Gov’t retreats, Brazil protests continue

First, a Sky News video from Australia News 1:

Massive protests continued through Brazil Tuesday night, even following conciliatory words from the nation’s president and the announcement that some cities had dropped bus fare increases which had triggered the most massive protests the country has seen in two decades.

From Bradley Brooks of the Associated Press:

Thousands of demonstrators flooded a square in Brazil’s economic hub, Sao Paulo, on Tuesday evening for the latest in a historic wave of protests against the shoddy state of public transit, schools and other public services in this booming South American giant.

Sparked earlier this month by a 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares and organized via social media, the nationwide protests are giving voice to growing discontent over the gap between Brazil’s high tax burden and the low quality of public infrastructure, echoing similar mobilizations in Turkey, Greece and other parts of the globe where weariness with governments has exploded in the streets.

On Tuesday, an estimated 50,000 people marched on Sao Paulo’s City Hall building, where a small radical group clashed with police as they attempted to force their way in and set a vehicle and other objects alight. Another protest sprang up in the working class Rio de Janeiro suburb of Sao Goncalo.

Read the rest.

Earlier in the day, the president had tried to placate protesters.

From Todd Benson of Reuters:

President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday sought to defuse a massive protest movement sweeping Brazil, acknowledging the need for better public services and more responsive governance as demonstrations continued in some cities around the country.

Speaking the morning after more than 200,000 Brazilians marched in over a half-dozen cities, Rousseff said her government remains committed to social change and is listening attentively to the many grievances expressed at the demonstrations.

Read the rest.

More from The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts:

Brazilians woke up with a mix of euphoria, fear and confusion after the country’s biggest night of protest in more than 20 years radicalised a new generation and left the established political class wondering how to react.

Vast demonstrations, in some cases of more than a 100,000 people, swept through at least a dozen major cities on Monday night, with protesters calling for better public services and an end to corruption.

>snip<

The scale is still being assessed. There are estimates of more than 100,000 in Rio, 50,000 in São Paulo and Belo Horizone, as well as many thousands elsewhere. Although these figures are contested, the combined total is likely to be bigger than any demonstration since former president Fernando Collor de Mello was forced from office in 1992.

Read the rest.

Police overreaction to the protests had mere intensified the scale of public outrage, as reported by Vincent Bevins of the Los Angeles Times:

Support for the Free Fare Movement, which launched the demonstrations, has grown since police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at marchers in Sao Paulo on Thursday and assaulted some participants and bystanders.

Over the next few days, groups protesting government investments made in preparation for the 2014 soccer World Cup, rather than in areas such as healthcare and education, also held demonstrations and clashed with police.

In response Tuesday, the governments of Porto Alegre, Cuiaba, Recife and Joao Pessoa announced bus fare cuts of 2 cents to 5 cents. The mayor of Sao Paulo, Fernando Haddad, said he might also be willing to consider such a reduction if that is what the population wants — and if he can raise the funds.

Protesters in Sao Paulo vowed to stay in the streets until a recent 10-cent fare increase was reversed.

Read the rest.

More on Roussef’s attempt at placating the public from the BBC:

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has said she is proud of the tens of thousands of people who have taken to the streets to demand better education, schools and transport.

“My government is listening to the voices calling for change,” said Ms Rousseff in her first comments since Monday night’s protests.

>snip<

“The size of yesterday’s marches is evidence of the strength of our democracy.”

“It is good to see so many young people, and adults – the grandson, the father and the grandfather – together holding the Brazilian flag, singing our anthem and fighting for a better country,” said Ms Rousseff.

Read the rest.

Finally, from vlogger Runaway Gringo, a look at demonstrators marching down São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue Monday:

Massive protests underway in South America

We bring you reports from three countries, Peruo, Chile, and Brazil.

Peruvian students protest law changes

Latin America has a grand tradition of autonomous universities, self-governing institutions which set their own destinies and are off-limits to law enforcement.

But the concept is under attack in Peru, and students have been taking to the streets in protest. The story has passed almost without notice here in the U.S., and we learned of it only though a post at For what we are… they will be.

Via a Google translation of the Spanish language original at Webguerrillero:

Thousands of Peruvian students have continued on Saturday and for a third day protesting against the project of the New University Act.

Some 6000 students of the National University San Antonio Abad have taken to the streets of Cusco, in southeastern Peru, to express their opposition to the new law, they say, university autonomy injured.

Those present at the protest say the project violates the freedom of expression of students and establishes regulatory bodies to supervise the higher education institutions in the interests of politicians and businessmen.

“We question what violates the autonomy of universities and students sanctions ranging from reprimand to permanent expulsion” said Miguel Angel Quispe Huaman, vice president of the University Federation Cusco (FUC).

During the protests on Thursday and Friday were clashes between students and police, which left dozens injured and at least four students arrested.

The only report in U.S. media we could find was a Reuters video posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Meanwhile, student protests continue in Chile

First, a video report from Reuters:

From the program notes:

Chilean students hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at police in the latest mass demonstration to demand the government overhaul the educational system.

Most of the demonstrators — which local reports indicated police had estimated at 45,000 while student organizers said there were more than 80,000 — remained peaceful as they marched through central Santiago streets carrying banners demanding free higher education and condemning conservative President Sebastian Pinera.

Students, both secondary and university, have led regular demonstrations, calling for a free and quality education for all Chileans since the protest movement started in 2011.

More coverage, without narration, from RT:

The program notes:

In Chile, thousands of students angered at rising education costs, clashed with police in the capital, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. The students had flooded the streets for a peaceful march, still wearing their uniforms and backpacks, before it then turned violent. At least 40 were arrested. The students oppose the fact they have to pay 75% of the cost of their own educations – one of the highest rates in the world.

Brazilian protests target transport fare hikes

It’s not just students who are taking to South American streets, as the Wall Street Journal’s Loretta Caho reports:

The latest in a string of protests against transportation-fare increases turned violent on Thursday, as tensions grow over unemployment and rising inflation in Brazil.

Thousands of protesters gathered in the late afternoon at the Municipal Theater in central São Paulo and marched through the city center. Just after 7 p.m., police began firing tear gas into the crowd, sending protesters running. People screamed “Fascist police!” and threw stones at the police as smoke filled the air.

The demonstration was the fourth since last week in response to a nearly 7% increase in public transport fares in the city to 3.20 reais, or about $1.50. It was also met with the most force so far by police – by the end of the demonstration late Thursday night, after officers in riot gear pursued and shot at groups of protesters all around the city center, dozens of people had been detained. Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that seven of its reporters were hit, with rubber bullets, including two who were shot in the face.

Read the rest.

And a video report from Euronews:

The violence spread Saturday to target the government’s plan to spend million on hosting the 2014 world soccer championship, as the BBC reports:

Up to 1,000 Brazilians demonstrated outside the country’s national stadium to vent their anger at the amount of money the country is spending on staging next year’s World Cup.

Police used tear gas and pepper spray to control protestors before the match, in which Brazil beat Japan 3-0.

There were also reports rubber bullets were used and 30 arrests were made.

Demonstrators held up posters reading: “We don’t need the World Cup” and “We need money for hospitals and education”.

Read the rest.

Pot smoking, class war, and a real war in Mexico

In a follow-up to yesterday’s post about class differences in America, here’s an interesting chart from the ACLU report The War on Marijuana in Black and White [PDF] on the disparity in arrests in the country’s 25 most populous counties:

There’s good news for folks living in our own home turf, California’s Alameda County — home to both Berkeley and Oakland. Seems as though the racial disparity in pot busts is among the lowest around and the overall number of arrests is the lowest save for Middlesex, Mass.

And here’s another take on the drug wars, from Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks:

On an even more sobering note, here’s a report from The Real News Network on an even more devastating impact of the war on drugs, the 70,000 deaths in Mexico over the past six years as a result of the literal drug wars waged by the country’s drug cartels.

Paul Jay gets the facts from John Ackerman, professor at the Institute for Legal Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and editor in chief of The Mexican Law Review:

A transcript of the interview is posted here.

Alexis Tsipras, Slavoj Žižek on the European Left

A fascinating discussion on the Role of the European Left from the 6th Subversive Festival: The Utopia of Democracy, held last month in Zagreb, Croatia, and moderated by author Srećko Horvat.

Greek parliamentarian Alexis Tsipras, chair of radical left party Syriza, assails the hegemony of a Germany relentlessly driven to impose the neoliberal agenda on the continent, and the myth of the “lazy Greek” that serves German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s agenda so well.

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek declares that Syriza’s fight is for nothing less than the soul of Europe itself, opposed by technocrats and anti-immigrant nationalists. He hails Syriza as “one of the few signs of hope for Europe” and an anomaly among leftist parties in its refusal to accept failure.

One major focus of the evolving is debt, with Žižek noting that United States power in the 20th Century continued without a major payoff in the debt that fueled it.

Especially illuminating is Tspiras’s discussion of what Syriza would do if the party gained power [it now regularly battles second place in public opinion polls with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn].

The discussion is particularly interesting for offering a perspective all too rarely heard in the U.S.

The program notes:

The accession of Croatia to the periphery of the European Union, as the most recent and possibly the last member state, is a good cause to ask ourselves what kind of Europe this is, but also what is the future of Europe and what is the left wing’s role in it. After the great success of SYRIZA in Greece, a question arises concerning the relationship between social movements and organized party activity, as well as the burning issue of taking over the power and resisting the dictatorship of Troika. Is it even possible to design and bring into life a realistic utopian power within the existing frame of the financial and political union, one that will make a radical shift from the prevailing “neoliberal consensus”? And if it is, what are the necessary strategies and forms of organization? All these questions will be discussed – just two months before Croatia’s accession to the EU and one month before the Altersummit in Athens – by the “most dangerous man in Europe”, a name that the leading mainstream media gave to Alexis Tsipras, and “the most dangerous philosopher of the West”, as they call Slavoj Žižek, a regular guest of the Subversive Festival.

Alexis Tsipras: Greek left wing politician and a member of the Hellenic parliament, president of the Synaspismom political party since 2008, head of the SYRIZA parliamentary group since 2009 and Leader of Opposition since June 2012. He studied civil engineering at the National Technical University of Athens As a university student he joined the ranks of the renovative left movement and was member of the executive board of the Student’s union of the Civil Engineering School of National Technical University of Athens, and also served as student representative at the University Senate. In 2009 Tsipras became a leader of SYRIZA parliamentary group. In the 2012 Greek legislative elections SYRIZA became the second largest party in the Greek parliament and the main opposition party.

Slavoj Žižek: Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory and theoretical psychoanalysis. Žižek is a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a professor at the European Graduate School. He has been a visiting professor at many important universities. He is currently the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London and president of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana. He has been called ‘the most dangerous political philosopher in the West’. He is a traditional guest and Parteigenosse at Subversive Festival. He has published over 50 books that have been translated into 20 languages. He writes on many topics including subjectivity, ideology, capitalism, fundamentalism, racism, tolerance, multiculturalism, human rights, ecology, globalization, the Iraq War, revolution, utopianism, totalitarianism, postmodernism, pop culture, opera, cinema, political theology, and religion. Some of his books are The Sublime Object of Ideology (2002.), The Ticklish Subject (2006.), Violence (2008.), The Parallax View (2009.), First As Tragedy, Then As Force (2010).

Srećko Horvat: One of the founders of Subversive Festival and Subversive Forum. Author, publicist and translator. Published seven books in Croatian. His latest publication — entitled Attention! The Enemy is listening! — is a collection of interviews with Amos Oz, Francis Fukuyama, Gayatri Spivak, Stéphane Hessel, Zygmunt Bauman and others. He is also editor-in-chief of the critical theory dossier Up & Underground and deputy editor of the journal for cultural and social issues Zarez.

Headlines of the day: Class, theology, union?

From Salon:

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class

Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth — even democracy

From Haaretz:

Israel has highest poverty rate in the developed world, OECD report shows

Israel is the most impoverished of the 34 member countries, with a poverty rate of 20.9%, according to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

From the BBC:

Pope Francis hits out at global ‘cult of money’

Gee, maybe there’s something to this one from the London Telegraph:

Pope Francis elected after supernatural ‘signs’ in the Conclave, says Cardinal

The surprise election of Pope Francis came about because of a series of supernatural “signs”, one of the leading Cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church has claimed

From McClatchy Newspapers:

In Mexico, fears for democracy as threatened journalists curtail coverage

From The Independent:

François Hollande calls for ‘European political union’ within two years

Frankie the First: The austerian pope

Pay close attention to this Oscar Leon report from The Real News Network on Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian Cardinal transformed into Pope Francis I — signifying his homage to St. Francis of Assisi, that most austere-living of saints.

Indeed, watch the headlines displayed in the video, and their invocation of papal austerity as sign of the new pope’s conspicuous frugality.

Watching the video, we had a perverse thought.

Frankie’s no liberation theologian, out to redistribute wealth. No, he’s here to preach the religious benefits accruing from the embrace of austerity. The poor accrue virtue by acceptance of their status, nay, by embracing their status.

Looking back at the recent history of the Catholic church, we see an easy acceptance of fascism in preference to communism, the provision of escape lines for Nazi war criminals in the wake of Nazi defeat, and the ongoing cooperation and funding of radical right underground groups during the Soviet era.

Who better to sell the austerian message to the peoples of, say, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, that a Latin American pope who names himself after a hippie saint?

And he’s proven himself quite accommodating to oligarchical imposers of austerian measures, and now runs a city state with its own bank-with-a-troubled history, laundering both mafia and spook money.

Anyway, just a thought.

Pope Francis accused by family and friends of tortured priests

A full transcript of the segment is posted here.

UPDATE: Donning our Madison Avenue thinking caps, we came up with a slogan for the Vatican to use to sell folks on latter-day indentured servitude:

Poverty: Not just a necessity,
It’s a divine virtue!

Jorge and Jorge: Why are these men smiling?

One, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, nominally a fisher of men, and the other, Argentina military junta jefe Jorge Rafael Videla, a baby-stealing, “Dirty War-making, feeder of men to the fishes, snapped back when Jorge II ruled the political roost and Jorge I, now reincarnated as Pope Frankie the First, was the country’s top Catholic.

Photo from Indignados Lisboa  via (Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography:

‘James Steele: America’s mystery man in Iraq’

A stunning documentary from The Guardian about the secret presence behind reigns of violence in Latin America and Iraq:

The program notes:

A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic reveals how retired US colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played a key role in training and overseeing US-funded special police commandos who ran a network of torture centres in Iraq. Another special forces veteran, Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had been sent into Iraq to organise the Iraqi security services.

Quote of the day: Chávez’s incomplete revolution

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Colombian-born Assistant Dean of the University of London’s Birkbeck College School of Law, writing for The Guardian on the impact of the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on the Bolivarian Revolution:

The project remains incomplete. It may be eternal and thus the struggle will continue after Chávez is gone. But whatever the future may hold, the peoples of the Americas will fight to salvage the present in which they have regained a voice. In Venezuela, they put Chávez back into the presidency after the coup. This was the key event in Chávez’s political life, not the military rebellion or the first electoral victory. Something changed within him at that point: his discipline became ironclad, his patience invincible and his politics clearer. For all the attention paid to the relation between Chávez and Castro, the lesser known fact is that Chávez’s political education owes more to another Marxist president who was also an avowed democrat: Chile’s Salvador Allende. :Like Allende, we’re pacifists and democrats,” he once said. “Unlike Allende, we’re armed.”

The lesson drawn by Chávez from the defeat of Allende in 1973 is crucial. Some, like the far right and the state-linked paramilitary of Colombia would love to see Chavismo implode, and wouldn’t hesitate to sow chaos across borders. The support of the army and the masses of Venezuela will decide the fate of the Bolívarian revolution, and the solidarity of powerful and sympathetic neighbours like Brazil. Nobody wants instability now that Latin America is finally standing up for itself. In his final days Chávez emphasised the need to build communal power and promoted some of his former critics associated with the journal Comuna. The revolution will not be rolled back. Unlike his admired Bolívar, Chávez did not plough the seas.

Read the rest.

Hugo Chavez is dead, respiratory infection cited

UPDATED: at the end.

A report from RT:

The government’s announcement, from Venezuelan TV via Britain’s Channel 4:

From the BBC:

An emotional Nicolas Maduro made the announcement on Tuesday evening, flanked by leading Venezuelan political and military leaders.Earlier, he said the 58-year-old Venezuelan leader had a new, severe respiratory infection and had entered “his most difficult hours”.

He also announced the government had expelled two US diplomats from the country for spying on Venezuela’s military.

>snip<

He said he had no doubt that Mr Chavez’s cancer, first diagnosed in 2011, had been induced by foul play by Venezuela’s enemies.

Read the rest.

Then consider this from the Chris Kraul and Mery Mogollon of the Los Angeles Times:

Chavez won the lower classes’ support by redistributing the nation’s vast oil wealth through welfare programs called missions, which set up medical clinics and schools, operated a chain of cut-rate grocery stores, and divvied up nationalized farms and ranches among cooperatives of the impoverished.

Daniel Hellinger, a political science professor at Webster University in St. Louis, said the welfare programs reduced Venezuela’s poverty rate from close to 80% in the 1990s to about 20%, and wiped out illiteracy.

“To millions of poor Venezuelans excluded from meaningful participation in politics, Chavez offered hope for a new kind of democracy that would open doors of government to them,” Hellinger said. “However much the system fell short of that aspiration, it was Chavez who gave voice to it.”

Read the rest.

Chart of the day: The Great Global Land Grab

From BEHIND THE BRANDS: Food justice and the “Big 10” food and beverage companies, a new Oxfam report [PDF} on the power and politics of food. For more information, see this Oxfam website. Click on the image to enlarge.

A video vignette: They Are The Last

Shot by Diego Vivanco and edited by Ian Clark of Kauri Multimedia, a very short feature about another endangered livelihood:

The program notes:

34 degrees 24 minutes 19 seconds South,
53 degrees, 46 minutes 40 seconds West.

Leonardo Da Costa is a lighthouse keeper stationed in Cabo Polonio, a remote cape in a stretch of Uruguayan coastline rich in shipwrecks and sunken treasures.

Cabo Polonio’s light has been guiding ships since 1881, and Da Costa is the latest in a long line of watchmen who have operated the tower with care and attention. He leads an unassuming life, the tranquility of the almost intact landscape keeping him company. Serenity and silence merge with the daily tasks and chores he carries out. Da Costa represents a rare profession that still survives in a few countries.

Take some time to appreciate a gentle and enlightening way of life, for once it is gone, it will be missed.

*Music by Volt Heist: voltheist.com

Headline of the day: Pissing in our own well

From Pro Publica:

Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

Banksters declare political war on Correa

A solid report from The Real News Network on the 26 April presidential elections in Ecuador, where the opposition to incumbent Rafael Correa [who holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois] is a bank president who stepped down from his post to take on the popular president.

Correa has implemented new banking taxes, with the proceeds specifically earmarked for helping the nation’s poorest, and he’s wildly unpopular with the bankster set.

Correa, one of Latin America’s leading progressives, gained headlines last summer when he extended political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his nation’s London embassy.

Headline of the day: To free a cat burglar?

From the Irish Independent:

Paws for thought: Cat caught smuggling saw and phone into prison

Headline of the day: So wrong and yet. . .

From The Independent:

Brazilian student sparks outrage after selling virginity online for $780,000 to raise money for poor families

Headlines of the day II: Lightening up, lighting up

From The Raw Story:

Colorado Tax Enforcer Tells ‘60 Minutes’: Weed Beat the Recession in Denver

From The Guardian:

Uruguay plans to legalise marijuana under state monopoly

José Mujica’s government says more damage is done by illegal dealings in drug

Quote of the day: A tale of two countries

From Cunning Hired Knaves, written in the wake of the reelection of Hugo Chavez:

For the popular classes of Venezuela, the words ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence’ are inconceivable without other words, such as justice, equality, freedom, struggle, democracy, and –yes- socialism. In Ireland, by contrast, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence’ amount to little more than catchwords bandied about by ruling elites to justify one more raid on all that is held in common. Is your community being stripped of its public services? Excellent: one more step towards getting our sovereignty back! Has your mother been moaning in agony on a hospital trolley for the last twenty four hours? Wonderful: her sacrifice will see us on the road to independence once again! Have your home help hours been cut? Excellent: your helplessness at home is a solid indicator of our sovereignty regained! Are you fleeing the fear of shame and deprivation in search of a job in Canada or Australia? Marvellous: we value our independence too highly to have you depending on us.

Fueling the Food Crisis — ethanol and hunger

From The Real News Network [transcript here], a fascinating discussion between Paul Jay and Timothy A Wise about the role of government ethanol mandates in fueling Third World hunger:

Some background on Wise via TRNN:

Timothy A. Wise is the Research Director of the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE), Tufts University, and leads its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. With a background in international development, he specializes in agricultural policy and rural development. He is involved in ongoing research in the areas of: Sustainable Rural Development, Beyond Agricultural Subsidies, Mexico Under NAFTA, WTO and Global Trade. He is the co-author of the book (in English and Spanish), Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico, and The Promise and the Perils of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: Lessons from Latin America. He is the former executive director of Grassroots International, a Boston-based international aid organization. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts’ Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department.

Al Jazeera has an extended report on Wise’s work here. His report on the impacts of the U.S. ethanol mandate on Mexico is here [PDF].

A victory for democracy: Hugo Chávez wins

The Venezuelan president and Bolivarian Socialist has won.

First, a video report from euronews:

The story from Jonathan Watts and Virginia Lopez of The Guardian:

Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has once again defied his doubters by winning a new term of office in this Sunday’s presidential election after what had been billed as the closest race of his political life.

To the euphoria of supporters in and around his campaign headquarters, the National Electoral Council announced the president had secured 54.4% of the votes, while his rival Capriles was behind with 44.9%. Some votes were still to be counted, but the council said the result was not in doubt.

Chávez tweeted, “Thank you, my God. Thanks to everyone. Thanks my beloved people!!! Viva Venezuela!!!! Viva Bolivar!!!!!”

As the result was announced, his supporters burst into cheers and songs of “Viva Le Patria” and “Ooh Aah, Chávez won’t go.”

Read the rest.

More from  William Neuman of the New York Times:

Shortly before 11:30 p.m. local time, Mr. Chávez stepped out onto the balcony of the presidential palace in Caracas and waved to a sea of jubilant supporters. “My words of recognition go out from here to all who voted against us, a recognition for their democratic temperment,” he said. A former soldier, he called the election a “perfect battle.”

Still, after a spirited campaign, the polarizing president finds himself governing a changed country. He is an ailing and politically weakened winner facing an emboldened opposition that grew stronger and more confident as the voting neared, and that held out hope that an upset victory was within reach.

Mr. Chávez gave no indication Sunday night that the strong showing by the opposition would cause him to govern in a different way than before. He invited his opponents to give up a way of thinking “that has led them to deny everything that is good in Venezuela,” adding, “Venezuela is not a catastrophe — Venezuela today is the best Venezuela we’ve had in 200 years.”

When he finished speaking, he wiped sweat from his face with a bright red handkerchief and waved the yellow, blue and red national flag.

Read the rest.