veronica Khokhlova · 14:56 · Eastern & Central Europe , Central Asia & Caucasus

lingua → ru · fr · es · mk

See Global Voices special coverage page on the South Ossetia crisis.

Russia has formally recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia today. Below are some of the initial reactions from LiveJournal's Cyrillic sector.

Russian LJ user sholademi (Samson Sholademi) writes (RUS):

[…] Now the most interesting part begins… P.S. The line has been crossed, sort of. Though, in the past two weeks, since the beginning of the war in Georgia, everything that Russia does, for the first time in several years, does not cause me to feel outraged and critical (despite my “love” for Putin & Co.). Quite the opposite: everything's been done correctly. Long live the isolation! Hm… And what do you think about the recognition of Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence?

A few comments:

lyks:

Isolation - that's a good point. Soon we'll be traveling withing clearly defined borders, right? Farewell, India, goodbye, America […]?

***

schtv_girl:

I think that we can, at last, be proud of our country! Regardless of how controversial it all is, regardless of how much they are accusing us of double standards, we've become strong! Russia is coming back! Join the action! […]

***

zenya_zenya:

…………..Couldn't care less……….Absolutely……..

***

kirill_praha:

I think that those who live in Russia and wants to travel around the world, they should consider moving. Or getting a dual citizenship, which is difficult.

***

sethnagh:

Great. Now a wide river of the money of the Russian tax-payers will flow to these new “brotherly republics,” damn it, to the stinking [Caucasus natives].

Georgian-Ukrainian LJ user vaxo (Vakhtang Kipiani) writes (UKR):

[…] You're a fool, Medvedev. Not a single normal country will support Russia. Now we'll see what a direct confrontation with the world is like.

A few comments:

yangel:

Such a scenario was to be expected (

***

viebelle

I have an impression that for the past couple of weeks [they couldn't care less and were doing as they pleased]. As for [Medvedev], I don't think he played the lead part in this.

vaxo:

Right, but he was the one to sign this order. And legally, he is the one responsible for it.

[…]

yangel:

[…] At one point, Turkey unilaterally recognized the independence of Northern Cyprus - do you think that Turkey has spent all these years in international isolation?

***

deniko76:

With so much oil, Russia can afford self-isolation. But I don't really understand why they should prefer isolation and being surrounded by “a circle of hatred” to normal friendly relationship with the neighbors.

***

steel_archer:

Their oligarchs keep their money in Swiss banks, and their villas are in London. We'll see what kind of isolation it will be )))

***

a_kulik:

There won't be any confrontation with the world. If there hadn't been Kosovo, there would've been a confrontation. But after Kosovo, everything will be OK for Russia. America has exchanged South Ossetia for Kosovo.

***

ledilid:

And these people are not allowing others to recognize Kosovo… […]

***

agrp_xtb:

Direct confrontation with whom? With small but proud Estonia? Do you still believe that there is “confrontation” between the United States and the Russian Federation? […]

Georgian LJ user djdrive (Misha Tavkhelidze) writes (RUS):

Looks like Putinodvedev has gone totally nuts. What are they pulling their country into?

1. War
2. Economic abyss
3. Disintegration

Russian, all of you who can, flee this country, while the curtain is still up! It'll be impossible to get a visa later.

One of the comments:

dimanklg:

Oh please. We are used to that.

Georgian-Russian LJ user som writes (RUS):

“Russia, you've gone nuts” (c)

I remember our answer to the civil defense teacher's question: What should you do if you see the nuclear mushroom at the horizon? - Pull a white bed sheet over your head and crawl to the cemetery.

Looks like the idiots believe that it's possible to win WWIII.

During the Caribbean Crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev had enough of common sense to stop 20 minutes before the catastrophe. Will these ones have it, too? I don't really want to check.

Some of the comments:

psa_98:

Your lovely country (and especially two of its regions [Abkhazia and South Ossetia], whose population is smaller than Butovo [one of Moscow's districts]) aren't really worth a nuclear mushroom. I think that the Russian Federation is wrong in this conflict, but Saakashvili (and his curators from the State Department) have to be blamed equally - they've lost the game, too.

***

piligrim:

[…] Do you really think that Georgia is enough of a reason for the United States and NATO to start WWIII?

luarvique:

Well, Prince Ferdinand and Serbia were much of a reason, either…

a_gru:

And are you sure that only Americans and NATO states can start a war? Is there really no one but them out there?

***

pindle:

[…] I think Europe will thank us - quietly, of course. We've closed the situation, created a new, long-term and stable status quo, which is a lot more convenient for Europe than the previous one. […]

LJ user physik_alfa writes (RUS) in the ru_politics LJ community:

Personally, I pity Abkhazia. They've been basically equaled with the thieves from South Ossetia. They could've been flourishing on tourism… Slowly, perhaps, but on their own and without blood. And now Kremlin [thugs] will seize everything for themselves there.

A few comments:

vyacha:

The Abkhaz aren't that naive when it comes to foreign investments. According to their laws, a foreign (including Russian) company cannot independently get involved in, say, construction there, can't even open a branch […] office there. What's possible, though, are 50/50 investments with an Abkhaz [individual or company] […]. I don't think anything will change much now. They know how to count their own money.

***

afx237_v7:

I was [in Abkhazia] a couple years ago and learned a lot of interesting things. Turns out many touristic objects […] have already been bought (rented for 50 years, since the Abkhaz constitution does not allow to sell land to foreigners) by the Moscow guys.

