TWTW: The World This Week #100

RNC redux, the world holds its breath...Elections 2024: Rwanda, Venezuela...UvdL lives on...so does Wagner?...China's Plenum, Xi's dilemma...Olympic traffic, oh my!...Cartoonist Landschulz bands Trump

In this weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, we celebrate our 100^th number over the past two years, our readership on five continents escalating dramatically, as we continue to explore how the media of other nations are reporting and commenting on the United States, and how they are viewing the rest of the world.

Today, from Paris and the upcoming Games of the XXXIII Olympiad !

How others see America

RNC redux

Hard to believe the Republican National Convention is over, but for much of the world it’s just beginning—the desperate fear that’s spreading of a second Trump presidency, only intensifying with the arrival of JD Vance. In my latest MSNBC column, I detailed the nature of so many of these fears, anchored firmly in some of the darkest moments from America’s past….

But most of the world’s media were hardly impressed by the outcome of the RNC….

Paris daily Le Monde described Saturday:

The ephemeral political reinvention of Trump

At the close of the Republican convention, the billionaire pretended to have been changed by the ordeal he went through.

And at the bottom of the page, almost as an after-thought:

“Joe must hang on” :  the democrats between disarray and division

A number of political leaders have shared opinions on the viability of his candidacy. The activists, themselves, are divided.

Still, on P.1, France’s center-right daily Le Figaro observed:

Biden weakened and isolated, Trump more determined than ever.

In quarantine because of Covid, the president is pushed by the Democrats to give up, while the Republicans, more confident than ever in their victory, acclaimed their candidate, who predicts his return to the White House.

Elections 2024: Rwanda, Venezuela

Rwanda: back to the future

Hardly unexpected, but Rwanda went to the polls in a presidential election—an effective coronation—giving incumbent Paul Kagame a 99% victory over two candidates, his only allowed opponents.

In 2015, Rwanda lifted the presidential term limits, so now Kagame could stay in power until 2034—becoming one of the longest-tenured rulers in Africa.

As the BBC put it:

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame has smashed his own record by winning Monday's elections with more than 99% of the vote.

The 66-year-old won the 2017 election with 98.63% of the vote, higher than the 93% he got in 2010 and the 95% in 2003. His critics say Mr Kagame's thundering majorities come as no surprise as he rules with an iron hand….[His] electoral commission barred at least three presidential aspirants, including the president's most vocal critics, from contesting.

It allowed two candidates—the Democratic Green Party’s Frank Habineza and independent Philippe Mpayimana—to run against him. They got 0.53% and 0.32% respectively, worse than in the 2017 election when their combined vote topped the 1% mark.

But in 2012, in a 90-minute interview with World Policy Journal, Kagame painted for me a very different version of how he saw his leadership of a nation that had emerged from a bloody conflict between Hutu and Tutsi:

WPJ: What are your plans? Will you seek to remain in power?

KAGAME: We have the Constitution in place. We have term limits. I'm serving my second and last term. I'm just hoping that another suitable person will come and continue with the work we are doing and not reverse it or break it up. But as far as I am concerned, to come back to your point, I strongly believe there is no conflict between democratic governance and social and economic development.

—by Jeff Danziger

They are just two bedfellows. They stay together. We need to do both and look long term, build institutions, and allow people to keep coming in and expressing themselves, including the media and civil society. But you go through a period of growth.

Little of this, of course, has come to pass. As Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes the media atmosphere in the country:

Undermined by decades of oppression, the Rwandan media landscape is one of the poorest in Africa. TV channels are controlled by the government or through shareholders who are members of the ruling party. Most radio stations concentrate on music and sports to avoid having problems. In a country of 12 million inhabitants, there is no longer a single national newspaper….Journalists who have tried to circulate sensitive or critical content via YouTube or other online outlets have received harsh sentences.

Venezuela: An historic turning point…or much more of the same?

To hear some describe it, Venezuela strongman Nicolás Maduro is in the fight for his political life in the election now just a week away. And for 8 million Venezuelans, driven into exile—3 million just over the border into Colombia—by Maduro’s catastrophic policies and profound repression, it could mean, finally, a path home. As The Guardian of London put it:

GUATIRE, Venezuela—The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.

But…some people are not persuaded. “Yes we can! Yes we can!” opposition supporters chanted as they gathered in this city on the eastern outskirts of the capital to champion the duo hoping to end the 11-year rule of Hugo Chávez’s unpopular heir—and more than a quarter-century of Chavismo.

The two politicians in question are María Corina Machado, one of Venezuela’s most prominent and outspoken opposition leaders, and Edmundo González Urrutia, a softly-spoken former diplomat who, until a few months ago, was virtually unknown.

González entered the fray after Machado and her first-choice substitute, an academic called Corina Yoris, were both prevented from challenging Maduro, who is seeking a third six-year term.

Now, with Machado’s support, the septuagenarian political newcomer is leading in the polls as the pair pledge to lead Venezuela out of the economic abyss and towards “a peaceful democratic transition”.

