TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #33
Again, globally it’s all about the Trump…King Charles builds bridges to Germany…China's bellicose as Macron heads to Beijing…3 messages...and finally, Algerian cartoonist Dilem on US school shootings.
This weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, explores 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 America
It’s all about the Trump
It’s the indictment that has riveted the world with varying degrees of wonder at the power of American democracy and fear of the consequences. The attitude was perhaps best expressed by the lead editorial in the French daily Le Monde this weekend headlined: “Trump's indictment, a new ordeal for the United States…”
The paper continued: “The United States could certainly have done without the new test of the strength of its institutions that is the criminal charge of Donald Trump on March 30. That no one is above the law and that justice passes for everyone should be obvious….The first president indicted twice by the House of Representatives, the first former president to be prosecuted throughout the country's history, he carries in his wake an accumulation of cases that testify to at least a behavioral problem…. The challenge [his actions] represent for American democracy lies at least as much in the former president's inability to respect the elementary rules of the rule of law as in his determination to question its mechanisms and relentlessly attack justice as soon as he is held to account.”
Within minutes of the announcement in the indictment shortly before midnight Thursday evening in Paris, the Le Monde homepage headlined “a grand jury in New York has voted a criminal indictment of Donald Trump”:
Much of the rest of the world was not far behind. Perhaps it would be easier to let many of these media speak for themselves….where possible, the front pages have been translated from their original languages:
The Telegraph (London)
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich, Switzerland)
“For the first time in American history, a former president has been indicted….Despite losing the 2020 election and instigating an attempted coup, Donald Trump’s influence on American politics is still enormous. What are his chances of getting back into the White House? And what danger does he face from the investigations by the judiciary?”
Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo)
Pravda (Russia)
“Trump faces ‘criminal’ charges. What’s next?” asked reporter Olga Lebedeva. “This is the first time in the United States that a former head of state has been charged with criminal charges, and now the court will have to develop a legal strategy…and it is already clear that it will not be easy for the prosecutor of Manhattan to work.” But the choice of a photograph to illustrate the report is iconic.
How others see the World
King Charles crosses the Channel
Remember a week ago when King Charles III and Emmanuel Macron decided it might not be such a great idea for the British monarch to come parachuting into France for his first foreign state visit since his coronation? Well, OK, you can’t keep down a king who’s itching with wanderlust or desire to build bridges to the continent post-Brexit.
So instead, his first visit abroad was to Germany. As the BBC reported, “Speaking in German, the King said he and the Queen Consort had been ‘deeply touched’ by the warm welcome and praised the ‘very special’ German nation. Both nations would stand united with Ukraine, he said.”
Come home, little Syria
In a less-noticed but potentially quite remarkable state visit, the president of the United Arab Emirates welcomed Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, suggesting “it was time for diplomatically isolated Damascus to be reintegrated into the wider Arab region,” the Saudi-based Arab News reported.
“The visit coincides with amplified engagement by Arab states toward the Damascus government, which has been politically isolated in the region since the start of Syria’s war and was expelled from the Cairo-based Arab League in 2011 over its violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations,” Arab News continued. ‘Syria has been absent from its brothers for too long, and the time has come for it to return to them and to its Arab surroundings,’ Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan told Assad during a meeting at the presidential palace.”
China: a “new cold war” ?
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen head to Beijing to try to bring Xi Jinping back into the fold of civilized nations. Perhaps too little, too late. Ahead of that, China’s prime minister Li Qiang “lashed out at a ‘new cold war’ in a speech putting Beijing at the center of global economic stability,” Frank Tang in Beijing and Mia Nulimaimaiti in Boao, Hainan reported in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP). “The world’s second-largest economy wants to optimize its domestic business environment, continue opening-up and play a stabilizing role in global trade, which is mired by geopolitical tensions and financial turbulence,” the report continued.
And to reaffirm this cold war analogy, the SCMP’s Cyril Ip reported, “The Chinese military is willing to boost cooperation with Russia, including more joint drills and air and sea patrols, the defense ministry said on Thursday.”
“The two countries would work together to build trust between their militaries, Cyril Ip continued, “safeguard international fairness and justice, as well as implement the Global Security Initiative, a Chinese project to promote peace, Tan Kefei, a defence ministry spokesman, told a press briefing.”
Finally, Xi wasn’t standing still. On Friday, he received Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for mutual smiles and a strong handshake, as Singapore’s Straits Times China bureau chief Tan Dawn Wei reporting from Beijing: “Singapore and China will broaden cooperation and pursue new areas of collaboration….Xi Jinping called the relationship ‘forward-looking, strategic and exemplary’, and said it sets the benchmark and is a model for other countries in the region….reflecting the special and close friendship between both countries.”
“In turn, PM Lee said it is time for Singapore and China to further take forward what he described as ‘strong friendship and deep understanding which we have built up over the years. Many countries, including Singapore, are very keen to enhance economic ties with China.’”
Elections 2023
Finland
Voters in NATO’s newest member are going to the polls on Sunday to choose their new parliament and the tenure of their rock-star 34-year-old prime minister’s tenure is on the line.
Sanna Marin may be the highest-profile leader Finland has had in years. Certainly, she is the youngest and has guided her nation deftly through the Covid pandemic and into NATO from a generations-long neutrality that no longer really cuts the mustard with a resurgent Russia dominating its eastern frontier. But Marin’s Social Democrats, with 18.7% in the latest opinion poll, are enmeshed in a tight battle with two competing parties—the center-right National Coalition Party (NCP) with 19.8% and populist right-wing Finns Party with 19.5%. NCP has also favored NATO membership. But this impossibly tight race may be decided by a single parliamentary seat, and is being fought largely on domestic issues. Stay tuned.
Nigeria: call in the courts
It seemed, when we last visited this most populous of African nations exactly one month ago, that, for better or for worse, voters had spoken, choosing Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu, the 70-year-old candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress party (APC). He is the hand-picked successor to the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, also of the APC, who was term-limited from standing for re-election. But not so fast. Now, it seems, as Fadehan Oyeyemi reported in the Daily Post of Lagos, a three-judge panel of the nation’s Court of Appeals, “granted permission to Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to serve his petition….[asking] the court to either declare him Nigeria’s president or order a fresh election, in which Tinubu would be excluded from participating.” Stand by.
Finally, there’s …. Dilem
The great Algerian cartoonist Dilem has managed to capture the horror of the murderous mass murders that have been sweeping America’s schools, imagining a shooter armed with an AR-15 poised with eraser at a blackboard, wiping out a swath of the student body in a “new shooting in a school in the United States.”
Ali Dilem, who signs his works simply with his last name, describes himself as "a cartoonist for as long as I can remember," having begun his career as a cartoonist with the daily Le Jeune Independant in 1990, joining Le Matin a year later. Known for his outspokenness against the regime of Algerian dictator Abdelaziz Bouteflika, he has been subjected to more than 60 trials. The recipient of the International Press Cartoon Prize in 2000, he was made a chevalier of the prestigious French Order of Arts and Letters in 2010. He is featured in the extraordinary collective Cartooning for Peace.
Here's how Dilem sees himself:
And then, three messages!
Locked out of Twitter!
On or about March 17, I was locked out of my Twitter account that I've had for 13 years ....Frankly, I cannot figure out why this happened (Elon didn't like some of my writings?!....or simply yet another collapse in their system?)
What actually happened is that it suddenly FAILED to link my longtime Twitter email with my @DavidAndelman account and instead sent me to a couple of different bogus accounts (@dandelman or @ARLITS1) that I never created & certainly NEVER use .... when I appealed to their helpdesk I simply got a message back saying, sorry we don't recognize the e-mail you provided as linking with @DavidAndelman ... effectively, go away, you are finished.
I now have no way to communicate with my followers on every continent ... nor can I download these followers and move them elsewhere.
Help! ... the @DavidAndelman account STILL EXISTS (though somehow my headshot on it has vanished) .... Is there anything that can be done?
OPC Awards Gala
On April 27, the Overseas Press Club of America will be celebrating its 84th Annual OPC Awards Gala at Cipriani Wall Street, honoring the finest international reporting in 22 categories. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war crimes are the leading storylines among the winners of awards handed out by the oldest journalist association dedicated to international news. A total of seven OPC Awards relate to coverage of the war in Ukraine, including four awards involving civilian murders and war crimes by Russian forces.
“The power and scope of this year’s winning work is awe-inspiring,” said Scott Kraft, OPC president and editor-at-large at the Los Angeles Times. “Taken together, it is powerful proof that international journalism remains as crucial to our society as it has ever been.”
The keynote address will be delivered by Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni, a former OPC Award winner. The OPC Press Freedom Candle honoring journalists who have been killed, injured, or imprisoned in the past year will be lit by Oksana Markarova, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, who was invited by OPC president-emeritus David A. Andelman, founding editor of Andelman Unleashed.
Tickets are still available for $750, with an additional $100 per person for attendance at a pre-dinner VIP reception. Tables for 10 are available starting at $15,000. You may purchase tickets or tables by clicking here.
Mailbag Unleashed …. a new feature!
In April, we are introducing a new feature, Mailbag Unleashed. Twice a month, on the 15th and final day, we will respond to any and all questions you may have, dealing with any of our themes or, within reason, any other appropriate issue of the day!
You have only to leave a comment on Andelman Unleashed and you are most likely to find a response in our next mailbag ! Come one, come all !
Truly …. With one key difference: Turkey is still
a member of NATO and next month the voters of Turkey will have the ability to right the ship of their nation that has been hijacked….something Singaporeans have been largely unable to do for generations!!
Singapore's straddle between the U.S. and China is similar--in a way--to Turkey's straddle between Washington and Moscow.