Latest news with #JoseMujica
Reuters
5 days ago
- General
- Reuters
Jose Mujica, former Uruguayan president and guerrilla, dies at 89
Jose Mujica, a one-time guerrilla and later president of Uruguay who drove a beat-up old VW Beetle and enacted progressive reforms that carried his reputation well beyond South America, has died aged 89. Syakir Jasnee reports.
19-05-2025
- Politics
Ishiba Mourns Death of Uruguay's Ex-Pres. Jose Mujica
News from Japan Politics May 19, 2025 10:31 (JST) Tokyo, May 19 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sent a condolence letter over the death of former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 89. In the letter, sent to current Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi on Saturday, Ishiba expressed his condolences to the government and people of the South American country, acknowledging Mujica's dedication to poverty prevention and significant contributions to Uruguay's development during his presidency. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Irish Independent
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Obituary: Jose Mujica, Uruguayan Marxist guerrilla who later became ‘the world's poorest president'
Telegraph obituaries Jose Mujica, who has died aged 89, was a Marxist terrorist who reinvented himself to become a popular liberalising president of Uruguay in his 1970s. Ostentatiously rejecting the rewards of office, he earned the soubriquet 'the world's poorest president'. As a Marxist guerrilla, Mujica survived a gun battle with police during which he was shot six times and later spent two years incarcerated in a hole in the ground, keeping his sanity intact by befriending and conversing with a frog. In his later years his life became more mellow and — as he joined the centre-left Broad Front party — so did his politics.
Asahi Shimbun
16-05-2025
- Business
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Remembering Jose Mujica, the voice of a global conscience
Jose Mujica, former president of Uruguay, delivers a speech in Fuchu, western Tokyo, in 2016. (Asahi Shimbun file photo) What does it truly mean to be poor? Or perhaps the more pressing question is this: What does it mean to be rich? The recent passing of former Uruguayan President Jose 'Pepe' Mujica—often called 'the world's poorest president'—invites deep reflection on these questions. He died at the age of 89. 'A poor person is not someone who has little, but someone who needs infinitely much and wants more and more,' Mujica declared in his now-iconic speech, delivered in Spanish at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The powerful address propelled him to global recognition. He also famously stated, 'I am not poor; I am sober, light in baggage. I live with just enough so that things do not steal my freedom.' Why do those words still strike a chord today? Perhaps it's because we are living in an era marked by the erosion of our affluence. Japan's gross domestic product ranking among nations continues to decline. Economic growth has stalled. Society itself is shrinking. And in this environment, many may feel a subtle urge to sneer at the hollowness of material wealth. On the other hand, what exactly is poverty? A powerful answer emerged in a letter from a university student published recently in The Asahi Shimbun. The student, involved in support activities for orphaned children, wrote that poverty is 'being stripped of the ability to choose how you live.' The remark reflects a deep sense of frustration and helplessness. Unrestrained, capitalism has a tendency to concentrate wealth in ever fewer hands. That is why Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates remarked in a recent interview, 'I'm trying to set an example by giving 98 percent of the money I have.' The comment followed his pledge to donate virtually all of his estimated $200 billion (29.07 trillion yen) fortune over the next 20 years through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Wealth and poverty are not fixed concepts—they evolve with the times. In the early 20th century, when poverty was often indistinguishable from starvation, Japanese economist Hajime Kawakami (1879-1946) examined the meaning of luxury in his influential work 'Binbo Monogatari' (A story of poverty). 'Just as a person can die of thirst,' he observed, 'one can also die from drowning.' Let us return to the words of Jose Mujica: 'We did not come to this planet merely to develop ourselves, just like that, in general. We came to this planet to be happy.' His question lingers across generations: What, in the end, is human happiness? It is a profound inquiry—one without a definitive answer, yet one that remains eternally relevant. —The Asahi Shimbun, May 16 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
Toronto Star
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
Latin America's leftist leaders remember Uruguay's ‘Pepe' Mujica as generous, charismatic leader
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — In the soaring palace of Uruguay's parliament, leftist presidents from the region came to remember former President Jose Mujica on Thursday as a generous and charismatic leader whose legacy of humility remained an example for the world's politicians. 'A person like Pepe Mujica doesn't die,' Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said as he paid his respects to his longtime friend, widely known as Pepe, at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo where his body lay in state, eulogizing the onetime Marxist guerrilla who spent over a decade in prison in the 1970s as a 'superior human being.'
