TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #22
Biden's malaise goes critical…weaponizing Belarus…Iran’s hangman…Brazil to the mat….a cartoon from Rio….and a Czech mated election.
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.
As for elections, Czechs are choosing a new president….now the preliminaries, the final riveting round two weeks hence.
How others see America
The world's nightmare draws closer
"Malaise turns into a crisis," is the way Piotr Smolar, Washington correspondent of the French daily Le Monde begins the story that leads the paper with a banner headline across the front page. "This chronology is important for the administration, which claims an exemplary attitude."
The affair raises anew for Europe and a large part of the democratic world a fear that I have been writing about for two years—the Biden administration does not represent a real break with the era of Donald Trump, but rather a brief—if much welcomed—interregnum before plunging back into the maelstrom. Even worse, Smolar reports on a Washington briefing: "Joe Biden started off with a bad improvisation. 'By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, O.K.? It's not like they were dropped off on the street.' Then he read, sputtering, notes repeating the White House statement." The White House, Le Monde observed, was "a fortress under siege."
In London, Washington correspondents Alistair Dawber and Hugh Tomlinson reported for The Times that "Joe Biden faced what might be the biggest crisis of his presidency," then added that the revelation "has prompted Republicans to accuse the president of hypocrisy and call for him to be investigated for potential 'espionage.''"
"Certainly, the news is a gift for Donald Trump and for the Republicans in Congress," Viviana Mazza, observed in the Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera.
Nose to Nose on Capitol Hill
The London-based weekly The Economist is worried: "Having a prolonged fight over a prenuptial agreement on the eve of a wedding hardly bodes well. It may not thwart the ceremony altogether, but it certainly increases the chances that the union will be nasty, brutish and short. Such is the lot of Kevin McCarthy, the newly minted Republican speaker of the House, who had to endure four days of agonising negotiations with members of the Freedom Caucus, a hardline contingent of his own party, before he could obtain power."
"Rather than pedestrian haggling over alimony or unseemly furniture, however,” The Economist continued, “Mr. McCarthy had to trade away a considerable amount of his own power and pre-commit to aggressive fiscal hawkishness.”
Washington….Beijing
The Washington correspondent of Hong Kong's South China Morning Post was far more concerned with the first conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his new Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Robert Delaney reported "the US secretary of State says he talked about maintaining open lines of communication during a phone call with his new counterpart."
Delaney continued "Qin, China’s ambassador to the US and a trusted aide to Xi Jinping, was appointed to his new role as Beijing and Washington seek to stabilize rocky relations," while pointing out, "Qin’s 17-month stint in Washington [as Chinese ambassador] coincided with a steady deterioration in US-China relations, which ran counter to expectations that Biden would take a softer line on Beijing than his predecessor Donald Trump."
Elections 2023: Czech mate…..
Voters in the Czech Republic went to the polls on Friday and Saturday for the first of two-rounds of voting for their nation's new president. With eight candidates on the ballot, none managed to hit the 50% threshold. Instead, retired army chief Petr Pavel scored a narrow 35.4% vs 35.0% over former prime minister Andrej Babiš. The two will square off in two weeks for the post that carries no executive authority but has substantial weight in appointing the prime minister and head of the central bank, as well as nominating judges while serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
David Hutt of Lyon-based Euronews reported: "Controversy has stalked each of the main candidates for months….Babiš, a billionaire populist who has recently toned down his anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric, was handed a last minute reprieve when he was acquitted after a months-long corruption trial on Monday. Retired army chief Petr Pavel and former university president Danuše Nerudová claimed the respectable and liberal mantle, and hoped to galvanize the centrist mass of voters who turfed Babiš out of office at the last general election in 2021." Nerudová, the only woman on the ballot, came in a distant third.
How Others See the World
Weaponizing Belarus
There’s growing fear Belarus could enter the war against Ukraine, effectively adding a third front closest to the capital, Kyiv—barely 60 miles from the border. The Milan-based Italian daily Corriere della Sera asked this weekend, "Will Belarus really attack Ukraine?" Then answered: "The pressures, the movements, the alarms should not be underestimated." Reporters Andrea Marinelli and Guido Olimpio wrote, "Moscow has moved trains to and from Belarus. Convoys have transferred soldiers and perhaps taken stocks of artillery ammunition to be sent to the front, transfers of material also intended for the contingent deployed by Vladimir Putin in the friendly country, from 10,000 to 15,000 men depending on estimates."
On the other hand are arguments that could give Belarus some pause: "as dictator Lukashenko fears internal repercussions, his army would not be up to the challenge, he has little to gain and much to lose."
Russia' pyrrhic victory
Russia has been crowing about its seizure of the utterly flattened eastern Ukraine town of Soledar. But Financial Times reporters John Paul Rathbone in Kyiv and Ben Hall in London have an entirely different point of view, seeing the Soledar campaign as "another pyrrhic victory for Moscow."
"Moscow’s capture of Soledar — and possibly eventually Bakhmut — could matter less than the losses inflicted on its forces in the fight," the FT reporters continued. "One adviser to Ukraine’s defence ministry….said Kyiv’s strategic approach to Soledar and Bakhmut was the same as in Severodonetsk. After that battle, Ukraine’s forces went on to rout Russian troops and recapture Kharkiv and Kherson. Similarly, Ukraine’s soldiers, reinforced with western-supplied armour, could potentially take advantage of Russia’s manpower losses in Bakhmut to launch a powerful counter offensive."
Another pipeline goes up
All but unnoticed outside region, the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on a massive explosion in a pipeline that links Latvia and Lithuania: "Fire brigade and rescue workers are working on the fire that broke out on the main connection line to neighboring Latvia, as reported by Lithuanian radio…. According to the Lithuanian gas network operator Amber Grid [whose Twitter page proclaims proudly ‘We #StandWith Ukraine’], the gas supply to the pipeline was cut off and supplies to Latvia were temporarily suspended…. An investigation will cover all possible options, said Amber Grid CEO Nemunas Biknius."
Covid: Reopening…but….
The world, especially its Asian neighbors, are reacting in some cases quite dramatically to the sudden reopening of China that still appears to be in the grip of the Covid epidemic. The Straits-Times in Singapore reported from Bangkok: "Thailand will reintroduce Covid-19 entry requirements for foreigners flying into the country, the nation’s transport minister said, as the Southeast Asian nation prepares for an expected wave of tourists from China. The Thai Public Health Ministry has been looking into ways to safely welcome Chinese tourists."
"To prevent one nationality from being targeted, the ministry resolved that all foreign arrivals will have to prove they have been vaccinated….Among nations that recently reimposed Covid-19 entry rules, India this month began mandatory Covid-19 tests for travelers from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand."
More barbarism in Iran
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned the execution of a British citizen in Iran, describing it as a “callous and cowardly act." Peter Stubley writing in London's The Times said the prime minister "was appalled that the 'barbaric regime' had carried out the death sentence on Alireza Akbari, a dual British-Iranian citizen accused of spying for MI6. James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, vowed that the execution 'will not stand unchallenged.'“
"A former deputy defence minister in Iran, Akbari was convicted of espionage following his arrest in 2019," The Times continued. "He denied the allegation, claiming he had been tortured into confessing on camera. The UK had warned Iran not to go ahead with the death sentence. However, Iran announced that Akbari had been hanged for 'corruption on earth and harming the country’s internal and external security by passing on intelligence'….Akbari’s wife, Maryam, who lives in the UK, said she had been asked to visit him in prison in Tehran for a 'final meeting' and that he had been transferred to solitary confinement, usually a sign of imminent execution."
Brazil on my mind
The government is moving quickly to suppress the revolt by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, still in hiding in Orlando, Florida. The latest, as reported by Lisbon's oldest daily, Diário de Noticias: "The former Justice Minister of Jair Bolsonaro and former secretary of Public Security was detained by the authorities at the international airport of Brazil…after arriving from Miami….The Federal Supreme Court (STF) had ordered the arrest of Anderson Torres for alleged responsibility for not preventing the attacks perpetrated by thousands of 'bolsonaristas' against" the parliament and presidential offices.
In a move that seems straight out of a Donald Trump playbook, the paper continued, "The police searched Torres' home and seized a draft decree that would allow former President Jair Bolsonaro to intervene in the Electoral Justice with the aim of reversing the result of the October 30 elections…providing for the declaration of a state of [emergency] to…carry out a 'correction of the presidential electoral process.' The Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, said that this document shows that there was planning for attacks by far-right radicals against democratic institutions in Brazil."
And finally, there’s ….Amorim
The brilliant Brazilian cartoonist Amorim has a dark look at how Brazil's constitution, indeed its very democratic system, is being invaded by mobs and set ablaze.
Alberto da Costa Amorim, native of Rio de Janeiro, began publishing his cartoons in 1984 with the satiric newspaper Pasquim. He is a member of the Cartooning for Peace collective. Here's how he sees himself:
Thank you, David!
Sobering as ever