TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #37
80 years old, off & running...Elections 2023: Paraguay's moment...and Taiwan's...Ukraine, China, a new embrace?...the Pope steps in...desertification sweeps Europe...cartoonist Roar Hagen's standoff
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.
How others see America
80 years old, off, and….running?
This was the theme of virtually every headline around the world this week as President Biden launched his campaign for re-election. As the great Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, a founder of the Cartooning for Peace collective, saw it, both leading candidates come to the contest with his own disabilities.
And the world worries. France’s leading daily Le Monde splashed the news across its front page: “At 80, Biden returns to campaign against Trump.”
Le Monde then went on to elaborate: “The American president, who made no secret of his ambitions, announced in a video that he would be candidate for his own succession in 2024. In this clip, which mainly speaks of democratic values, he claims to be waging a ‘battle for the soul of America’ in the face of the trumped-up right. There are many questions about his advanced age for a grueling job–-he would be 86 at the end of a possible second term. While Trump is the favorite for nomination by his camp, the prospects for a return match between the two is hardly received with enthusiasm by the American people.” In its lead editorial, the paper sees Biden as “‘bridge’ to a new generation of elected officials and a president of transition.”
In Italy’s leading Corriere della Sera, correspondent Viviana Mazza notes that in Biden’s announcement, “the first word is ‘freedom’, a freedom on which America is founded but which is threatened…by the ‘MAGA extremists’, i.e., supporters of Trump and the slogan Make America Great Again. The first images are in fact those of the attack on Congress on January 6….”
Asia, too, has been keeping a close watch, with the leading Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun’s Washington correspondent Ryo Takano reporting, “Even within his own Democratic Party, concerns about Mr. Biden’s advanced age persist, but there are no other front-runners at the moment. A year and a half from now, Mr. Biden will likely run for a second term and face off against the Republican nominee.”
But it was the Kremlin’s own newspaper, Pravda, that had the most pointed observation: “’Desperate old man’ Biden forgets his age and does it again.” Then it turned to Putin’s stooge Dmitry Medvedev for comment: “The American military should make a fake suitcase with fake nuclear codes in case he wins in order to avoid irreparable consequences.”
Cozying up to Korea
With all sorts of threats materializing across Asia, President Biden paid host to the president of South Korea. At the end of a state dinner at the White House, a room filled with celebrity guests and with the Marine Corps band on backup, Biden turned to his guest of honor and suggested he just might want to give everyone a taste of his favorite song, Don McLean’s great anti-Vietnam War hit “American Pie.” The South Korean leader brought down the house, even Angeline Jolie jumping to her feet and cheering…..
Taiwan makes me shiver…can’t remember if I cried…the day the music died….
Talks are going on between Washington and Taiwan “about potential weapons stockpiles on or near the island,” reported Lawrence Chung, Taipei correspondent for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. “’The proposal of regional contingency stockpiles is still in the negotiation process,’ Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen said. Chen confirmed that Taiwan and the US had been in discussions over the potential plan since the US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2023 was approved by US Congress late last year.”
How others see the World
Elections 2023: A moment of destiny for Paraguay …. And Taiwan
Continuing our pledge at Andelman Unleashed to report and comment on every national election everywhere in the world….on Sunday, voters in Paraguay will go to the polls for a potentially epiphanal contest. At stake, if the left-wing opposition succeeds in unseating the ruling Colorado party—uninterrupted in its control for 75 years—would be Paraguay’s embrace of Taiwan. Paraguay remains the only South American country still recognizing the island as a nation independent of China. Of course, there are many other issues where both sides hardly see eye-to-eye, so much so that as William Costa reported for London’s Guardian from Asuncion, the Colorado party’s president Horacio Cartes “was targeted with US sanctions for ‘rampant corruption that undermines democratic institutions’ and alleged links to Hezbollah, starving the Colorado electoral machine of funding and access to bank loans.” Could come back to bite the U.S. and Taiwan.
The resulting chaos has made the election for the first time in decades too close to call. Some will remember back to the days of Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled this nation as a dictator from 1954 through 1989. His parents emigrated from Bavaria, and he was happy to provide sanctuary to a host of Nazi war criminals including the infamous Josef Mengele and support such fellow pro-Nazi dictators as Spain’s Francisco Franco.
For the full results of what may actually be a free and fair election this weekend, and its implications, stay tuned Monday on Andelman Unleashed.
Ukraine, China, a new embrace?
Xi Jinping, who appears to be smarting over being backed into quite a lonely corner with Vladimir Putin, has now reached out to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky to see about a peace plan. As Marc Bennetts wrote in The Times of London, “In the first known conversation between the two leaders since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, Xi, who visited President Putin in Moscow last month, told Zelensky that talks were the ‘only way out of the war,’ Chinese state media reported. ‘There is no winner in nuclear wars,’ Xi said.”
So why would Zelensky agree to Xi’s proposal, as Bennett put it to “send officials to Kyiv to try to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.” One simple answer, a senior Ukrainian diplomat put it to me last week: Ukraine’s end game has not changed. But why not stall as much as possible? As long as China keeps on talking and thinks it can get big-time mileage out of playing the mediator, Xi just might refrain from re-stocking Russia with all the weapons it needs to keep going.
The pope steps in
In a visit that is causing no end of conversation, not to mention consternation across Europe, Pope Francis arrived in Budapest to “invoke creative effort for peace,” as Corriere della Sera‘s Gian Guido Vecchi, accompanying the pontiff, put it. “As soon as he landed in Budapest, Francis reached Sándor Palace, in the Buda Castle district, for two private talks with President of the Republic Katalin Novák and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the European leader closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
“Then [the Pope] addressed the political and civil authorities with a long speech,” continued Vecchi, “centered on the European parable: ‘In the post-war period, Europe represented, together with the United Nations, the great hope, the common goal that a closer bond between nations would prevent further conflicts. In the world in which we live, however, the passion for community politics and for multilateralism seems like a beautiful memory of the past: it seems to be witnessing the sad sunset of the choral dream of peace, while the soloists of war are making room.’” No suggestion whether Orbán was hearing that tune or simply basking in the gift of a papal visit playing to his base.
The new war front
Another war that keeps on giving. Anyone who can get out of the killing fields of Sudan are clearly doing so, at whatever cost. The Saudi-based Arab News reported the kingdom had managed to evacuate some 3,000 from Khartoum by land, sea, or air, just as a Turkish evacuation flight was landing to pick up evacuees.
And as if there weren’t enough trouble in this troubled nation, Arab News commentator Dr. Salam Alobaidi reported that “the main thing is to let the Sudanese solve their own problems without interference from outside.” Then there’s Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries, Dr. Alobaidi quoting Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov as saying, “Sudan has the right to make use of the private military company if it chose to do so.”
Desertification sweeps into Europe
This should be the rainy season in broad swaths of Europe. [“April showers bring May flowers?”] Nope, think again. As Le Monde correspondent Sandrine Morel reported, Spain is “menaced with desertification.” There’s a shocking page one photo of the reservoir of Sau, north of Barcelona, dried up and cracking. Temperatures soared to 104 degrees in the shade.
Germany’s Deutsche Welle reported “France is on course to experience an even drier summer than the record drought it suffered in 2022 that saw water levels fall to historic lows….Like much of the rest of Europe, the sweltering heat and lack of rain last year caused major problems for France. But following a particularly dry winter, experts are warning that 2023 could be even worse…. France's groundwater levels…are generally below the levels from 2022. Due to the historically dry winter, the ground has not been able to take in more water ahead of the hotter months…. When the land dries out, farmers are forced to water it themselves, which in turn reduces the groundwater level even further. Fruit and vines are the crops that could be worst hit by any coming drought. The wine-making region of Roussillon and tourist region of Var—home to the popular town of Saint-Tropez—were two of the worst affected with groundwater levels at their lowest ever recorded.” Can forest fires be far behind?
Finally, there’s …. a Roar
Norwegian cartoonist Roar Hagen sees next year’s U.S. presidential election as a high-noon showdown in Tombstone, both aging candidates inching toward each other, clutching their walkers. It’s an image in synch with much of the world’s fear that America may be held in sway by an octogenarian able to maintain his equilibrium only by hanging on for dear life. No suggestion how or when they might be in a position to go for their guns.
Roar Hagen is a Norwegian artist and editorial cartoonist. His main activity is political comments but also theatre sketches, portrait, and illustrations. Since 1986, he has drawn for the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang. He has shown in many international exhibitions, some museums, even the Norwegian parliament, and is a member of the extraordinary collective Cartooning for Peace.
Here's how Roar Hagen sees himself: