TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #43
Trump’s trumped?... Ukraine’s offensive begins, inauspiciously, but a big dinner at the Élysée…purloined wood…a retirement at 62 at the Ritz…and cartoonist Dilem imagines Biden restraining Ukraine.
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. Reporting this week and through August from our base in Paris.
How others see America
Trump’s trumped
The indictment of Donald Trump barely made it onto the front page of Le Monde on Friday. The latest salvo on Trump managed a box on the front page and all of page two by the paper’s Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar: “Trump indicted by federal justice.”
Of course, such actions are hardly unusual in France, where any number of French presidents—indeed the last two center-right presidents, Jacques Chirac and Nikolai Sarkozi, plus five of the last six center-right prime ministers all faced various criminal charges on corruption or related crimes, as Politico Europe’s John Lichfield reported from Paris.
Throughout, reports in papers across Europe and Asia displayed little surprise, but tinged with a dollop of fear about what could be in store for the whole American experiment with foundations of its democracy being tested as never before.
Some of the major Italian papers featured the news in brief on page one. “Trump: Dirty Game,” headlined La Stampa of Turin, its Washington correspondent Alberto Simoni reporting simply, “Donald Trump is the first former US president to be indicted.”
Of course, the Italians, too, are hardly immune from actions against their former leaders—longtime Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the Forza Italia Party, that’s now a member of Italy’s ruling coalition government, was once accused of paying 24 young guests at his debauched parties to lie in a previous trial where he was acquitted of paying for sex with a 17-year-old Moroccan nightclub dancer—a charge that forced him from power in his fourth term in 2011.
By Saturday, some were beginning to focus on just how bad this could be for Trump. London’s The Economist headlined: “Donald Trump is in his most serious legal trouble yet…. Mr Trump’s hubris may be to blame for his new headache.” Still, the magazine continued, “Eight years of Trumpism has warped the Republican Party to such an extent that an onslaught of indictments and legal proceedings may help the former president secure the nomination, rather than hurt him.”
In Hong Kong, Robert Delaney, Washington correspondent for the South China Morning Post, questioned: “Will Donald Trump’s federal indictment hurt his chances of winning 2024 US presidential race? Pundits are split.”
Ryo Takano, Washington correspondent for The Asahi Shimbun …
…Japan’s leading daily, reported in a story buried in the fifth slot on its International page: “Trump indicted over confidential documents scandal, claiming he is innocent… It will be an unusual development that [he] aims to make a comeback in the 2024 presidential election while undergoing multiple criminal trials.”
Not surprisingly, the leading Russian daily, Pravda, failed to mention Trump’s travails at all.
Instead Pravda reporter Lyubov Stepushova asked, then answered: “Why do we need Ukraine? Pro-Russian sentiment grows in the U.S. and Europe…. public opinion is changing regarding the conflict in Ukraine. Politicians are coming to power who will no longer support the Kiev regime, but will work for the population of their countries.”
How others see the World
So now we have an offensive?
“Ukraine’s counter-offensive. Progress at Bakhmut, worse at Zaporozhe,” headlined Poland’s leading daily Wyborcza. Reporter Stanislaw Skarżyński wrote in the paper’s lead story. “In the first days of Ukraine’s counter offensive against Russia, fighting was concentrated on three sections of the front: the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, the border region between Donetsk and Zaporizhia Oblasts, and the western part of Zaporizhia Oblast. The Ukrainian offensive has been developing gradually since last weekend.”
Skarżyński quotes Britain’s authoritative Institute for the Study of War as reporting, “The Russian Ministry of Defense responded to the Ukrainian attack with an uncharacteristic degree of coherency.”
Of course this was not very welcome news for the good guys. Indeed, by Saturday, while American papers were still suggesting the Ukraine may be holding back some of its principal firepower the ISW’s own website did provide a modicum of comfort: “Ukrainian attacks in western Zaporizhia on June 8 do not represent the full extent of Ukrainian capabilities in the current counteroffensive,” the ISW experts elaborated. By late Saturday, the areas of conflict were multiplying and expanding.
ISW continued: “It is additionally noteworthy that the Russian Southern Military District Forces deployed in this particular area are likely to be a higher quality force grouping than Russia has elsewhere in theater, and their defensive performance is unlikely to be reflective of defensive capabilities of Russian groupings elsewhere on the front.”
Still, some European papers, particularly Le Monde, pointed out that the early days of the offensive have been especially costly in terms of loss of vitally needed equipment. “The [Ukrainian] troops … seem to have suffered significant losses during their first attacks,” correspondent Cedric Pietralunga reported. “According to images posted on Russian social networks, dozens of Ukrainian tanks have been destroyed in recent days in the south of the country, targeted by artillery fire or mines. Among these, Western Leopard 2 heavy tanks, French AMX-10 RC light tanks and American Bradley personnel carriers have been identified. A German IRIS-T air defense system was also damaged by a kamikaze drone.” ISW cautioned on Saturday, however, “the number of Ukrainian vehicles several Russian sources claimed Russian forces destroyed are highly inflated.”
So what’s Ukraine’s goal right now? A careful look at the ISW map suggests if Ukrainian forces can continue to press forward linearly toward the Russian frontier, they could cut the vital “land bridge” between Russia and Crimea, cutting Crimea off from critical supply routes from Russia proper.
As Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States told me in a conversation for my CNN column last month, Ukraine’s vision of how this war ends is Kyiv reclaiming all territory seized by Russia…and that includes Crimea.
But then there’s the future
President Macron has invited German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda to dinner Monday evening at the Elysée Palace, with two items on the agenda. As Ukrainska Pravda reported, “The dinner meeting is expected to focus on Ukraine's desire for NATO membership and security guarantees from allies ahead of the Alliance's summit in July.”
On May 31, Le Monde’s Elysée correspondent Philippe Ricard quoted Macron telling a security meeting in Bratislava, that both Washington and Berlin should pledge “strong, concrete, and tangible” security guarantees. If Monday’s dinner proves fruitful, Macron’s next target will likely be Joe Biden, and with a united Europe behind him.
What about all that purloined wood?
Ever wonder where that elegant teak deck for your yacht came from? Well, perhaps we should start with “Cameroon, the law of the jungle.” That’s what an extraordinary year-long investigation by InfoCongo and Le Monde Afrique turned up in this sprawling and deeply impoverished west African nation. Nearly the size of Spain, larger than California, home to 200 different linguistic groups it also contains vast, lush hardwood forests that are being rapidly pillaged by illicit entrepreneurs from China and Vietnam. The report by Josiane Kouagheu and Madeleine Ngeunga began:
“It is 2:25 a.m. in Yaoundé. On a paved road in the Emana district, two trucks loaded with logs are driving at high speed. Like every night, there will be dozens of them, coming from the forest regions of the South, East or Center, to cross the capital of Cameroon. The loads of wood are all alike, except for one detail: some logs are marked, others not, like in these two trucks we met….
“If the night transport of wood in urban areas is authorized in Cameroon, the circulation of ‘logs not covered with the regulatory marks prescribed in the specifications’ is prohibited. A ban that does not prevent the many trucks loaded with unmarked wood from passing the checkpoints of the police, customs and agents of the Ministry of Forests. And for good reason: ‘Each controller knows that you are coming,’ they are warned and let it happen, assures Derek, a logging truck driver. Since 2008, this 40-year-old has been traveling hundreds of kilometers every week for deliveries to Vietnamese and Chinese sawmills and to the ports of Douala and Kribi. Derek is above all a regular in the transport of illegal wood, nicknamed "warap" or "without underpants" (without marking) in the middle. The shipments consist of wood authorized for export but cut without authorization. Logs taken without respecting the diameter of the trunks…or species prohibited from cutting or export….And illegal logging is only accelerating.”
And then there’s Colin
Any number of publications have been pointing out that after some 30 years pouring and creating drinks for a phalanx of celebs and aficionados alike, Colin Field, ace barman of the Hemingway Bar at Paris’s Ritz Hotel is hanging up his cocktail shaker…at the age of 62.
Mais zut alors…why now…all of a sudden? Well, think carefully. Sometime later this year, possibly as soon as September, President Macron’s new labor law will go into effect, raising the age of retirement to 64 from 62. A very savvy Colin Field seems to be getting in just under the wire. Otherwise, oh my goodness, he could be chained to the bar for another two whole years! Perhaps he’s just the first of a long parade heading for the exits in France?
Finally, there’s …. Dilem
The Algerian artist Dilem imagines President Biden doing his best to prevent Ukrainian incursions across his red line into Russian territory…taking his little stepstool and a hacksaw to a potential Ukrainian attack….”Biden does not want attacks on Russian territory.”
Ali Dilem, who signs his works simply with his last name, Dilem, 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 imagines himself:
So very, sadly true (sucking the wind), Judith .... I try to make the news fresh, exciting (even entertaining?! .... Pharrells' nano handbag!) ... keep reading & spread the word !! ;-))
Thanks ever so much....I read 30-40 different media, newspaper and magazine websites every week from every continent, searching for the most compelling!
Thanks ever so much for recognizing....sad that more have not discovered this 'hidden gem' !!
d.