Latest news with #Manuela
Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
José Mujica obituary: idiosyncratic president of Uruguay
Before José Mujica became president of Uruguay in 2010 he was best known as a former guerrilla leader who drove a battered 1987 powder-blue Volkswagen Beetle, grew chrysanthemums and lived in a dilapidated single-storey farmhouse 20 minutes outside Montevideo with his wife, also a former revolutionary, and Manuela, their three-legged yappy black mongrel. Little changed in office. Known as 'the most humble president in the world', Mujica turned the 100-year-old Estévez presidential palace into a museum, crawled to work in his Beetle and donated 90 per cent of his £7,100-a-month salary to social projects. 'I am rich here,' he told a journalist, tapping his chest as he brought out two tatty cushions and plonked them on a pair of rusty garden chairs. Those who considered
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
From a Tin-Roof Shack, Pepe Mujica Removed the Pomp from Politics
José 'Pepe' Mujica did not have much use for Uruguay's three-story presidential residence, with its chandeliers, elevator, marble staircase and Louis XV furniture. 'It's crap,' he told me last year. 'They should make it a high school.' So when he became president of his small South American nation in 2010, Mr. Mujica decided he would commute from his home: a cluttered, three-room shack the size of a studio apartment, crammed with a wood stove, overstuffed bookcases and jars of pickling vegetables. Before his death on Tuesday, Mr. Mujica lived there for decades with his lifelong partner, Lucía Topolansky — herself a former vice president — and their three-legged dog, Manuela. They farmed chrysanthemums to sell in local markets and drove their sky blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle to their favorite tango bars. There was no reason, he said, that a new job should require a move. That meant that, after sitting side-by-side with Barack Obama in the Oval Office or lecturing world leaders on the dangers of capitalism at the United Nations, Mr. Mujica would fly home in coach to a life resembling that of a poor farmer. It was a political masterstroke. His presidency was, by many policy measures, unremarkable. But his austere lifestyle made him revered by many Uruguayans for living like them, while giving him a platform in the international press to warn that greed was eroding society. He insisted it was truly how he wanted to live, but he also recognized that it served to illustrate that politicians had long had it too good. 'We have done everything possible to make the presidency less venerated,' Mr. Mujica told my New York Times predecessor in South America, Simon Romero, in in 2013, sharing with him a gourd of mate, the herbal drink passed back and forth over conversation in this part of the world. I visited Mr. Mujica at his same home last year. He was bundled in a winter coat and wool hat in front of a wood stove, frail and hardly able to eat as a result of radiation treatment for a tumor in his esophagus. But facing a journalist who could spread his ideas to the world for perhaps one of the final times, he held court for nearly two hours, expounding on how to find purpose and beauty in life and how, he told me unprompted, 'humanity, as it's going, is doomed.' He also explained why he believed that the trappings of elected office — the palaces, the servants, the luxury jets — were the opposite of what democracy was supposed to be about. 'The cultural remnants of feudalism remain — inside the republic. The red carpet, the bugles when the feudal lord came out of the castle onto the bridge. All that remains,' he said. 'The president likes to be praised.' He recalled a visit to Germany while he was president. 'They put me in a Mercedes-Benz. The door weighed about 3,000 kilos. They put 40 motorcycles in front and another 40 in back,' he said. 'I was ashamed.' The international press nicknamed him the world's 'poorest president,' noting his net worth was $1,800 when he took office. Mr. Mujica detested the moniker and often quoted the Roman court-philosopher Seneca: 'It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.' It would be hard to find a more striking contrast to President Trump, who has made living a gilded life central to his identity. In our interview, three months before the election, Mr. Mujica repeatedly brought up Mr. Trump. 'It seems like a lie — a country like the United States having a candidate like Trump,' he said. 'Democracy at the height of a doormat.' Mr. Mujica entered politics in the 1960s as a bank-robbing leftist guerrilla. His group, the Tupamaros, gained notoriety for their violence. Mr. Mujica said they tried to avoid harming civilians, but added that the leftist struggle sometimes required force. After escaping prison twice, he was imprisoned for 14 years under Uruguay's military dictatorship, much of his sentence spent in solitary confinement. Trapped in a hole in the ground, he said, he befriended rats and a small frog to survive psychologically. He was released as Uruguay re-established democracy and was eventually elected to Congress, drawing attention for showing up to work on a Vespa. In 2009, voters made him president of the nation of 3.3 million. Under Mr. Mujica, Uruguay decriminalized abortion, legalized same-sex marriage, pushed into renewable energy and became the first nation to fully legalize marijuana. Yet many of his goals, like significantly reducing inequality and improving education, fell victim to the realities of politics. But as news of his death spread on Tuesday, people across the world remembered him not for his policies. It was his humility that was his legacy. Earlier this year, his political protégé, a former history teacher named Yamandú Orsi, took office as Uruguay's new president. He has commuted to work from his family home, and Uruguay's presidential mansion has mostly remained empty.
France 24
13-05-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Jose Mujica: Uruguay's tractor-driving leftist icon
Dubbed the world's "poorest president" while in office from 2010 to 2015, Mujica eschewed the trappings of success, continuing to live on his small farm, with his wife and three-legged dog Manuela at his side. He transformed Uruguay, best known for football and cattle ranching, into an outpost of progressive politics on a continent plagued by corruption and strongman governments. A former guerrilla with a life story that read like a thriller, he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in May 2024 and underwent aggressive radiation therapy. In January, he announced he was dying after the cancer spread to his liver, and his wife Lucia Topolansky said this week he was receiving palliative care. A few months ago, Mujica had summoned his last reserves to campaign for his political heir Yamandu Orsi, who was elected president in November. Orsi's win, Mujica told AFP in an interview after the vote, was "something of a reward for me at the end of my career." As president, he put Uruguay on the map by legalizing abortion and gay marriage, and by making it the first country in the world to allow recreational cannabis use in 2013. He was even honored with his own strain, "Mujica Gold," in 2015, despite considering marijuana a "dangerous addiction." Mujica -- who could wax lyrical about nature, consumerism and love -- attributed his simple life and philosophical musings to the 13 years he spent in prison for his role in a leftist rebel group. "We were imprisoned and alone, so to survive, we had to think and rethink a lot," he said in a Netflix documentary on his life. Without that experience, he said, he may have been more "frivolous." He was disappointed at the authoritarian drift of some left-wing governments in Latin America, accusing repressive leaders in Venezuela and Nicaragua of "messing things up." Flowers and gunfire Mujica, a descendant of Basque and Italian immigrants, was born in Montevideo on May 20, 1935 according to his identity document, although he claimed to be a year older. He was mostly raised by his mother, who he described as "a very tough lady," after the untimely death of his father, and grew flowers to sell at fairs to help bring in money. Farming was his first love, though he was passionate about politics. He got his start as a member of the conservative National Party, but in the mid-1960s joined the MLN-Tupamaros, an urban guerrilla group inspired by the Cuban revolution that sought to overthrow the state and bring about socialist change. The group carried out Robin Hood-like "expropriations," in Mujica's own words, like robbing banks to give to the poor, before escalating to kidnappings, bombings and assassinations. Mujica sustained several bullet wounds, was arrested four times and escaped twice from prison -- including in the audacious 1971 breakout of scores of inmates from Montevideo's Punta Carretas prison, now a swanky shopping mall. Recaptured in 1972, he served 13 years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, during a time when Uruguay was under a military dictatorship. In 1985, he was pardoned and slowly entered politics, first as an MP and then as a senator. He served as minister of livestock, agriculture and fisheries in Uruguay's first left-wing government for three years before running for the presidency in 2009. Self-styled 'crazy old man' While beloved by many for his attempts as president to tackle poverty and to turn Uruguay into one of the world's most stable democracies, critics faulted Mujica for his failure to implement education reform and rein in government spending. He was known for his candid, sometimes less-than-diplomatic, remarks. A live microphone once caught him saying: "This old hag is worse than the one-eyed guy." It was a reference to ex-Argentine president Cristina Kirchner and her late husband and former president Nestor Kirchner, who had a lazy eye. After serving a single term as president, he was reelected to the Senate, but stepped down from active politics in 2020, due to the risks Covid-19 posed to his weakened immune system. He remained a key political figure, with his farm on the outskirts of Montevideo visited by a string of local and international leaders. In an August 2024 interview with The New York Times, he said he would like to be remembered as a "crazy old man." He is survived by his wife, a fellow ex-guerilla whom he married in 2005. He said his one regret in life was not having had children. Mujica had asked to be buried on his farm, under a tree he himself planted, alongside his dog Manuela, who died in 2018 at age 20. © 2025 AFP
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Yahoo
Tikis at Iosepa cemetery in Tooele County cut down, destroyed; officials investigating
The Tooele County Sheriff's Office is investigating the destruction of a pair of tikis at the Iosepa Cemetery that had been the apparent focus of sharp debate among some in the Pacific Islander community. 'It's something sad,' said Ron Manuela, president of the Iosepa Historical Association, focused on preserving the history of the original Hawaiian settlers who once populated the remote Iosepa area, now abandoned. The tikis were 'a gift to the people of Iosepa and to their families.' Sgt. Dane Lerdahl, with the Tooele County Sheriff's Office, said a deputy visited the area Tuesday to look into the matter and that the investigation continues. Officials think the two Hawaiian statues, placed at the cemetery last year, were downed on April 30 or May 1. 'We do know that they were cut down. It appears some sort of saw was used, and then they were stacked somewhere on the site,' he said. Both Manuela and Lerdahl hinted at the mixed sentiments the tikis had generated, though the motive remains focus of continued investigation. The tikis, made from telephone poles, were sawed into numerous pieces. 'There's a lot going on, and we're still trying to sort out the details,' Lerdahl said. A Tooele County Sheriff's Office official said Tuesday that the office is investigating the destruction of two tikis at the Iosepa cemetery. The undated photo shows the tikis before the incident. | Ruth Haws As many of the descendants of the Hawaiians and others who first settled Iosepa in the late 1800s belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Manuela said some took umbrage with the installation of the tikis. According to a tiki retailer in Hawaii, tikis can represent 'various deities, ancestors or spirits in traditional beliefs.' While the tikis were meant as a gift, Manuela said, 'there were those that verbally shared their dislike for it.' Some, he said, saw the statues — one about 8-feet high, the other about 6-feet high — as an infringement on church beliefs and a step toward paganism. A sign posted in front of them, also downed, had read, 'Guardians and protectors of our ancestors sacred lands.' 'That wasn't my feel. ... That's part of Hawaiian culture,' Manuela said, also noting the church's development of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, which offers tourist packages focused on varied aspects of Hawaiian and Pacific Island culture. 'It's not that it changed our focus, and now we were worshiping idols and things as such. But some didn't see it that way.' The Iosepa community in Tooele County's Skull Valley was once home to a contingent of Pacific Islanders, mostly Hawaiians, who migrated to Utah in the late 1800s after joining The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints. Iosepa was abandoned in 1917, but the cemetery remains as a gathering spot for the descendants of those earlier settlers, who visit the location each Memorial Day weekend. A Tooele County Sheriff's Office official said Tuesday that the office is investigating the destruction of two tikis at the Iosepa cemetery. The photo shows where the tikis once stood. | Ruth Haws History to Go, a website operated by the state of Utah, says Iosepa is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the 1971 nomination form notes some of its history. Many of the Pacific Islanders who came to Utah after joining the church initially settled in the North Salt Lake area. 'However, as they did not integrate into the society very well, and rumors of leprosy were reported, the Mormon Church undertook to settle them as a group in Skull Valley,' reads the nomination form. 'In time a community of 228 souls was developed in which the Polynesian culture flourished. Fish were raised in the springs and marshes nearby. The luau was preserved as were many of their dances and customs. The Polynesians were popular performers throughout the area.' After the church built a temple in Hawaii, many of the original settlers returned to Hawaii, and Iosepa was abandoned. 'However, a few remained in the area of losepa and Utah. Today descendants visit the region to view 'the land of their inheritance,'' reads the National Register application. The Memorial Day weekend festival each year aims 'to honor the faith and sacrifice of our Kupuna who lived here long ago,' reads the Iosepa Historical Association website, using the Hawaiian word to denote community elders. A pavilion, kitchen and other amenities have been added to the cemetery over the years by the organization.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Heavy snow blocks Alpine resorts in Switzerland and France
The Swiss ski resort of Zermatt was cut off and tourists and residents were told to stay indoors in the French resort of Tignes because of heavy snow in the Alps on Thursday. Tignes Mayor Serge Revial said there was a high risk of avalanches and "we had to make a decision to protect people", after more than a metre of snow was dumped over the town. Although snow is not uncommon in the Alps in April, the disruption left thousands of homes in the Savoie region of eastern France without power. In neighbouring Switzerland, the Simplon Pass into Italy and the Great St Bernard Tunnel were closed to traffic, while two cantons were badly affected. In Valais and Bernese Oberland, tourists heading for ski holidays were hit by the disruption. Road and rail routes were cut off into the resort of Zermatt in the southern canton of Valais; power was cut throughout Thursday and mobile phone networks were badly disrupted. Queues built up outside the only supermarket open in the town, according to Swiss media. The Alertswiss app warned of the risk of avalanches and falling trees in Valais as well as major disruption to transport. Schools were closed for the day in the city of Sion. People travelling to the area for Easter were advised to delay their trips until Saturday. Local police urged people to stay at home if possible. South of Zermatt, power outages were reported in 37 of the 74 municipalities in the Aosta Valley in north-west Italy, and a bridge collapsed in Biella in nearby Piedmont. The biggest problem in north-west Italy was heavy rain, as rivers burst their banks and a 92-year-old man was thought to have drowned because of flooding in his home at Monteu da Po near Turin. A torrent of water cascaded through the streets of the village, in hills close to the River Po. Red alerts were issued in several valleys, but the biggest concern was for the Po where river levels were expected to peak in the next 24 hours. Meteorologists said in some areas more than 20cm of rain had fallen in 36 hours, and extreme peaks had been recorded of even higher levels. "It's been raining non-stop for days, very, very hard, although it's stopped now," Manuela, a 33-year-old Turin resident, told the BBC. "Two rivers, the Po and the Dora, near Turin have burst their banks. The city is fine but they had to shut several bars and restaurants by the river in Turin." Millions watch as Swedish elk begin annual migration