LJ user dmitrivrubel has posted a graph illustrating what happened to the Russian stocks after Dmitry Medvedev made his Abkhazia and South Ossetia announcement at 3 PM Moscow time today:

LJ user onkel_hans commented (RUS):

In countries where economy rules, things like this lead to the fall of the government.

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China: Cop-killer online hero case goes on trial

John Kennedy · 08:27, August 26th, 2008 · East Asia

lingua → mg · fr · bn · pt · mk

Yang Jia's case goes to trial today, after having been postponed for the Olympics. Previously he had been harmonized after having been heroized by many online for walking into a police station in Shanghai last month and killing six cops after what was accepted was an earlier case of injustice and police brutality of which he was rumored to have been on the receiving end.

Tuesday afternoon in China and many bloggers are waiting to hear what the verdict will be, if it even comes today. Writing about it is not working very well, as demonstrated by lawyer and legal blogger Liu Xiaoyuan in his post on his Sina blog, ‘A ban has been sent down on featuring blog posts discussing the Yang Jia case':

昨天，有外媒采访我，让我谈奥运期间新闻和言论自由问题，我只好实话实说了。在奥运期间，管理部门不屏蔽外媒网站，我们可以自由地去游览，这确实是一大进步。但是，对网络言论的控制比以前更加严格，很多话题不能谈论，如写了这类博文也会被删除。

想不到奥运结束了，网络言论仍然没有放开。昨晚，我获知杨佳一案开庭的消息，立即写了博文发到各个博客，有的博客照样不给放行。我发在凯迪网猫眼看人论坛中的帖子，也被锁定不能予以回复。

今天上午，我又在该网发了谈杨佳案的帖子又遭锁定，网友不能加以评论和回复。

Yesterday, I was interviewed by some foreign media; they wanted me to talk about issues of press freedom and freedom of speech during the Olympics. During the Olympics, authorities stopped blocking foreign media websites, and we were free to browse them, this is definitely a big step forward. But, controls on internet speech are tighter than they were before, and many things cannot be talked about; even posts like this one will be deleted.

What I didn't expect is that now that the Olympics are over, internet speech still hasn't be let go. Last night I heard that the Yang Jia case is going to trial, and I immediately posted this out to all my blogs; some of them, as usual, wouldn't let me post. The thread I posted on the Cat898 BBS? Locked so that no-one can reply.

This morning, another thread I posted about the Yang Jia case got locked down, so netizens couldn't leave comments or respond.

中午，我给博客网一位熟悉的编辑发短信，希望能推荐一下博文《上海二中法院为何不在网上公布杨佳案开庭消息》。他回复短信称，有禁令。我又发短信询问，是以前的禁令，还是现在的禁令？他回复我说，以前的还在，现在的也有。

有网友将我的文章发到某论坛上，点击后打开不了。

正如《财经网》记者所说的，这一切是早有周密安排的。

This afternoon, I sent to a text message to a close friend who's an editor at Bokee, hoping they could feature my post “Why didn't the Shanghai #2 Intermediate Court put the information about Yang Jia's trial online>”. He texted back: there's an order. I texted back to that, asking, ‘is it an old order, or an order now?' He wrote back: ‘the old one's still here, and there's a new one too.'

Some netizens reposted my post to a certain BBS, but if you click it, it won't open.

Just like the Caijing reporter said, this was all carefully planned long ago.

One anonymous commenter on Liu's post has written:

不让人说话,只能说明心里有鬼

(2008-08-26 13:43:55)

Not letting people speak, that just shows they must be hiding something

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Palestine: Rejoice Over Prisoners' Release

Jillian York · 03:40 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → pt · mg · bn · zht · zhs

Palestinians are rejoicing today in the release of 199 prisoners from Israeli prisons. The release was announced last Monday, and was likely timed according to Condoleezza Rice's arrival in Israel.

The release process was held up several times by the Israeli cabinet, which held three separate votes on the issue. Among the freed prisoners were Said al-Attaba, Israel's longest serving Palestinian, imprisoned in 1977, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, imprisoned in 1979.

body on the line was in Nablus for the welcome celebrations and compared them to Samir Kuntar's welcome this past July. The blogger wrote:

We waited in the sweltering heat for a few hours (Huwara, by the way, is at most a 10 minute drive from downtown Nablus). It reminded me of going to Samir Quntar’s welcome home festivities this summer, although Hezbollah had chairs for us and fabulous live band (though here we were not getting hit on the head by people waving their flags). But here I could get much closer to the stage, it was not sex segregated, and the crowd was much smaller (I don’t even think the entire crowd in Dahiyaa that day would be able to fit in downtown Nablus). A friend of mine later joined us and I kept hearing people complain about the heat. True, it was unbelievably hot; but I kept thinking about all the torture and living hell these men had endured–one for 32 years–and I thought the least we can do is stand here and give them a hero’s welcome.

The blogger also remembered the prisoners who were not released:

Of course the most famous political prisoners were not released today from their torture chambers: Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat. There was a huge poster in downtown Nablus (see below) about Sa’adat. And of course of the rest of the 10,000+ prisoners in Israeli jails must be remembered. But it also must be remembered that EVERY NIGHT Israeli Terrorist Forces (ITF) kidnap and imprison Palestinian political prisoners. My friend Mustafa, who lives in the old city of Nablus, tells me every day about stories of the ITF coming in with bombs and guns and terrorizing families. In a way, the old city of Nablus is kind of like a refugee camp in that way. It is one of the many sites that gets invaded nightly. Yesterday 9 Palestinians were kidnapped from various West Bank Cities, for instance.

The story was accompanied by the blogger's own photographs, including this one:

For more information from the Palestinian blogosphere, check out Palestine Blogs.

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