TWTW: The World This Week #103

Olympian dreams... The 2nd Gent recalls terrorism ...Trump-Harris, the world on edge ...Israel-Hamas, no letup ... Ukraine takes the war to Russia ... and cartoonist Danziger on the world's worst city

In this weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, 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 as we come to an end of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad.

Unleashed Sports: Olympic dénouement

With the closing ceremony Sunday at the grand Stade de France just outside the periphery of Paris, France rings down curtain on what can only be called an epic Olympics (and with a Paralympics still to come). Throughout, there was all the spectacle and pageantry that only France can make so very special.

As Le Monde so eloquently put it:

“Sporting success and popular enthusiasm: the enchanted parentheses of Paris 2024”

And there were some truly remarkable Olympic moments. We were blessed to have been part of some of them. There was Ukraine’s 16-year-old Taisiia Onofriichuk, brilliant competitor in rhythmic gymnastics, embraced by the crowd at the packed Porte de La Chapelle Arena, an elegant new multipurpose venue built for the Olympics. As much for her political statement as her accomplishments on the floor, Reuters explained:

Onofriichuk received her Olympic rhythmic gymnastics uniform on July 8, the same day Kyiv's main children's hospital was blasted by a Russian missile in the deadliest wave of air strikes for months. The 16-year-old's team leader said she did not know if they would even make it to Paris—let alone her coming fourth in the individual all-around qualifying round. 

Video by David A. Andelman

In other sports, like taekwando, the venue, in this case a transformed Grand Palais, all but eclipsed even these world-class athletes in its soaring magnificence….

Photo by David A. Andelman

But at the same time, there were brilliant sports, some like ‘breaking’ that rose and died at the same Olympics. Los Angeles 2028 has dissed the return for this sport that helped broker its international élan … as here, France and America square off in the stadium implanted in the Place de la Concorde:

A commemoration and the Second Gentleman

And finally, there were those who came to celebrate more than what was unspooling within the Olympic venues. The Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, leading the American delegation to the closing ceremonies, arrived early to participate in one particular tribute at the scene of one of the worst terrorist massacres of French history—Goldenberg’s kosher delicatessen in the rue des Rosiers in 1982.

As it happens, I was there, as noted in my diary 1 pm August 9, 1982. With our CBS News crew, we were the first on the scene moments after the attackers had fled, leaving mayhem behind. We had been shooting another story nearby and, our driver hearing the call over the police scanner, we broke off and within minutes were on the scene. Three Palestinian terrorists had burst in just after noon, rolled a grenade down the packed aisle, then sprayed with machine gun fire those trying to flee. In all 6 died, 22 were wounded. We found utter chaos, total carnage. Authorities were just setting up a small triage center in a little courtyard across the rue des Rosiers from the deli....there were screams and blood running everywhere.

photo Paris Match

None of the three terrorists, who fled shortly before our arrival on the scene, has ever been brought to justice. In 2015, however, the BBC and the magazine Paris Match reported:

A judge in France has issued arrest warrants for three people suspected of being behind a deadly attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris in 1982.

The men, believed to be former members of a radical Palestinian group, have been identified 33 years after the Rue des Rosiers assault. They now live in Norway, Jordan and the occupied West Bank, French media say.

Two of the wanted suspects are believed to have been the gunmen, according to Paris Match magazine. [under a headline: The Hour of Justice Has Come]

They are said to be a 56-year-old living in Norway, where he has citizenship, and a 60-year-old who now lives in Ramallah. The third suspect, a 64-year-old living in Jordan, is suspected of having a commanding role in the attack, Paris Match said. The three men are said to have belonged to a group led by Palestinian militant Abu Nidal, which was active in the 1970-80s.

In February, Le Monde brought us up to date:

Walid Abdulrahman Abou Zayed, a Norwegian of Palestinian origin [was] indicted and [has been] in pretrial detention in France since 2020.

How others see America

The battle is joined …. and the world is watching

As it happens, of course the French are fascinated by Doug Emhoff, the potential first gentleman of the United States—but especially for the light he could shed on his wife and her campaign. France’s center-right Le Figaro suggests in its front-page banner headline:

Kamala Harris takes off, Donald Trump looks for a reply …. The republican candidate, yesterday a great favorite in the American presidential election in the face of an aging president, is struggling to find good angles of attack faced with a black woman younger than him.