For the outcome…stand by!

How others see the World

UvdL lives on

It was supposed to be a nail-biter, but in the end former German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen (UvdL), won quite handily her re-election to a five-year term as president of the European Commission with 401 votes—41 more than she needed to squeeze out of the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg—a welcome contrast to her 9-vote margin five years ago.

As our inimitable SubStack colleagues, David Carretta and Christian Spillmann put it in their La Mattinale Europeene :

Using the scarecrow of the extreme right, the European People's Party [EPP] managed to secure the support not only of the socialists and liberals, but also of the Greens group, which was decisive for the confirmation of Mrs von der Leyen. The vote of the ecologists was a blank cheque, in the name of the need to have a pro-European majority, despite political orientations that clearly bear the EPP mark. Now, Mrs von der Leyen and the EPP will be free to compose a much more conservative Commission and use the next five years to tighten their control over the EU.

The next phase now begins, that of the formation of the next college of commissioners….

What she seems quite intent on doing, however, is getting rid of one difficult thorn, while doing her level best to Trumproof the European organization she now heads, unchallenged, at a minimum by creating the first Minister of Defense for Europe. As Caretta and Spillmann elaborated:

The commissioner for defence and other portfolios could be used to dismantle the powers—internal market, strategic autonomy, industry, space and defence—that the Frenchman Thierry Breton had accumulated.

Since he served on the leadoff panel that Andelman Unleashed moderated at last October’s Riga Global Conference in Latvia, we are not (personally) surprised.

Breton (right)

As for winners and losers, the South China Morning Post’s Brussels correspondent Finbarr Bermingham, has this take on what this all means:

China’s relations with Europe face another rocky five years after hawkish German politician Ursula von der Leyen secured another term at the helm of the European Commission, vowing to persevere with her tough policies towards Beijing…. the commission has decision-making powers for trade and competition—two of the most contentious components of the EU-China relationship. During her first term, von der Leyen pursued a strategy of de-risking from Beijing and oversaw a blitz of investigations, cracking down on what she called “market-distorting” subsidies in China’s hi-tech and clean-tech spaces.

Russia…Wagner…still alive?

How quickly we forget. But should we? Perhaps not. For years, the fearsome Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, brainchild of onetime Putin pal Yevgeni Prigozhin held sway over vast stretches of Africa, enriching the chosen few and empowering the Kremlin in remote but strategic corners of the world while serving as the one military force that racked up repeated successes. Until it wasn’t—after going one step too far and threatening Putin himself, as Andelman Unleashed chronicled in some detail just a year ago…

Heard much from them ever since? Not really. But they are hardly gone. As it turns out, they left “behind” a Telegram channel with 535,528 subscribers called Grey Zone, which Andelman Unleashed continues to monitor. Last week, it gave us a peek behind the curtain and what has been quietly happening during its ‘exile’ in Belarus:

During this [past] year, soldiers of the Wagner PMC shared their experience and knowledge with the military personnel of the Belarusian army: tactical medicine, shooting, combat in various situations, engineering training, etc. By January [2024], more than 300 company instructors were working in training centers in Belarus. PMC "Wagner" is known all over the world, as Dmitry Valerievich [ex-GRU operative and Wagner co-founder] said, but they not only know us, they also fear us. It is worth remembering the fear of the Poles and Balts when they learned that the “musicians” would arrive in Belarus. They immediately began to strengthen the eastern border, increasing the number of military personnel, and also reduced the number of checkpoints on the border with Belarus. Alas, a company with vast experience, which fought in many parts of the world, including the Northern Military District, did not remain in Russia, but when the Motherland calls, Wagner will definitely come to the rescue. I would like to thank Belarus and the Belarusian people for the warm welcome, for letting us into their home during difficult times for the company.

They are there, and waiting. Moreover, they’re still operating in many of their old haunts—in the Central African Republic (CAR) for instance:

….bordering Cameroon, a joint operation is being carried out by the Wagner Group and the country’s regular army (FACA). Armored vehicles and army aviation are also involved….an intelligence unit discovered a large militant camp near the Cameroon border on July 15. The ground forces were covered by the CAR aviation.

Thanks to cooperation with the command of the Cameroonian armed forces, 24 millitants were detained….An enemy road ambush was discovered using Belgian-made mines, which were successfully cleared.

China’s Convention…or Plenum actually

It may not have had the fireworks or even the balloons, certainly not Lee Greenwood or Kid Rock of the RNC, but halfway around the world there wrapped up another gaggle—quite different in style, if not substance.

The Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party wrapped up its 4-day session in Beijing with the ringing theme of:

“Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization.”

Somehow without the panache of Project 2025 that seems to be a foundation of the Trump-Vance empire, but trust us, it is every bit as frightening. Of course in Beijing everyone who values his perks, his career, even his life, falls right into step behind Xi Jinping.

