TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #27
Election 2023: Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and most deeply contested … the world goes to Munich….Asian pirouettes….and Ukrainian cartoonist Kazanevsky's Potemkin soldiers.
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. Of course, we continue our coverage of every national election, so we begin this week with the final race to the wire in Nigeria.
Elections 2023: Nigeria
Perhaps Africa's most consequential election and one that promises to set the direction for much of the continent is coming down to the home stretch this week in Nigeria. Africa's largest nation by population and the world's sixth largest, Nigeria has quadrupled in size in the last 50 years and in the next quarter century is expected to be the world's third most populous nation. And as of right now, with four leading candidates among 18 in the first round, all contesting for the presidency, the results are considered utterly unpredictable.
The nation is facing a host of unresolved and at least in the near-term probably unresolvable troubles. When the ailing military dictator turned democrat Muhammadu Buhari was first elected Nigeria's president eight years ago, as the BBC's West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones reported this week, "it was on the promise that he would help put an end to the Boko Haram insurgency which has forced millions of people from their homes in the north-east and cost thousands of lives. Eight years on, the region appears safer, with large swathes of territory reclaimed from the jihadist group." But large stretches remain in the hands of the most tenacious and brutal terrorist group in Africa.
"Insecurity is still raging here, and most importantly, it's affecting the people we're here to help," David Stevenson, the World Food Program (WFP) country director for Nigeria told the BBC. "They continue to be displaced, we have new arrivals coming into IDP camps and they're telling their stories that they don't feel safe in their homesteads and in their farms….A lot of the state is still considered too dangerous to travel across by road. In order to get safely from Damaturu in Yobe state to Borno's capital, Maidugu, we have to fly in a UN helicopter."
The vote is scheduled for February 25, unless it is postponed as it was in 2019 just five hours before polls were set to open. This time, 18 candidates will be on the ballot with three leaders and one potential spoiler. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 70, of the ruling All Progressives Congress is backed by a big political machine and claims to have brought the outgoing president to power. A shrewd multimillionaire, he is the former governor of Lagos, where many expect the election to be won or lost. His slogan, Emi lo kan (It’s my turn) suggests his role as kingmaker but has turned off many youthful voters who may decide the election. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has fielded a former vice president, also a multimillionaire businessman, Atiku Abubakar, 76, who has run for president five times since 1993. The youth candidate is Peter Obi, 61, embraced by large swaths of Nigeria’s digitally savvy young people who have been hit severely by economic hardship, joblessness and insecurity. They call themselves "The Obidients." A fourth, potential spoiler, is Rabiu Kwankwaso, 66. While unlikely as a victor, Mr. Kwankwaso, could split the vote in parts of Nigeria’s north, including the state of Kano, where he has a huge base and where Boko Haram has been particularly active.
Since a winner requires an absolute majority plus 25% of the vote in two-thirds of the 36 states, it's likely there will be a runoff, which curiously has never happened before when a democracy has ruled. More than 12 million new voters have registered this time, making any accurate polling problematic. And we probably won't know any definitive results for days. Stay tuned.
How others see America
Off to Munich
Large swaths of official Washington decamped to Bavaria this week for the Munich Security Conference where the focus had shifted quite dramatically from a year ago. Then, it was on how to keep Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. This week, how to get him out—and what role America might continue playing to achieve that end. The hometown paper, Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, played as only the third-rank story on its home page the message from the leader of the American delegation, Vice President Kamala Harris, which its reporter Matthew Kolb reported as "accusing Moscow of committing crimes against humanity [while] Republicans are also surprisingly clear in emphasizing that they want to support Ukraine "as long as necessary."
Kolb's colleague George Ismar, however, reported that while "a big topic in the hallways of the Bayerischer Hof in Munich is how to end this war….in the debate at the security conference, [there was] a surprising demand by….Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olexander Kubrakow [for] cluster munitions and phosphorus incendiary weapons from the western states for the fight. The US and other allies have millions of shots of it. Russia uses these weapons every day. 'Why can't we use it? It's our territory,' Kubrakow has been telling people."
But, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporter observed, in the German government "it is considered impossible that Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) could allow something like this. Because Germany is one of the 110 contracting parties to the Oslo Convention prohibiting the use, manufacture, acquisition, storage and transfer of cluster munitions."
The Germans were a bit surprised by Biden's absence in Munich since, as Kolb reported, "So far, Harris has not established herself as Biden's natural and undisputed successor….As a senator and Obama's vice president, he was a regular at the Bayerischer Hof, but the US president prefers to deliver his speech marking the anniversary of Russia's attack on Ukraine in Warsaw. On Tuesday, Biden is traveling to Poland for the second time and not to Germany." Still, at Munich, Western allies are happy with the signals being sent from both sides of American politics, especially Republicans, who "'want a strong transatlantic alliance,'" Kolb quotes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, "trying to allay concerns that support for Kiev will wane with a conservative-led House of Representatives. 'Don't look at Twitter, look at the leading Republicans,' stresses McConnell."
Voices from Ukraine
On Wednesday February 22, the Overseas Press Club of America will be presenting a unique, live zoom event—"In the Thick of It: Ukraine," featuring three journalists working in different parts of Ukraine who will describe how they continue to work and survive under increasingly dire conditions.
The three are Alla Koren, editor of the local newspaper "Time. People. Events." in Sarata in the Odesa region…Alina Kravchenko of Donbas Online, a regional TV and radio company in the Lukhansk region of eastern Ukraine; and Glib Golovchenko, president of the Ukrainian Press Clubs Association, providing humanitarian aid to journalists and producing a video series, "War Heroes of the Mykolaiv Region." David A. Andelman will be moderating.
Please register here early so we can be sure to email you the link before the program begins.
How Others See the World
Tamping down Russia's efforts
Curtailing Russia's ability to pursue its rampage in Ukraine are a top priority, but not for all. "India appears to be pulling off a diplomatic high-wire act between Washington and Moscow as Commerce Ministry data shows India's imports from Russia have surged nearly 400% so far this fiscal year, fueled by purchases of discounted crude oil," Kiran Sharma reported from New Delhi for Japan's Nikkei Asia. "The total value of Russian imports came to $37.31 billion, up from $7.71 billion in the same period of the previous year….India has bought 'a lot of crude, converted it into refined petroleum products and sold it,' India's Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said."
But the U.S. is taking "a soft touch," on the issue, Sharma reported, with Sanjay Kumar Pandey, a professor of Russian studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University explaining: "If India jettisons Russia, then Russia would grow even further closer to China, and that is something which is not either in the interest of India or maybe even the U.S….They wouldn't like Russia to become a pillion rider of China."
And then there's China….
Other countries are doing their own delicate pirouettes, as Hayley Wong wrote in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, "Manila is balancing US-China relations as it diversifies regional security cooperation, [while] evolving regional security relationships are triggering unease in Beijing." Wong was reacting particularly to the event "last week [when Philippines president Bong Bong] Marcos signed an agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to allow Japanese troops to join humanitarian relief exercises—a move widely seen as a step towards closer security ties between the two nations, which are key to the US defence strategy against China."
This comes after Marcos had signed agreements with Xi Jinping, while as Wong continued, "Manila agreed to give US troops access to four military bases as part of their expansion of cooperation in 'strategic areas' of the Philippines" closest to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, just as Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Demetri Sevastopulo was reporting from Washington for London's Financial Times: "The Pentagon’s top China official has paid a rare visit to Taiwan amid the crisis in relations between Washington and Beijing….Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, has arrived in Taiwan….Chase is the first senior US defence official to travel to the island since the 2019 visit of Heino Klinck, deputy assistant secretary for east Asia, who in turn was the most senior Pentagon official to visit Taiwan in four decades."
Voices Unleashed
On Wednesday, Andelman Unleashed will publish its next Voice—a compelling commentary followed by a conversation with Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, widow of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi-born columnist for the Washington Post who was assassinated and dismembered four years ago in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Andelman Unleashed is privileged to spotlight her latest efforts to bring to justice the murderers of her husband and all their facilitators. Subscribe (free!) so as not to miss this remarkable feature.
And finally, there’s …. Kazanevsky
The brilliant Ukrainian cartoonist, V. Kazanevsky, imagines a nasty, high-stepping Russian general reviewing his Potemkin forces—two-dimensional cutouts of troops, cross-hairs on their mid-sections as Putin struggles to field a Russian army that is anything more than a collection of draftees lined up for target practice.
Our cartoonist is 72-year-old Vladimir Kazanevsky. A graduate of Kharkov State University majoring in “cosmic radiophysics," he turned eventually to journalism. His cartoons have been published around the world, from Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun to Nebelspalter in Switzerland, Germany's Eulenspiegel, and France's Courrier international. He has won more than 500 prizes in 53 countries. When war broke in Ukraine, he was forced to flee his country, but was awarded the 2022 International Cartoonist Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award. Of course, his work is featured by the extraordinary collective Cartooning for Peace.
Here's how Kazanevsky sees himself:
Not much, I'm afraid, Patrick. The Helsinki Times (an online only English-language) paper, had this:
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/22973-us-and-norway-blew-up-the-nord-stream-pipelines-seymour-hersh.html
This from MRonline:
https://mronline.org/2023/02/16/media-ignore-seymour-hersh-bombshell-report-of-u-s-destroying-nord-stream-ii/
They point out that the only news agency to carry a story about Hersh's effort was Reuters but no major news outlet picked up its dispatches...
Business Insider called it a 'gift to Putin' ...
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-embraces-hersh-claims-biden-blew-up-nord-stream-2-2023-2?amp
I have to say, sourcing seems pretty thin, imho, even by Sy's standards!!
Sorry....
d.
I am certainly on the lookout for that .... tho for the moment it looks like all the leading contenders are pretty much pro-western! After all, they've seen what's happened when the Wagner Group arrived in some of their neighbors !!