Uruguayan minister makes waves with shower photos on Facebook

Social networking sites might be in cyberspace, but they can have real-world consequences, as Uruguay's interior minister, Daisy Tourne, found out last week after posting a picture of herself in the shower on Facebook.

Tourne posted the photos -- in which only her face and hands were visible as she stood under the water in a shower -- with the caption "there's nothing more natural than a woman in the shower," according to Montevideo newspaper El Pais.

The photos weren't available to the general public, but even so, some of her contemporaries weren't impressed.

Former Vice President Luis Hierro Lopez told El Pais: "I think it's in very bad taste that the minister exposes herself so intimately."

"Ministers have to be more austere, modest -- above all the minister of the Interior," who commands the police force, he said.

Tourne posted her retort to the criticism on -- how'd you guess? -- Facebook. She said she cried over the incident out of anger, but that she was used to criticism after many years in politics.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City