Switzerland has managed to go down by CHF 6.7 billion with their debts. That’s a reduction of more than five percent. With that we’re back to our level of debts of 2003. But actually half of that reduction is due to selling a lot of Swisscom stocks - the government earned CHF 3.2 billion from that. Even after paying the debts, there is a surplus of CHF 2.5 billion. Official media release in German and French. ...
Shinzo Abe is now the new prime minister of Japan. His first policy speech sounds reasonable enough though there is one thing that worries me. Abe wants to change the pacifist constitution and allow military operations in other countries. This started under Koizumi who sent self-defence forces to Iraq. Those similar to the Swiss troops in eastern Europe are only allowed to defend themselves - the Swiss troops are not even allowed to do that. ...
China’s president Hu Jintao offered a summit with Japan under one condition. The condition was, that Japan’s prime minister Junichiro Koizumi quits visiting the Yasukuni shrine (I posted about the shrine before here and here). Koizumi even defended his visits a few days ago claiming “still cannot understand why China and South Korea protest his visits to Yasukuni”. You really have to be blind, stupid and/or a liar to say such a thing. But let’s face it: Koizumi is not really concerned about other countries in Asia. Has even made his visits to the shrine a part of the election propaganda, using it to show that he won’t buckle down before other states. I really hope that Koizumi’s replacement will show more understanding. Though I don’t have much hope. And rest assured, I love Japan and I love the Japanese people. And I strongly dislike the Chinese government. But wrong is wrong and right is right. And honoring war criminals is wrong by just about any concept of ethics you can find in this world. ...
Next Sunday the Peruvians will elect their next president. Or much more likely they will just elect the participants of the second round. Currently it looks as if no candidate will get majority the first time round. The race will most likely be decided between Lourdes Flores and Ollanta Humala. Flores is very pro-business, though she claims to be more to the center than before, and Humala is extremely leftist. Though Humala doesn’t have a clear policy, because he mainly gains votes by declaring that all other politicians are corrupt and that he is not. For quite some time Flores led the polls but currently Humala leads by a few percent points. For the second round it’s very undecided yet with one poll claiming Humala’s victory and others claiming that Flores will win. Flores uses the general opinion that women are not as corrupt as the men in her favor. Many Peruvians don’t have much hope, though. I mean just look at Alan García. He is currently at third place and for some time it looked as he might just win the election. He already was president before and his presidency was probably one of the worst the world has ever seen. Knowing that he might get elected really makes you think. Many Christians hope that Humberto Lay of Restauración Nacional will get some points - or at least that his party gets some congressmen. Lay is a christian pastor and the party as well is christian. As a candidate for that party, one person of the Diego Thomson is running for congress as well. ...