Cablegate: Media Reaction: Pakistan; Cuba; Sao Paulo

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DE RUEHSO #0085 0531252
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O 221252Z FEB 08
FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7928
INFO RHEHNSC/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 9079
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO PRIORITY 8594
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UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000085

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TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: PAKISTAN; CUBA; SAO PAULO

1. "Advance In Pakistan"

Liberal, largest national circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo
(2/22): editorialized: "Contrary to expectations, Pakistan managed
to have calm and apparently clean elections, thereby advancing
towards establishing itself as a democratic nation. What is bad is
that the returns permit one to anticipate more political confusion
in that nation that, in addition to being one of the world's most
unstable regions, has become a terrorism center.... The US is
applying pressure to have the war on terror continue as a priority,
but that has the resistance of influential sectors such as the
secret service and members of the Pashtun ethnicity, who tend to be

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more sympathetic to Taliban. Clean elections may have been a
surprise, but they have not freed Pakistan from political
instability and terrorist violence."

2. "Fidel And Tediousness"

Philosopher Paulo Ghiraldelli wrote in center-right national
circulation daily O Estado de S. Paulo (2/22): "Cuba without Fidel
will continue to be a poor nation. Its inhabitants will continue to
be treated without any respect by the government.... On the other
hand, on the continent, the US will maintain the economic embargo -
which is more of a symbol than what has really made Cuba reach the
situation of poverty in which it lives today.... The Cuban people
had its imagination castrated. The same happened to the people once
called soviets. If Fidel's retirement means the beginning of a path
towards democracy, Cuba will suffer in order to learn what the East
European nations have had to suffer to learn: emotion does not come
from politics. There is nothing exciting in spending a life as a
'soldier of the revolution'.... The tedium of democracy is not same
as the tedium of long speeches."
White

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