TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #50
Giorgia on Biden’s mind…Prigozhin’s back … timing’s everything: the newest junta in Africa…a push in Ukraine…China’s on a roll...not Israel…mosquitos in Texas?...cartoonist Glez looks at Putin & Niger
This weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, has today reached its 50th edition and continues on its mission 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. Reporting this week and into August from our base in Paris.
How others see America
Getting used to Trump?
The world seems to be getting used to indictments of Donald Trump. His latest indictments barely made it onto a back page of The Times of London, correspondents David Charter and Hugh Tomlinson reporting from Washington that Trump’s response to the latest charges blasted back “that the ‘Biden Crime Family’ and their Department of Justice were simply attempting to harass him.”
Instead, we have Giorgia
Needless to say, Corriere della Serra devoted a whole lot more attention to the visit to Joe Biden’s White House of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s most determinedly right-wing leader since Benito Mussolini, though with considerably more style and panache.
“Joe Biden called Giorgia Meloni ‘a friend’ during the meeting at the White House,” wrote Corriere’s Federico Rampini. “Indeed, it appears that during the bilateral summit there was no pressure from this US administration for Italy to abandon the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the great Chinese plan for infrastructure. Is it possible, perhaps probable, that the Meloni government will leave the BRI anyway? The benefits turned out to be non-existent. By entering it, Italy paid for damage to its image, unnecessarily exposing themselves, without obtaining significant flows of Chinese investments.” Clearly Biden’s no dope, as Rampini observed, “Interference by Biden on this would only have created problems for her, making any cancellation of our participation in the BRI appear as a ‘yielding to pressure from Washington.’"
Munich’s leading daily, Süddeutsche Zeitung, observed that the visit was “an honor denied to other far-right European leaders….which is also not self-evident, because the Democrat Biden had commented very critically on Meloni’s election victory in 2022,” as Andelman Unleashed reported last September. Reporter Marc Beise continued, “Before the visit, politicians and the media were reminded of the post-fascist tradition of the Meloni party Fratelli d'Italia and its strictly conservative positions in family and legal policy.”
“Meloni, who was also received by the leaders of the US Congress, made no secret of her political sympathies with the Republicans. But that doesn't prevent her from working closely and trustingly with Biden.” Indeed, all of Europe is watching to see what might happen when Italy takes over the revolving chairmanship of the European Union for six months beginning in January.
The great fear of Trumpism is arriving
Some parts of the world have a better handle on trends in American society and its democratic system than most Americans. “The great fear of Trumpism, that the United States will stop being a white and Anglophone country, is on its way to becoming a reality,” wrote Maria Antonia Sanchez-Vallejo in Spain’s leading daily El Pais.
“Latinos already outnumber non-Hispanic whites in Texas,” the El Pais report continued. “Latinos, or Hispanics represent around 40.2% of the population of the state, slightly ahead of non-Hispanic whites, who account for 39.8% of the census, since in California and New Mexico they have long been in the majority. The…Latino population in Texas and in the country as a whole has increased steadily in recent decades. In 2020, the census revealed that just over a quarter of all children in the US are Latino, an increase of more than a million in just a decade.”
How others see the World
Where’s Waldo? How about St. Petersburg?
In another of his Where’s Waldo moments, Yevgeny Prigozhin popped up this time in St. Petersburg in the shadow of his apparent nemesis Vladimir Putin at the latest Russian-African summit gathering. Somewhat more thinly attended than others, which is said to have irked Putin no end, that didn’t seem to have fazed Prigozhin one bit.
“Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was photographed in St Petersburg during this week's Africa-Russia summit,” the BBC reported. “He was seen shaking hands with Ambassador Freddy Mapouka, a presidential advisor in the Central African Republic (CAR). The image was posted on Facebook by Dmitri Syty, who reportedly manages Wagner's operations in CAR. It is the first confirmed sighting of Mr Prigozhin in Russia since Wagner's failed mutiny in June.”
Clearly, Prigozhin was taking very good care of his clients—and looking for new ones. A recording said to be Prigozhin on a Telegram channel had the Wagner leader praising the junta that has just snagged control of Niger, seizing the last democratically-elected president in the vast Sahel region of Africa. This seizure in fact completes a 3,500 mile chain—six nations ruled by military juntas that stretch across Africa from west to east—the longest such expanse in the world.
Indeed, the U.S. and the West have a lot to worry about, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested in a 3 AM (in Niger) readout of his phone calls with “President Mohamed Bazoum and former president Mahamadou Issoufou. The Secretary reiterated to President Bazoum the United States’ unflagging support and emphasized the importance of his continuing leadership,” the State Department report noted. Then came the stick: “The Secretary regretted that those detaining Bazoum were threatening years of successful cooperation and hundreds of millions of dollars of assistance that support the Nigerien people.”
The European Union has already acted. “For its part, the European Union (EU) ‘does not recognize and will not recognize the authorities resulting from the putsch’ in Niger,” the French daily Le Monde reported, “and immediately suspends ‘all its cooperation actions’ with the country, declared [the EU’s] head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell….adding that in addition to the suspension of all budgetary aid, ‘all cooperation actions in the security field are suspended sine die with immediate effect.’” Cue Wagner?
Not only that, but if Wagner does indeed worm its way into Niger by way of this coup and in defiance of the will of most of its people, as has happened in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, it will have laid its hands on the world’s seventh largest deposit of uranium. “In the uranium business, despite the coup, it’s ‘business as usual,’” observed the French magazine Jeune Afrique. Except for who will now have unfettered access, of course.
Still, Prigozhin himself may well have had the last word, writing on his Telegram channel: “Africa is a quarter of the planet. And this quarter of the planet knows that there is Russia nearby, which effectively interacts with African countries. Our president has done a very important thing: we have built personal relationships of trust with most of the African leaders. In this difficult time, not for Russia, but for the whole world, including African countries, because many are changing rapidly. We see this in Mali, Niger, the Central African Republic and other countries that are becoming more and more independent today.” Or make that read, being sucked ever deeper into Russia’s orbit.
And then there’s Ukraine
Things are beginning to look up—incrementally—for the good guys in Ukraine. As The Economist put it, “After eight weeks of slow progress, Ukraine’s counter-offensive entered a new phase when Ukraine’s army committed a big part of its reserve forces in the south. There was heavy fighting reported around the village of Robotyne. Ukrainian officials say their units are attacking in the direction of Melitopol, a city that dominates the ‘land bridge’ linking Russia to Crimea.”
“Ukraine’s hope,” The Economist continued, “is that Russia’s army, roiled by dysfunctional command and a drumbeat of Ukrainian missile attacks against its logistics, will break under the new pressure.”
Indeed, Le Monde elaborated, “Heavy fighting is taking place in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Kyiv's armed forces have intensified their counter-offensive, achieving a breakthrough beyond the first lines of Russian defence. After recapturing several villages, the Ukrainian forces attempt to slowly make their way through the huge Russian minefields.”
Le Monde also reported that “a UNESCO mission arrived in Odesa to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the damage caused to cultural and religious objects by missile attacks carried out by the enemy.” It was from Odesa that in 1904 my young grandparents, who began their journey in a remote shtetl in Moldavia, took a boat to the New World to begin their lives in America.
China looks inward?
China’s ruling Politburo met and at the top of their agenda was the economy. As Ji Siqi reported from Beijing in the South China Morning Post, the body “acknowledged a more challenging macro environment and pledged to ‘strengthen countercyclical support.’ The course-correcting assessment—though without much elaboration on the specific easing measures—came amid disappointing economic data in the second quarter, which fanned fears that China’s economic growth has lost steam.”
“For the first time in five years, the SCMP continued, “the 24-member Politburo also removed the phrase ‘housing is for living, not for speculation.’ It instead talked about ‘adjusting and optimising real estate policy in a timely manner,’ as the property sector has become the biggest drag on China’s economy.” That alone sent stocks surging 4% in Shanghai and Hong Kong the same day.
Still, China apparently continues to pour vast resources into its military. As the SCMP also observed, “The Chinese military has expanded its missile force over the past decade and rolled out modern missiles allowing it to target Taiwan and its allies in the event of a cross-strait war.” Elaborating, the Australia Strategic Policy Institute reported, “China’s military spending now exceeds the combined outlays of the next 25 biggest nations in the region.”
Day of infamy?
The Jerusalem Post minced no words: “Benjamin Netanyahu’s day of infamy,” it proclaimed, commentator Amotz Asa-El quickly elaborating: “Netanyahu earned his place in history as the man who tore Israeli society and led it to civil war. The Zionist enterprise was attacked by enemies from within, led by an emperor of lies.” And mind you, this was not a Palestinian newspaper.
Indeed, it was quite a dramatic week in Israel as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hammered through his judicial reform. “’We will increase until we return Israel to being democratic’: the protest against the reform continues,” read the banner headline in the Israeli daily Maariv.
“In the 30th week in a row thousands will continue to demonstrate against the reform of the judicial system at 150 centers across the country,” Matan Wasserman reported in Maariv. “The leaders of the protest said: ‘The Israeli government has become an illegitimate government that is undermining the foundations of the Israeli regime.’”
Then, there’s mosquitos
“The deadliest animal on the planet with more than 800,000 victims per year, the mosquito now travels and transmits terrible diseases in regions hitherto little affected,” wrote Margaux Renault in the French magazine Geo. “Blame it on climate change?”
"Infections in Pakistan have quadrupled after devastating floods in the country last year, reaching 1.6 million cases, wrote Geo. ‘What we have seen in places like Pakistan or Malawi is real proof of the impact climate change is having on malaria,’ the director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria said. ‘You have these extreme weather events, whether it's floods in Pakistan or a cyclone in Malawi, after which a lot of water sits there….We've seen a very sharp uptick in infections and deaths related to the malaria in both cases.’” But not only in these far-off places. “In June alone,” Geo continued, “five cases of locally transmitted malaria were reported in Texas and Florida, two regions of the United States particularly affected by global warming and rising temperatures. The cases are the first in twenty years and raise fears that mosquito-borne diseases will claim even more lives in the months and years to come.”
And some coming attractions
On Wednesday, Andelman Unleashed will be publishing the second of a two-part Unleashed Voices report by Audrey Ronning Topping. The riveting Part I appeared last week.
Next up, Unleashed Voices will have an inside look at the profound wounds being inflicted on Africa and beyond by Russia’s embargo on Ukrainian grain shipments and the millions in imminent danger of starvation.
Finally, there’s Glez
Damien Glez, a Franco-Burkinabe cartoonist, takes a jaundiced view of so many of the military-backed changes of government that have swept across Africa in recent years. The most recent was in Niger, and whether coincidentally or not, at the very moment Vladimir Putin welcomed a number of African leaders to St. Petersburg to talk over their nations’ future—and presumably the role Russia might play. “On your way back,” Putin, his arms laden with Russian flags, is suggesting to a couple of these leaders, “could you drop these off in Niger?”
As we observed when Damien Glez was our Unleashed Voice back in April, for 33 years he has lived, worked, and drawn his stunning cartoons in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, which itself recently saw a military junta seizing power in its second coup in less than a year. Born and raised in Lorraine in the northeast of France, he arrived in Ouagadougou as a French teacher in the late 1980s, married a noted Burkinabè film director, actress, marrionettist, and producer. And he just stayed on. In 1991, he cofounded the satirical weekly Journal du Jeudi, developing close ties to such renowned French cartoonists as Plantu of Le Monde and became a charter member of the great Paris-based collective Cartooning for Peace.
Here’s how Glez imagines himself:
Truly.... Or as my rabbi here in Paris, Tom Cohen, wrote to me this morning:
"Paradoxalement, ce récent vote me conforte dans mon engagement en faveur du mouvement de protestation qui cherche à ramener Israël du précipice de sa propre destruction et à rétablir Israël dans ce que je considère comme ses véritables racines sionistes. Ou, comme nous le chantons dans la Hatikva : « Od lo avda tikvatenou \ Aussi longtemps que nous n'aurons pas perdu l'espoir ». Pour moi, l'espoir du sionisme bat toujours en moi.....Voilà où j'en suis.
"Paradoxically, this recent vote steels me in my dedication to the protest movement that seeks to bring Israel back from the precipice of its own self-made destruction and restore Israel to what I see as its true Zionist roots. Or as we sing in Hatikva: “Od lo avda tikvatenu \ As long as we have not yet lost hope.” For me, the hope for Zionism still beats within me....This is where I stand !
Et moi aussi....
And me too!
Truly …. As our Rabbi Tom Cohen here in Paris wrote me this morning :
“ This recent vote steels me in my dedication to the protest movement that seeks to bring Israel back from the precipice of its own self-made destruction and restore Israel to what I see as its true Zionist roots. Or as we sing in Hatikva: “Od lo avda tikvatenu \ As long as we have not yet lost hope.” For me, the hope for Zionism still beats within me. “