TWTW: The World This Week #104

Middle East holds its breath ... Battles of Kursk, then & especially now ... Mpox explodes ... the world awaits the DNC ... Masterpieces of the Resistance ... and cartoonist Kamensky on Elon & Trump

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.

How others see the World

Which crisis first?

It's hard to parse out which crisis is likely to come to a boil first, but since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel this weekend and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered the aircraft carrier strike group Abraham Lincoln to pick up the pace moving into position in the eastern Mediterranean …

…let's just go beyond a coinflip and start with the Middle East … then we'll circle back to Ukraine & Russia….[ before moving on to Kamala vs Donald. ]

As the US Naval Institute News reported:

Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and affirmed the U.S. military commitment to Israel as the region braces for anticipated retaliation from Iran following the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran late last month.

“The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, which is equipped with F-35C fighters [will be] adding to the capabilities already provided by the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters…[Last week] Lincoln was operating in the Sulu Sea off the coast of the Philippines, according to USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker. Lincoln’s position means a seven-to-nine-day sail from the Pacific to the North Arabian Sea and U.S. 5th Fleet, based on previous carrier transits in the region.

The Pentagon [also] signaled a guided-missile submarine capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile and U.S. special operations forces was headed to CENTCOM. Ohio-class submarine USS Georgia …one of four Ohios that have been converted from nuclear ballistic submarines to carry Tomahawks.

Simmering or full boil?

The latest series of talks between US, Egyptian, and Qatar officials recessed in Qatar with a new round set in Cairo this week, all sides expressing optimism for a cease fire and hostage exchange. Here's how the Israeli daily Haaretz described the talks' status:

The mediating countries in the hostage and cease-fire negotiations released a joint statement and said the U.S. presented to Israel and Hamas a proposal that "builds on areas of agreement over the past week, and bridges remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal."

Iran is expected to delay an attack on Israel that would respond to the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, in order to allow mediators time to make a high-stakes push for a cease-fire to end the war in Gaza.

U.S. President Joe Biden said of the latest developments in negotiations for a hostage deal that parties negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza were closer to reaching a deal but were not there yet.

Moreover, Haaretz continued in its lead headline Sunday:

It's Biden's Show Now: Can He Steer Israel and Hamas to a Gaza Deal?

The administration in Washington is involved in setting a mode of positive thinking about the Middle East, invoking a sense of optimism in the hope that both sides fall in line.

President Joe Biden has tied everything together: a hostage deal in Gaza (in effect a cease-fire aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas) with efforts to delay Iran and Hezbollah's revenge attack against Israel. Biden hopes that the deal can be concluded in the coming week.

[And while the Democratic National Convention is on….what a coda that would be!]

Meanwhile, since diplomacy and warfare are all too often local, The Times of Israel also reported:

"Foreign Minister Katz made it clear to [visiting] foreign ministers of France and Britain that Israel expects France and Britain to publicly clarify to Iran that it is unacceptable for it to attack Israel and that if Iran attacks, the US-led coalition will join Israel not only in defense but also in an attack against significant targets in Iran,” according to a Hebrew statement issued by his office.

The Foreign Ministry also issued an English statement from their meeting—which was conducted in English—that was slightly more ambiguous regarding Katz’s message….

“I thanked them for their support of Israel and made it clear that the right way to deter Iran and prevent war is by announcing that if Iran attacks, they will stand with Israel not only in defense but also in striking targets in Iran,” it quoted Katz as saying.

According to the Hebrew [language] Foreign Ministry statement, Katz also claimed to the visiting chief diplomats that Israel is ready for a hostage deal, but that Hamas is likely to up its demands during today’s talks in Doha in anticipation of an Iranian attack.

Since clearly the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] could hardly stand by with their hands tied, Haaretz reported:

After rocket sirens sounded across Israel's north on Friday evening, the IDF has said air force fighter jets attacked military buildings used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Even though, as Haaretz added:

Hezbollah will not launch attacks on Israel during negotiations in Qatar; retaliation is 'not urgent'.

Indeed, the State Department, in announcing Blinken's departure for Israel on Saturday, spelled out his mission:

Secretary Blinken will underscore the critical need for all parties in the region to avoid escalation or any other actions that could undermine the ability to finalize an agreement.

Remember the Battle of Kursk?

Field Marshal Erich von Manstein certainly would. "A master of mobile tank warfare who some consider the best German general of World War II," wrote historian Valor Dodd. The encirclement and defeat of his forces at Kursk, which Hitler himself visited before the onslaught, was the beginning of the end of Hitler's military dominance of Europe.