These Third Plenums only come along twice in a decade, and are often billed as earth-moving. But as the extraordinary Bill Bishop of SubStack’s Sinocism points out: 

The communique says that “The reform tasks laid out in this resolution shall be completed by the time the People's Republic of China celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2029.” As expected the communique is light on implementation details….

Those still hoping for any change of course will likely be disappointed. The Communique details the progress in comprehensively deepening reform since the 2013 Third Plenum and again makes it clear the leadership thinks they are on the correct path.

In what seemed surprising, the Communique said that “an analysis of the present situation and the tasks we face was conducted. It was highlighted that we must remain firmly committed to accomplishing the goals for this year's economic and social development.” So they are sticking with the 5% GDP target for 2024, and focus for any near-term policy adjustments should be on the Politburo meeting later this month, a meeting that usually reviews economic work of the first half of the year and tweaks policies for the rest of the year.

Incidentally, if there was any doubt … It was unanimous.

Asia Times was at the media briefing that followed the Plenum, where Tang Fangyu, deputy head of the Central Committee’s Policy Research Office, said the communique “puts forward more than 300 important reform measures, all of which involve reforms on the levels of systems, mechanisms and institutions.” Perhaps ironically, though, it seems, as Asia Times reporter Jeff Pao observed, “while Xi claims to support a market economy, he is actually doing the opposite by strengthening the role of state-owned enterprises in the Chinese economy.”

As for Xi, “he is portrayed as ‘the supreme reformist.’

This week, the rubber will really meet the road as far as US-Chinese fallout is concerned. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported:

A group of heavyweight US executives will head to Beijing next week, hoping to meet with Chinese officials to obtain first-hand insight following the conclusion of China’s widely-watched third plenum.

The visit will be arranged by the US-China Business Council (USCBC), a Washington-based advocacy group, led by council president Craig Allen and board chair Raj Subramaniam, CEO of FedEx Corporation.

Companies included for the visit are Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Honeywell, UnitedHealth, Nike and Qualcomm, all with a huge business presence in China.

The group is hoping to meet with top Chinese leaders, such as foreign minister Wang Yi and the minister of commerce, Wang Wentao.

And don't forget the Olympics….

Indeed, we’ve arrived. Paris is preparing its welcome. Our first morning we went to collect our press accreditation at the Mairie de Paris (city hall), which happens to be across the Seine from our home-office around the corner from the Musee d’Orsay. Bonne chance (good luck). In preparation for dealing with terrorists, eight days before opening ceremonies, the Paris police, CRS riot police, and the Gendarmerie (a branch of the French military) had blocked every bridge across the river in much of central Paris, not to mention every street giving access to the riverfront.

All traffic was routed to a single bridge—the Pont de Sully. And every car, truck (no buses, they were barely running), vehicle of any kind was trying to get across, then once across was screened one-by-one. It turned into a $58 (50 Euro) taxi ride that “ordinary” times we could have done in about $12 or effectively for ‘free’ with our monthly Navigo unlimited bus and subway pass (in fact $45 a month as a ‘senior’).

And then there are the “voies Olympiques” lanes reserved only for Olympic buses and transport carrying athletes and officials, oh and all taxis. They are rolling freely, while alongside are all the rest of the unfortunates inching along in the world’s worst traffic jams. (Tempted to move into the fast lane? The fine’s 135 Euros [$147] and security cameras that are everywhere will find you.) Without an Olympic QR code, even bicyclists and motos can be fined.

Watch our SubStack partner, Callaway’s Climate Insights, for much more from us on the climate impact of the games—before, during and after

As it happens, the daily Le Parisien is giving readers a daily update of how things are:

Paris region transport users had a difficult day this Friday, July 19. While the temperature exceeded 30°C [in fact 90°F], traffic was disrupted or even interrupted on several sections of the RER A, B and C. On the RER A, a line used by 1.3 million passengers per day, a series of separate incidents affected many travelers…

"Just one week before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the first three RER lines are out of service this (Friday) evening mainly due to infrastructure issues," laments Arnaud Bertrand, president of the Plus de Trains user association. 

There is also barely a single Paris bus line that has not been affected—some quite directly and all detailed quite specifically on the RATP’s own website.

Finally, there’s …. Landschulz

The great German cartoonist Landschulz imagines how Donald Trump might have been, well, banded by the National Rifle Association, to thousands of whose members he pledged in an appearance back in February, “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he returns to the White House, bragging that during his first term as president he “did nothing” to curb guns.

Dorthe Landschulz was born in 1976 in Hamburg, Germany. She studied illustration at the HAW Hamburg and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. She has lived in France since 2003 and now works as a freelance cartoonist in Brittany. She started press cartooning and caricature in 2011, has published four cartoon books, and publishes her cartoons in magazines and newspapers such as Stern, Eulenspiegel, Spiegel Online, Börsenblatt, Welt der Frau Österreich, Heute Show online. She is a member of the global Paris-based collective Cartooning for Peace. 

Here’s how Landschulz imagines herself: