November 05, 2009
Some friends and I stopped by McDonald's last weekend. We ordered a couple trays of food, paid our money, and waited.
After a bit, the clerk came back with the food and said: "I'm sorry, but you can't take your cheeseburgers and fries now. The last customer didn't pay, so until he comes back and hands over the money, we won't give you your food."
Does that make sense?
Of course, nothing like this actually happened. But I don't understand how this imaginary McDonald's scenario differs from what is happening with public heating in Chisinau.
Natalia Morari blogs for RFE/RLs Moldovan Service. "Buildings in which there are people who owe payments will not receive heat," we were told recently. Amusing, no? Especially if you consider that I haven't owed any money for at least the last two years. And what am I paying for? So that when it is minus 3 degrees Celsius outside I can walk around my apartment in five sweaters and eight pairs of socks?
Look, I'm not indifferent to the starving children of Africa -- I'm even ready to help them as much as I can. But I paid for my cheeseburger and I expect to get it. That's the basic law of the marketplace.
I ran into one of my neighbors, a woman who happens to be one of the biggest debtors in the building. She can't pay -- she has no job, her husband died, she isn't young anymore, she's helping out her children. I could understand her position, even sympathize with her and find myself hating the government a little bit more.
But then my neighbor suddenly says: "And anyway, even if I had the money, I wouldn't pay anyway. What's the point? They try to scare us over and over, but they just give us the heat anyway in the end."
Now the authorities are announcing that they will turn the heat back on. My neighbor was right -- there was no reason for her to pay. Last year they also threatened to turn off the heat, but it never happened and everyone was toasty all winter long.
So it turns out that Termokom, which is already bankrupt itself, has to continue serving people who aren't paying not because they can't, but because they don't feel like it. Termokom's position, then, is also understandable (looking at it purely from a market perspective and not saying anything for now about the company's pricing policies).
Of course, it is naive to think we can immediately switch over to unit-by-unit heating. They don't even have that everywhere in Western Europe. So what's to be done? That's the eternal, accursed question. Any ideas?
Downtown Kyiv
November 03, 2009
Upon landing at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport on Sunday afternoon, I was met by Ukrainian passport-control personnel in surgical masks.
I suddenly noticed that a number of people on line were also wearing masks of various sizes and designs. (Click for a photo gallery of swine flu in Eastern Europe.)
Not to be outdone, I pulled out my mask and promptly donned it -- after all I was surrounded by hundreds of people who had disembarked from Turkey, the United States, Russia, and other exotic ports of call.
You could never be too sure and, after all, an epidemic and a quarantine should be taken seriously.
The young woman who checked my passport insisted that I show her my face. Convinced that I was who I said I was, she energetically stamped my passport and handed it back to me. Her face remained hidden behind her mask and her eyes did not smile.
Going to work on Monday morning, the city seemed to be strangely empty -- just a few people walking about, but only a handful compared to Kyiv normally.
Reading the papers and web, swine flu stories predominated. I was astounded by the amount of hysteria and panic.
As usual, the president and the prime minister were trying to outdo each other. Suddenly the flu was political, and in Ukraine, where everything is political, it was super political. The weekend talk shows were full of it.
A shipment of antiviral medication Tamiflu arrived during the night and there to receive it was Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, along with Ukraine’s new Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko.
President Viktor Yushchenko has asked Ukraine’s neighbors, along with NATO, the United States, and the EU for help with the emergency.
The rumor mill, too, was working overtime. One of our colleagues arrived and with great conviction announced that 10 people had died from “lung plague” on the other bank of the capital’s river.
The pharmacies have no medicines left, announced someone else. Another said that their mother had tried to buy some Ukrainian medicine for her blood pressure but could not, as the pharmacy was only selling expensive imported foreign medicines.
The day continued in a similar vein. An opposition politician, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary health committee and a guest on our program, announced that the government had behaved incompetently and called on the health minister to resign.
He was ready to push through a bill calling for ”extreme measures” to be taken to stop the flu epidemic. When pressed for specifics, he said that the Defense and Emergency Situations ministries should mobilize their field hospitals to accommodate the sick and raise the salaries of doctors who are treating flu patients.
But there is no shortage of hospital space yet, I said, although this didn't seem to matter much.
In western Ukraine, where people had in fact died from regular influenza and some from swine flu, we heard reports that the pharmacies were empty.
We decided to go and check out the situation in Kyiv. At a pharmacy around the corner from our bureau, all the personnel were wearing surgical masks.
We asked the pharmacy director about the shortage of medicines. She admitted that they were out of certain medicines because last week they had been ordered to send them to Ternopil Province, the area where the flu outbreak began.
She seemed quite tired and called the situation an “epidemic of psychosis.” “This is a regular flu outbreak, no different from any other that we’ve had every year since I remember,” she said. “I don’t understand why the politicians are whipping up such hysteria about this.”
The salesperson at another nearby pharmacy refused to speak to us, saying that she had been instructed not to talk to any media. But are there more people buying flu medicines, I asked?
See for yourself, she said, gesturing to the customers behind me. There were three people, two of which were very jolly and looking for masks. “We’re going to stop the flu with alcohol and sex,” said one of the young man, upon learning that there were no masks left.
Ukraine hasn’t got the facilities to ascertain whether all the flu deaths so far were in fact brought on by swine flu. It relies on a laboratory in London to conduct the appropriate tests.
As a rule Ukrainians have a rather hypochondriac society. I’m always amazed how much they self-medicate themselves. Many drugs that require a prescription in the West are sold here over the counter. People seem to treat their aches, pains, and illnesses almost as hobbies; they look after them and cultivate them to some extent.
Every year for as long as I can remember there have been influenza epidemics in the country. Schools close, kids are sent home, people die. But how many? We haven’t been able to get this information yet, but the aforementioned MP assures us that such data exists.
People in Ukraine are afraid, but they are also poorly informed. The lack of truthful information is a wonderful breeding ground not just for a virus, but for all sorts of rumors and fears.
-- Irene Chalupa
November 03, 2009
An old video of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei visiting some of the U.S. diplomats detained in Iran some 30 years ago has been posted on his
website ahead of the anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover and the hostage taking of U.S. diplomats and embassy staff.
In the video Khamenei, who was then a deputy defense minister and a member of parliament, is seen chatting with one of the hostages, who appears to be U.S. diplomat John Limbert, who speaks fluent Persian.
Khamenei asks him about the detention conditions and issues such as food, hygiene, or whether the hostages have access to books. “Any shortcomings, problems, or difficulties can be removed,” says Khamenei.
The U.S. hostage responds that there is only one problem. Khamenei quickly reacts by saying “right, the fact that you’re here” and then expresses hope that “the Iranian criminal,“ the shah, will be delivered to Iran and the hostages will be free to go. The hostage replies: “Inshallah.”
Later in the video Khamenei appears to be giving an interview to Iranian state television. He describes his meeting with the hostages and gives details about their detention, including what he says is the good library they have access to.
In the interview, Khamenei says that the hostages are “very happy” with their living conditions and the food they’re receiving. “American food is being specially prepared for them,” says Khamenei.
The U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days and were reportedly threatened, blindfolded, subject to lengthy interrogations, held in solitary confinement for long periods of time, and were forbidden to talk to each other.
Ironically, at least one of the hostage takers, Mohsen Mirdamadi, is in prison in Tehran now and is likely to be facing similar conditions. In fact, many of the former hostage-takers have now turned into critics of the Islamic establishment.
-- Golnaz Esfandiari