It was also, according to Lloyd Clark, co-founder of the Centre for Army Leadership based at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst:

The greatest land battle the world has ever seen on a fighting front that epitomized ‘total war’…the largest set-piece battle in the history of war….At Kursk no less than 3.5 million soldiers, 12,000 tanks and self-propelled guns and 57,000 guns and mortars were ready for battle.

Thus, defined by the number of men and material involved, the Battle of Kursk was without doubt not only the biggest tank clash of the Second World War, but indeed at the same time the largest battle of the Second World War.

So far, at least, this scale of warfare has clearly not emerged in the Kursk of today. But Vladimir Putin is a devoted student of history. The Germans never recovered from the Nazi invasion of this part of Russia. But the Ukrainian thrust across the border and deep into the Kursk Oblast salient continued this week, as the authoritative Institute for the Study of War documented:

The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast has already generated theater-wide operational and strategic pressures on Russian forces, and subsequent phases of fighting within Russia will likely generate even greater pressures on Putin and the Russian military. The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast has prompted the Russian military to redeploy up to 11 battalions from within Kursk Oblast and four Russian force groupings elsewhere in the theater to the frontline in Kursk Oblast so far….Russia has committed reserves to Kursk Oblast that it otherwise would have committed to grinding offensive operations in eastern Ukraine in the coming months.

London's Guardian correspondent Peter Beaumont summed up the state of play:

Ukraine’s lightning offensive into several Russian border regions is designed to persuade Moscow to engage in “fair” talks about its war in Ukraine, an aide to Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, as Russian forces close in on the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

“We need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “In the Kursk region, we clearly see how the military tool is objectively used to convince the Russian Federation to enter into a fair negotiation process. We have proven, effective means of coercion. In addition to economic and diplomatic ones … we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia.”

Podolyak made his comments as it appeared that Ukraine had largely cut off a significant area of Glushovsky district of Kursk and Russian troops there after blowing up two important bridges on the Seim river.

Le Monde explained quite effectively just how Ukrainian forces were able to carry this out:

Well planned, the incursion of the Ukrainian army into the Kursk region has highlighted the vulnerabilities of the Russian army. The area, a no man's land of 5 to 10 kilometers was considered to be of little risk, and all eyes were on Donbass.

Ukrainians were able to enter all the more easily because the Russians had begun to clear the area of mines for their own offensive. By Wednesday, the governor of the Russian region of Belgorod declared a state of emergency, citing an "extremely difficult situation."

The Polish daily Wyborcza, reporting from "occupied territories of Kursk Oblast," observed:

The Ukrainians decided to establish a military commandant's office. It was headed by Major General Eduard Moskaliov. The commandant’s office is to operate in accordance with the norms of international law and will take care of, among other things, maintaining order and providing humanitarian aid to local residents.

Kiev wants to "demonstrate to the world how an army should behave on the territory of another country. And thus show the contrast with the behavior of the Russians on Ukrainian lands, which they have occupied since 2022."

But speaking of those lands, Ukraine has not seen any withdrawal of Russian forces to forestall Ukraine's advance into Kursk—none of the hoped-for easing of the Russian offensive in Donbas that Kyiv clearly fears could cement the Kremlin's hold over the entire eastern Ukrainian region Putin has claimed for his own, as Wyborcza continues:

A military analyst from the Information Opposition group, Konstantin Maszowets…doubts that Russia will soon decide to weaken its forces in the hottest sections of the Ukrainian front in the Donetsk region, where it has been achieving successes.

Information from Donbas confirms that the Russians are not stopping their assaults in Donbas. The situation is particularly difficult in the Pokrov direction. Russian soldiers are now only 10 km away from the city. The Ukrainian military administration has called on residents of the area to evacuate. Ukrainian military man Stanislav Bunyatov, who runs the Govoryat Sniper Telegram channel, wrote on Friday that Ukrainian soldiers defending the access to Pokrovsk are exhausted. Russia is using air power on a large scale and has an infantry advantage of 10 to 1. Assaults are carried out every day from early morning until late evening. Because of this, Ukrainians are forced to retreat from one defensive position to another, trying to destroy as many Russian forces as possible.

Ukrainian expert Oleksandr Musiyenko recently told Gazeta Wyborcza that it is necessary to wait at least until the end of August to assess whether the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk Oblast will contribute to the weakening of Russian troops in Donbas.

But in the Russian daily Pravda, there was the most toxic prediction as its lead story with, hardly unpredictably, warning of nuclear escalation:

Kyiv is planning a nuclear provocation—a "dirty" bomb explosion at the Kursk [Nuclear Power Plant] or Zaporizhzhya NPP

Over 10 days of fierce fighting, the Ukrainian Armed Forces group lost more than 4.5 thousand people killed and more than 5 thousand people seriously wounded beyond recovery….

We present a report from the front for Saturday, August 17.

"Battle of Kursk"

All our eyes are on the Kursk region, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces have carried out a military provocation by entering Russian territory.

Judging by the captured militants, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command is throwing everything it has into the attacks here. Here is the 3rd battalion of neo-Nazis, and the 61st brigade, and the 24th battalion of punitive forces. The whole rabble of reserve units, which have already been reassembled several times.

The equipment is already being protected, 2-3 BBMs are being sent into attack, the infantry is hiding behind them. But every 2-3 hours, the losses of the Ukrainian army are huge.

Still, the most popular piece on Pravda's online homepage was more, well, down to earth…getting ready for the cold winter (even two season) ahead:

[ btw, if you want the recipe, it will be included in our weekly Unleashed Conversations message to all our loyal paid subscribers ! ]

A pox on Africa….then the world?

The World Health Organization has labeled the spread of monkeypox (or mpox) across Africa as a "public health emergency of the first concern." As the BBC reported:

Sweden's public health agency has recorded what it says is the first case of a more dangerous type of mpox outside the African continent. The person became infected during a stay in an area of Africa where there is currently a major outbreak of mpox, the agency said.

At least 450 people died during an initial outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] and the disease has since spread to areas of Central and East Africa. According to Olivia Wigzell, the acting head of the Swedish public health agency, the infected person had sought care in the Stockholm area and the fact that they were receiving treatment in Sweden did not mean there was a risk to the broader population.

Mpox, which was previously known as monkeypox, is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

It causes flu-like symptoms, skin lesions and can be fatal, with 4 in 100 cases leading to death. There are currently a number of outbreaks of mpox that are taking place simultaneously and they are partly fuelled by the newer and more serious type of Clade 1b, identified in September last year

The Kenya daily The Nation elaborated in Nairobi:

The disease has spread in 22 out of the 26 provinces of DRC. Children are more exposed to the disease in the DRC as about two-thirds of the infections are detected in people under the age of 15.

Since the first case was announced last year, 14,000 new cases have been reported and more than 500 people have died. So far, about 13 African countries, including those that have never been affected like Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, have reported new cases.

At the moment, there is no approved treatment for Mpox, doctors mostly treat the symptoms of the disease. There are existing therapeutics for patients who have severe illness.

The great Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Amorim has turned his spotlight on this new pandemic threat, still across the ocean from his country, but…..

An Unleashed First !

Andelman Unleashed has unleashed new, paid tiers. And this coming Friday, for our (lightly) paid subscribers, we’ll be offering our fourth Unleashed Conversation via Zoom….this time from back in America…

which means:

1 PM US EDT /  7 pm Paris, Europe, Africa / 10 am in San Francisco / Later in Asia

A campfire of the mind … so DO sign up … you’ll get a link … and we’ll have fun … but bring your own smores.

How others see America

The battle is joined …. and the world is certainly watching

The political universe heads to Chicago on Monday as the Democrats embark on their quadrennial rite of passage—the official nomination of their candidates for President and Vice President and the "launch" of their campaign—accompanied by an expected army of protesters outside. Among the throngs of global reporters keeping a close eye and helping to interpret the goings-on will be Le Monde correspondent Arnaud Laparmentier who's already given his francophone readers a good taste of just what a Harris-Walz administration might hold:

With Kamala Harris, the American Democrats are confirming the leftward shift taken resolutely under Joe Biden and already initiated with Barack Obama's health law signed in 2010. Seen from Europe, this is a kind of catch-up in a country that is gradually making health coverage a right and slowly increasing social protection. "There will be no going back ," chanted Kamala Harris' supporters, which is probably true….

In 28 minutes, the political message sent was that of an "economy where everyone will have a chance". The speech of the Californian, of Indian mother and Jamaican father, was more "middle class" and "American dream" than that of the worker and unionist Joe Biden, born in a modest family in Pennsylvania…..

The tone of the campaign rally was at odds with the impression given by her platform sent out in the morning by her campaign team, which Donald Trump called "communist" and was coldly received by the press. The Washington Post called it an "aggressively populist" program, noting that business leaders who had hoped for a refocusing were disappointed.

But this weekend, Le Monde was already getting its vast audience ready for the week ahead across the pond in Chicago…

Kamala Harris relaunches the democrats

Indeed, the editors of Le Monde left no doubt where their hopes and dreams, indeed their allegiances, lie:

2024 US presidential election: hope has changed sides

EDITORIAL

The Democratic Party convention, which opens Monday in Chicago, is expected to confirm the upheaval that Kamala Harris' last-minute candidacy has imposed on the presidential campaign: there is an alternative to Donald Trump.

The conventions held by the two main American parties every four years, before each presidential election, are a great tradition of political life across the Atlantic, a sort of oratorical rodeo, a mixture of folklore, emotion and, in good years, revelations. The Democratic Party convention that opens on Monday, August 19 in Chicago promises to be like no other: it will be the scene of the coronation of an unexpected candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who, in three weeks, has electrified the campaign, sent Donald Trump back to his tired boxing ropes and given the Democrats a taste of victory…

Former California attorney general Kamala Harris, 59, who was a rather dull vice president, holding her place in the president's shadow, has transformed herself into a candidate full of energy, with infectious enthusiasm. Going on the offensive, she has so far made a flawless showing, confirmed by a rapid rise in the polls…

The size of the crowds she attracts to her rallies has destabilized her opponent Donald Trump…

In the meantime, Kamala Harris and her party already have one success to their credit, which the convention will have to confirm: that of having put hope, dynamism and rationality at the center of the democratic game in the United States and offered in record time a solid alternative to the disastrous prospect of a second Trump term.

And then there’s those secret snapshots …

Some 1,300 of them, clandestine images of life in Paris during the peak—or depths—of the Nazi occupation during World War II, whose origins have been unknown until now. Unmasked after a four-year-long investigation by Le Monde, the photographer appears to have been an obscure member of the French resistance, Raoul Minot. As the paper's indefatigable investigator Philippe Broussard introduced this courageous figure:

In the footsteps of the unknown photographer of occupied Paris: the tragic destiny of Raoul Minot, a forgotten hero

Artillery parade, Paris 17 August 1940  /  Raoul Minot

Let's say it right away: his name is Raoul Minot, and such a destiny deserves light. It took us nearly four years to explore various avenues, to consider everything. But it is now a certainty: this man, born on September 28, 1893, in Montluçon, is indeed the unknown man with photos—most of them dated, numbered, annotated–taken at the risk of his life, between 1940 and 1942, in Paris and the suburbs. An exceptional collection, perhaps the richest outside of propaganda, on the first two years of the Occupation.

Minot, amateur, not a professional of the image, decided to bear witness in his own way, day by day, during his trips to the capital and its surroundings. The enormity of his production makes it unique, totally different from the work of professionals like Roger Schall or Robert Doisneau, duly accredited to the authorities. Minot, himself, had no employer in the press, he escaped all control. A ghost in the shadow of the Germans.

Rue de Rivoll, Paris 1940 / Raoul Minot

He worked and was given shelter as a salesclerk in the great French department store, Printemps. And he had a camera—a 1938 Kodak Brownie.

As early as Sunday, June 30, 1940, 16 days after the Reich troops entered Paris, he photographed a propaganda poster, then a bit of everything: two soldiers on Place de la Concorde, a Nazi flag on Rue de Rivoli, requisitioned hotels, the deserted capital….In July, he did it again, only during the day, because of the curfew, and most often on Sunday, his day off. His hunting territory extended from the area around Printemps (Saint-Lazare, Opéra, Grands Boulevards, etc.) to the nearby western suburbs, his stronghold.

Where does he hide his camera? Has he tinkered with a device to trigger it without attracting attention? Does he travel by bicycle or motorbike? And with what authorizations? On these logistical points, the mystery remains. For the time being, the only certainties come to us once again from the photos. It must be said that Minot has the gift of tracking down the intimate, of slipping into the footsteps of the adversary, on the lookout for signs of compromise.

The comments written on the backs of the photos – probably written by himself or his wife—betray his indignation: "Mr Fritz does not want to be photographed with the two chicks, and yet they are together"; or again, on seeing Parisian women in the arms of Germans: "You didn't think that "French women" had fallen so low! Place de la Nation, June 8, 1941. 4:20 p.m."

Then there is the ultimate paradox of his story: only one photograph is missing, his own. There is none in the archives consulted. Unless a reader of Le Monde [ or Andelman Unleashed ] finds one in an attic or in an old album and passes it on to us, Raoul Minot will remain a ghost.

Finally, there’s …. Kamensky

In case you don't think the rest of the world is paying close enough to the finer points of the American election campaign, it would be worth examining what the Slovak-born, now Austrian-based cartoonist Kamensky is saying in his examination of just how Elon Musk is trying put a little zip into Donald Trump's limp (-nosed) efforts….

Marian Kamensky, who draws simply under his last name, currently calls Austria his home, though it might just as well have been his birthplace of Slovakia or any of several Slovak towns where he spent his youth, Germany where he learned lithography and began publishing in a host of European newspapers and magazines from Die Zeit to Der Spiegel, before settling finally in Vienna where he now works as an illustrator and cartoonist, drawing for the Cartoon Movement. We last saw him in November, riffing on the reality of getting bread to the starving population of Gaza and the challenges of getting it into the right hands, with Hamas lurking.

Here’s how Kamensky imagines himself: