TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #80

A visitor to Mar-a-Lago…Boots on the ground…Shredding Europe…Navalny: gone but hardly forgotten…Elections 2024: Senegal / Iran … Media Mix on AI … An anthem for Europe…Taylor Swift debuts in Singapore

This weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, continues on its mission to explore how other nations are reporting and commenting on the United States, and how they are viewing the rest of the world.

How others see America

The world is still looking to America for its response to just about everything, but increasingly about Trump. Accordingly, when it became known that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin's most devoted servant in Europe, would be flying to Mar-a-Lago to pay court to Trump, Ukrainian Pravda reported:

According to Orbán, Trump will be a strong US president who will be able to stop wars—between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. The Hungarian Prime Minister also repeated his repeatedly voiced thesis that he advocates the earliest possible peace in Ukraine, because it is needed "in the interests of the whole world", and reminded that Hungarians live in the neighboring country, "many of whom died during the hostilities"

In fact, they go way back as chums. Neither forgets a leader with unremitting loyalty.

And both share views that are at once contiguous and dangerous as viewed by the rest of Europe. In a conversation with Austria's Die Presse, which attracted considerable attention across the continent this week, Orbán said:

Whether you like it or not, whether Ukrainians like it or not, Ukraine is where it is on the map. The best prospect is for it to be a buffer zone between Russia and the West—with security guarantees, of course. If that doesn’t work, Ukraine will continue losing territory.

How others see the World

So, that means boots on the ground?

Clearly, Orbán's view won't work for much of Europe. The big question is how far most countries are prepared to go to prevent any such scenario.

After a gathering of European leaders that Macron assembled at the Elysée Palace in Paris, the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported:

The general statement today is that "the security of all of us is at stake," Macron said at the start of the short-term conference. Russia's appearance is hardening both at the political level and on the front in Ukraine, where new Russian attacks threaten. A Russian defeat is necessary for stability and security in Europe. Therefore, the supporters of Ukraine would have to give themselves a jolt. "We are in the process of ensuring our safety today and tomorrow," said Macron. Nevertheless, he stressed: "We do not want to go to war with the Russian people."

As a result of the aid conference, around 15 countries have signaled interest in an ammunition initiative led by the Czech Republic. "A number of states have joined the initiative in the middle of the negotiations, or my colleagues have told me that they will discuss the initiative quickly," says Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala following the meeting in Paris. "I think that the action will find broad support in this way, I estimate that there will be 15 states," he adds….The Netherlands alone has announced that it wants to participate in the initiative with 100 million euros. In the short term, France also wants to mobilize additional ammunition for Ukraine from its own stocks. A delivery of French Mirage fighter jets has not currently been decided, but it is still being examined which French military material can help Ukraine, said Macron.

The big problem, however, remains boots-on-the-ground. And that's where there's been big-time disagreement, especially after Macron insisted that's just where Europe may be heading … well, at least France.

Putin must be so happy….

….since Europe seems to be shredding while in Washington, Congress dithers over Ukraine aide. But America may not be alone in being out of step. As Matthew Karnitschnig put it in Politico's Berlin Bulletin:

With his coalition in a perpetual state of near collapse, Germany’s economy in a doom loop and the vast majority of Germans convinced he’s doing a horrible job, Scholz concluded it would be a good time to alienate Germany’s allies as well. Before heading to the French capital [for Macron's] conference to rally support for Ukraine, Scholz decided to pour cold water once and for all on hopes that Germany would send any of its Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.

The reason? Fear of Russian retaliation. “I’m surprised that some people aren’t even moved by it, that they don’t even think about whether what we’re doing could lead to a kind of involvement in war,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. 

Sorry, what? Backtrack a week and you’ll remember that Scholz was beating his chest over Germany’s deliveries of military aid to Ukraine, bragging that Berlin was way ahead of all other European countries, while also upbraiding them for not doing more.  

Scholzian logic: The crux of Scholz’s position on cruise missiles is that providing them would cross a Rubicon because German soldiers would need to be involved in programming the targets locally in Ukraine. A direct role for the Bundeswehr would require the approval of parliament, which the chancellor clearly wants to avoid because it could be construed as German participation in the conflict launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. [But] Germany sent 260 [Taurus[ to South Korea without the kind of targeting support the chancellor described….

Loose lips: To drive his point home, Scholz offered some detail about how the British and French handled their own engagement with cruise missiles to Ukraine: “This is a very far-reaching weapon and what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany.” London (as the German press loves to note whenever the Brits get cross) was “not amused”…. For Scholz to publicly argue that sending and programming cruise missiles would make Germany a de facto participant in the war, suggests by extension that the U.K. and France have already crossed that bridge. 

The French president was no less pissed. Macron called the Paris gathering at the last minute hoping to lift Ukraine’s spirits….lashing out at his German counterpart on TV in Paris: “Many of the people who say ‘never, never’ today were the same people who said ‘never, never tanks, never, never planes, never, never long-range missiles…' two years ago,” Macron said. “I remind you that two years ago, many around this table said: ‘We will offer [just] sleeping bags and helmets.’” Macron followed up that taunt with his surprise boots-on-the-ground comment, which further deepened the divide between Paris and Berlin.

Still, the world is united on Putin…and Navalny

As Le Monde's Bernard Vitkine, one of the last of a shrinking band of veteran Moscow-based western correspondents reported:

The brutality with which the Russian authorities approached the funeral of their opponent, who died in custody, transformed the event into a demonstration. Deprived of access to its hero, then tossed around by hundreds of police officers in riot gear, the crowd ended up expressing its rage.

What to remember, silence or cries? From the collected dignity of Alexei Navalny's parents or the indignant anger of his supporters? There were two funerals on Friday: one for his rare relatives still in Russia, almost in conformity with the canons of the genre; the other, messy and angry, for a crowd of Muscovites orphans of the person who was their companion and guide for more than a decade. One element brought these two parallel events together: the total lack of consideration by the Russian authorities for both.

At the same time, Le Monde does pay one tribute…

 "Olaf Scholz salutes the 'courage' Russians present at the funeral of Alexei Navalny."

Election 2024: Senegal (encore), Iran

Macky Sall continues to dither on the election of his successor in Senegal. Now, after a "national dialogue" which the opposition largely refused to join, as Andelman Unleashed reported last week, a new tentative date has been "suggested" for June 2. There's been broadening concern that the vaunted Senegalese democracy is in dire jeopardy, fears spreading across Africa, as suggested by the renowned Burkina Faso-based cartoonist Damien Glez showing Macky Sall mounted backwards on a donkey to announce his "electoral calendar in flux" …

In Iran, fewer voters showed up to cast their ballots for Iran's parliament than in any election since the Islamic revolution brought the Ayatollahs to power in 1979. As Mazar Motamedi reported for Al Jazeera:

A range of conservative candidates have swept the parliamentary and religious assembly elections in Iran…. [Voters] went to the polls to select 290 lawmakers and 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, a body tasked with choosing the supreme leader made up entirely of Islamic scholars….Few reformist or moderate voices managed to secure entry into parliament, marking the second election in which they were largely absent….

The Ministry of Interior extended voting time three times, until midnight on Friday, sending text messages to voters that a “rush” of people at polling stations has kept them open….Turnout was put at about 40% of 61.2 million eligible voters…the lowest in the history of Iran since the country’s 1979 revolution. In Tehran, a city with some 7.7 million eligible voters, barely a quarter are believed to have voted.\

There's also still Gaza…

Support is shrinking for how the United States is handling this catastrophe. As French foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné told Le Monde in a rare interview:

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been catastrophic for several weeks, even months. And this creates indefensible and unjustifiable situations for which Israelis are accountable; Israel must hear it. Our efforts with the Israeli authorities to increase the number of crossing points and humanitarian trucks have not been met. Starvation adds to the horror.

And then there's the role of America and the Biden administration, Séjourné continuing:

The United States deploys an impeccable diplomatic force….[But] the American electoral context weighs on the situation, and the inflexibility of the Israeli government is undoubtedly also linked to these American deadlines.

Meanwhile, as the Anadolu Agency reported:

The chairperson of the African Union Moussa Faki Mahamat has "strongly" condemned the recent Israeli attack in which scores of Palestinians were killed trying to access food aid in Gaza on Thursday, calling for an international investigation into the incident to bring the perpetrators to account.

He also reiterated the African Union's call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in the Gaza Strip "to stop the ongoing and increasing State of Israel's assault against the lives and means of survival of the Palestinian people."

Parsing Media with Claire Atkinson…an Intermezzo

As part of our exchange program with like-minded (and brilliant) SubStackers, here's an excerpt from The Media Mix, created by the incomparable Claire Atkinson, writing from Nice on the Riviera where she's been following the World AI Cannes Festival…..For the full monte, do subscribe!

Surveilling reporters. What’s your right to privacy? 

I tried to login to X the other day, but I was blocked until I provided my phone number. I weighed the cost of disappearing on X, the world’s most influential social media destination, and quickly gave in. Elon Musk has my phone number. Today my phone is full of spam text messages. Are these two things related? I can only guess.  

A few related stories caught my attention this week when thinking about the right to privacy and how we navigate between the need for tech companies to make sure we are who we say we are and the flood of large scale AI impersonation….If you write about drug cartels in Mexico, maybe you’d like to keep your phone number a secret to protect your personal safety and your ability to contact sources. This week the President of Mexico shockingly doxed a New York Times reporter sharing their phone number in a speech….

German researcher Sebastian Hallensleben, [chair of the EU unit where European AI regulatory standards are being developed, is trying from his base in Aachen] to help pin down an AI policy framework. Hallensleben believes we should all have access to a kind of pseudo identity that doesn’t share our real world details but is verified by non-governmental organizations like perhaps a bank.\ 

He’s been looking at the idea of online identity in a much broader sense in the context of what AI is enabling. Remember when Russia’s Internet Research Agency flooded social media with synthetic messages during the 2016 election?

The University of Oxford had a deep dive on the extent to which those efforts intensified polarization. Back then Russia would have needed to pay people to create the messages, now foreign governments are operating at a much larger scale at a fraction of the cost thanks to AI. 

With hat-tip to Claire Atkinson in Nice and her Media Mix.

So, how about a 2024 National Anthem for Europe?

Dutch singer Joost Klein has an idea he's bringing to the Eurovision Song Contest. Unlikely to replace Beethoven's Ode to Joy any time soon, but hey it's catchy—Euro-Papa? Just click the photo !

And now, Taylor comes to Singapore

The Australian leg of Taylor Swift's conquest of Asia is done, so now it's on to Singapore, where opening night Saturday was a blast!

Only now is it becoming clear what it took to get her there. As Anjali Raguraman reported in the Straits Times:

A team that headed to Los Angeles more than a year ago to woo Taylor Swift to Singapore was led by no less than [the island-nation's] Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, who said it was an important project…Ahead of the American pop star’s six Eras Tour concerts at the National Stadium beginning March 2, Mr Tong said, “We wanted to make sure we left no stone unturned, both in terms of ensuring we kept ourselves updated on what the best venues around the world could offer, but also what content we could bring in.’

On its exploratory trip in early 2023, the [Singapore] team met … with Swift’s agent, and "very quickly we saw an opportunity because she had not yet announced international tour dates, so we put forward a proposition to come to Singapore...."

Things fell into place quickly. More than 300,000 tickets have been sold for the six shows, which will draw fans from all around Southeast Asia, with Singapore being Swift’s only stop in the region.

Singapore officials are hoping this will be a template for other boldface names looking to tap the lucrative Southeast Asian market. As Raguraman continued:

Economists estimate it could boost Singapore’s economy by up to $500 million in tourism receipts….“When we released the tickets and they were so popular, we decided to speak to the promoters, and that’s when we got the second three nights,” said Tong.

There was also some bad blood in the neighborhood. As the BBC reported:

The prime minister of Thailand accused Singapore of paying concert organisers US$2-3m per night…. That triggered criticism across the region. In the Philippines, a lawmaker criticised the move, saying "this isn't what good neighbours do" - and called for a formal protest against the grant.

But while governments are seeing red—it's the fans who are paying the price, literally.

Swift is heard everywhere across SouthEast Asia, home to 700 million people—from alleyways in Ho Chi Minh to taxi cabs in Bangkok.

So, for many it was a punch in the guts to learn all six shows would be held in the region's most expensive city….But for a chance to see their idol, many of her fans are willing to grin and bear it.

Flight-loads of fans have been touching down at Singapore's Changi Airport all week, many coming from China and its territories.

One woman flying in from Shenzhen told the BBC she and her friend had spent $900 each on tickets alone. They've resorted to camping at a friend's house after hotel rates across the city surged.

On the luxe end of things, the city's landmark hotel Marina Bay Sands has sold out of its $32,200 Swift packages which included four VIP tickets and a three-night stay in a suite.

Finally, there’s Langer….

The great Argentine cartoonist Langer shows an Israeli delegation arriving in Gaza with a bullhorn, proclaiming, "Is there anyone here? We've come to negotiate a ceasefire."

Sergio Langer is an Argentine architect, caricaturist and graphic humorist. He published his first drawings in the magazine Humor Registrado in 1979. With its launch in 2003, he has been featured in the satirical magazine Barcelona in Buenos Aires. He also publishes in Lento, a monthly magazine in Montevideo; Mongolia, located in Madrid, since its creation a year ago; and in the weekly Courrier Internationale in Paris. Since 2000, he has published a dozen books—collections of his caricatures, vignettes and drawings from around the world. He is a member of the inestimable Cartooning for Peace collective.

Here’s how Langer imagines himself….