And then, there’s JD Vance, who Paris-based Cartooning for Peace artist Jeff Danziger portays brandishing a MAGAphone aboard a stagecoach driven by a demonic Donald Trump….

But leave it to Gérard Araud to put a whole lot of this into perspective:

“We will see in the coming weeks whether Kamala Harris’ candidacy ‘takes’ on the ground or whether it is just a flash in the pan, the result of the relief of Biden’s withdrawal,” warns former French ambassador to the United States and Israel Gérard Araud in his columns on X. The owner of the platform, billionaire Elon Musk, has thrown off the mask. He is openly campaigning for the election of Donald Trump, using the network for this purpose, and adopting extreme positions to stir up violence all over the world. He thus judged “a civil war inevitable” in the United Kingdom in a comment on the violence committed during the demonstrations organized by the extreme right against immigration.

Elon Musk has become an instrument of propaganda and destabilization. “He is a single-handed accelerator of what is destroying our democracies,” warns Tristan Mendès-France, a social media specialist…[and grandson of the great French statesman Pierre Mendès-France.]

Any number of diplomats, no matter how deeply plugged in, have found themselves blindsided by the sudden new direction the American election has taken, and apparently none more so than the Chinese, as Ken Moriyasu, diplomatic correspondent for Nikkei Asia reported from Washington:

At the Chinese Embassy, a team of 20 policy staffers is responsible for U.S. election analysis alone, operating separately from the legation's political section. The dedicated team interacts with experts, scholars, think tanks and journalists to gauge where the race is headed on election day Nov. 5. Even so, like many other Asian diplomats, the Chinese team was blindsided in recent weeks by the breakneck twists and turns of the election campaign.

An Unleashed First !

Andelman Unleashed has unspooled new, paid tiers. And this coming

Friday, for our (lightly) paid subscribers, we’ll be offering our third Unleashed Conversation via Zoom….this time from back in America…which means:

Noon US eastern time

6 pm Paris, Europe, Africa

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1 pm in Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore

So DO sign up…you’ll get a link…and we’ll have fun!

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How others see the World

It seemed that Hamas had changed the momentum in Gaza, as the daily Haaretz reported:

Hamas named Yahya Sinwa, the mastermind of October 7, as the paramount political leader of the group. The appointment is seen as a message from Hamas to Israel, to the U.S., to the mediators of the hostage deal, and to the Palestinian public, and actually confirms his status as the organization’s most powerful person.

And then the White House reported the US was still in thick of it all:

It is time to bring immediate relief both to the long-suffering people of Gaza as well as the long-suffering hostages and their families.  The time has come to conclude the ceasefire and hostages and detainees release deal.
 
The three of us [ Biden, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani ] and our teams have worked tirelessly over many months to forge a framework agreement that is now on the table with only the details of implementation left to conclude….There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay.  It is time to release the hostages, begin the ceasefire, and implement this agreement.
 
We have called on both sides to resume urgent discussion on Thursday, August 15 in Doha, or Cairo to close all remaining gaps and commence implementation of the deal without further delay. 

And then, along came the Israeli military. As the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported early Saturday:

Dozens of people were killed in an Israeli air raid on a school in the city of Gaza. The Israeli army attacked the school, which is used as accommodation for displaced persons, during the Muslim Fajr prayer early in the morning, said the media office controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas. Dozens of the victims were burned to death.

Israel's army announced that it had attacked a Hamas command center in the school building in the city of Gaza during the night. Terrorists were hit. The Hamas command center was in the school next to a mosque.

In the hours after the attack, there were different reports about the number of dead. A spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip put the number at at least 93, while medical and security circles in the Gaza Strip spoke of at least 100….

Hamas used the building as a hideout for terrorists and commanders, the Israeli military said. Attacks against Israel's troops and the State of Israel were planned and prepared from there.

Why now for this clearly disruptive attack….Ahead of any ceasefire that Thursday’s anticipated talks might provoke? Could be one malevolent reason.

Yet, an hour earlier, SDZ’s Dimitri Taub reported :

Washington is providing Israel with an additional $3.5 billion for the purchase of US weapons and military equipment.

The incredibly disappearing Puigdemont

One of our most loyal readers chastised us for reporting insufficiently on Spain but pleaded with us to dispense with Carles Puigdemont. Well sorry, my friend, but today this bizarre, proto-Trumpian individual cries out to have his moment (again) in the sun. Indeed, his photo appeared on the front page of the Paris daily Le Figaro:

Catalonia: The separatist Puigdemont makes an appearance, then flees.

The incredible disappearing Catalan indeed has been on the run for seven years. As the caption suggests:

After seven years of exile, the Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont made a brief reapperance, Thursday in Barcelona, before disappearing anew [likely back to Brussels] toying with the police and the arrest warrant that awaits him in Spain.

As London’s Guardian commented:

An egotistical and polarising rightwing election loser addresses his adoring supporters in a speech, casting himself as a victim and questioning democracy…. The crowd held aloft pictures of the loser’s face, chanting that he is their rightful president, and then turned their anger on the media, harassing reporters who were covering the event. Chaos ensued as some of the leader’s supporters attempted to assault the parliament building. Sound familiar?

Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive former president of Catalonia and the leader of the Catalan separatist party Junts, who fled Spain to avoid prosecution after organising an unlawful independence referendum in 2017, staged a dramatic reappearance on a Barcelona stage.

His show ended up being more of a charade than a coup, but it had definite Trumpian vibes. The loyal supporters he addressed were a small group and posed no serious threat to the Catalan parliament, but Puigdemont once again demonstrated his unwillingness to accept electoral defeat, his belief that he is above the law and his self-centred need for the spotlight.

Ukraine shuns the spotlight, but attacks

Meanwhile, speaking of a spotlight, Ukraine has shone one and (better late than never for many) taken its fight directly to the territory of its tormenter. Ukrainian forces have actually invaded Russia and after five days of fighting, the BBC reported, penetrated further into Russia than at any point since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. The daily Wyborcza in neighboring Poland could not be more delighted:

What's going on in Russia? Moscow is struggling to recover from the shock of Ukraine's unexpected attack on the Kursk region, which is part of Russia's "canonical territory."

In such cases, Russian big shots, especially those guilty of the misfortune, always look for one thing—an excuse. And they shower with promises that everything will return to normal in a moment.

Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff, promised on the third day of the battle of Kursk that his troops would drive away the attackers and "in three days reach the state border". Less than three years ago, the same staff assured that "in three days" it would take Kiev. And now it once again needs "three days" to push the enemy out of its land.

Now, when the Ukrainians have crossed the border without any obstacles [the local miliary commander] assures that nothing "dramatic or tragic" has happened, because the enemy has passed by and his subordinates are safe, sound and in position. And "the victory will be ours, because our people believe in God," which, however, did not seem to work in the battle for Kiev.

After a brief period of confusion, the Kremlin media received instructions on how to talk about what happened at the border. They must describe the clashes in the Kursk region, looking for analogies to the famous Battle of the Kursk Salient in August 1943, when the Red Army broke the Wehrmacht offensive and went on the attack.

It is also necessary to show that the authorities know, understand, and are in control of the situation. And this is the most important thing. In the practice of Russian propaganda, it is always the case that when a disaster occurs, the information provided by the media focuses not on the event itself, but on how quickly and wisely the authorities prevent the consequences of the tragedy. In these messages, the word "already" is usually very important.

The Kremlin, clearly worried that Russians as well as territory could be seized, made a quick decision, as DW reported:

Russia says 76,000 have been evacuated from Kursk as a Ukrainian incursion lasts into its fifth day.

And back home in Moscow, the daily Pravda couldn’t ignore any of this either, but somehow seemed to be flailing:

In response to the attack on the Kursk region, Russia may land in Alaska.

The attack on the Kursk region is our test of strength. What asymmetric response to the attack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region is Russia preparing?

Did the US authorities turn a blind eye to Zelensky’s plans to attack the Kursk region?

In this case, there is reason to believe that they not only did not close their eyes, they prepared this operation. How can they say that something is wrong there if it was their doing?

They could see from satellites that troops were amassing on the border with Russia. So they couldn't have not known? Zelensky is only a tool here. Of course, he acted with the help of his Washington and Brussels masters.

And then there’s the threat from those nasty Wagner mercenary forces Putin thought he’d put to rest forever:

There is also information that 450 PMC [Wagner group] fighters from Poland want to enter this section of the SVO [Special Military Operation aka Russia’s invasion of Ukraine]. The mercenaries' task is to occupy and hold the town of Sudzha and its suburbs. These Poles have already been dubbed "suicide Catholics."

Remember that Taiwan-China faceoff?

It took five months and more than a dozen rounds of talks but officials from Taiwan and mainland China finally hatched a deal for the return of the remains of two mainland fishermen this week. As Lawrence Chung reported from Taipei for the South China Morning Post….

The fishermen died in waters near the Taiwan-controlled island of Quemoy – also known as Kinmen – on February 14 after their boat capsized during a pursuit by Taiwanese coastguard boats.

The incident set off a barrage of accusations from both sides of the Taiwan Strait but ended in an agreement that raised hopes for the reopening of a dialogue channel between the two.

Under the agreement reached, Taiwan agreed to compensate the victims’ families, apologise, and repatriate the bodies of the two men.

Chen Yu-jen, a legislator from the Quemoy constituency and a member of the main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), said the settlement marked a good start for mending fences between both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

“This will allow our two sides to accumulate more goodwill, which is advantageous for improving relations,” said Chen, who has promoted better communication between the island and the mainland.

And then there’s France’s hero ….

His name is Léon Marchand, and though his five Olympic medals (four gold, one bronze) can’t (yet) compete with Michael Phelps, for the French he is a national hero….and treasure. An unanticipated honor, as Le Parisien point out:

He arranges to meet us in the lobby of a (very) opulent hotel within reach of the Olympic cauldron. He leads us to the terrace where the view is breathtaking. There, he really gives the impression of having all of Paris at his feet….For a few days now, Léon Marchand , 22, has been discovering his new life. That of a five-time world champion who has become the star of the Paris Games, all disciplines combined. And a true national hero with four gold medals and one bronze (200m breaststroke, 200m butterfly, 200 and 400m medley, 4x100m medley relay), who even eclipses LeBron James when he attends a Team USA basketball game or shares a box with Mick Jagger when he goes to see athletics at the Stade de France.

The Toulousain can no longer move without a bodyguard and, even in the hushed surroundings of this chic establishment, the requests are numerous. Everyone wants to congratulate him and thank him for the happiness he has brought to the French. Moreover, his entourage must watch to avoid the interview being constantly interrupted.

In fact, when the French tricolor runs up the flagpole and the national anthem, the Marseillaise, plays, the entire stadium sings along….with his name, pronounced nearly identically, in the final stanza: “marchons nos citoyens” [“Let’s march, we citizens”] Marchand himself and the entire house can’t resist in joining the thrilling finish…..

Finally, there’s …. Danziger

The Syrian capital of Damascus continues its unbroken streak of bringing up the rear of The Economist magazine’s annual rankings of the best and worst cities of the world. Of 173 cities the magazine’s editors examined, this was still the worst:

Stuck in the same place since 2013, Damascus, Syria’s war-torn capital, has ranked as the least liveable city for 11 straight years because of the instability caused by 13 years of war. It suffers from perennial blackouts and an economic crisis, worsened by a devastating earthquake in the north and west of the country in 2023. The city’s overall score is nearly ten points lower than that of the next-worst city, Tripoli, Libya’s capital.

[Incidentally, the most liveable city? Abu Dhabi…indeed the top five are all scattered along the Persian Gulf.]

The great American cartoonist Jeff Danziger imagines just how Syria got this way. Twelve years ago when Damascus was just embarking on its descent to the bottom, he drew this cartoon that remains, sadly, still so terribly relevant today….

Jeff Danziger has been a freelance cartoonist based in New York and Vermont for half a century. A veteran of the Vietnam War, serving as a U.S. soldier from 1967 to 1971, Danziger began his career as a cartoonist at a local Vermont newspaper in 1971, earning $1 per drawing. He then worked for the Christian Science Monitor from 1987 to 1997. His cartoons are published in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the world.

Today, he draws 6 to 10 cartoons a week on his favorite themes—electoral fraud, political figures and international relations. Representative of the talents of the American school, Jeff Danziger has succeeded in imposing an insolent editorial graphic style. He received the Thomas Nast Prize in 2008, the Herblock Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 2006, and the Overseas Press Award in 1993. He now works with the Washington Post Writers Group. While we have until now restricted our cartoonists to non-Americans, most of our regulars seem to have adopted the European custom of taking August off, and since Danziger is one of 18 Americans boasting membership in the Paris-based collective Cartooning for Peace, it is our privilege to feature him this week.

Here’s how Jeff imagines himself: