Angela Merkel

Thursday September 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 10, 2020

Speed of coronavirus vaccine race ‘crazy’ and unsafe, scientists warn

Leading scientists across the world say rushing the development of a coronavirus vaccine to bring it to the public before the end of this year is unrealistic, unsafe, and even “crazy”. 

February 28, 2020

Despite reports from across the world suggesting a vaccine could be ready in weeks – particularly from the United States, where “Operation Warp Speed” reportedly has officials on standby to distribute the vaccine by October, ahead of the presidential election –  experts are increasingly concerned that the rhetoric is in no way matched by the data. 

None of the leading vaccine candidates have yet completed clinical trials, the regulatory bodies who licence vaccines are already struggling to cope with coronavirus demands, and questions over manufacture and distribution haven’t been considered, experts say. 

Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told The Telegraph: “This timeline is neither realistic, nor is it sensible to put this kind of pressure on the analysis of important trials. It is highly politicised, and I am not a fan of this approach.”   

April 11, 2019

She said that it was essential for all new vaccines to go through comprehensive clinical trials. 

In normal times, a vaccine takes up to ten years to develop, including several years of testing. Under the current plans outlined by politicians in the UK, Russia, and the United States, this has been crunched to less than 12 months. 

“It is extremely unwise to proceed with licensing any vaccine without a proven track record for safety and efficacy, in any country,” Professor Kampmann said.

Life in a Pandemic

“If they are found to be useless or even dangerous, you might jeopardise the entire vaccine programme. The more this moves from science into politics, the more it becomes a little crazy.”     

The World Health Organization said on Friday it does not expect to see a vaccine until mid-2021, and it is working with experts to define the criteria for declaring a vaccine successful.  On the same day, US newspapers also carried reports of a planned joint statement from some of the big pharmaceutical companies, pledging that they will not release a coronavirus vaccine until its usefulness and safety are proven. 

At the same time, the head of ‘Operation Warp Speed’ in the US, Dr Moncef Slaoui, hit back at accusations of political influence, telling Science Magazine he would resign if there was “undue interference”. (The Telegraph) 

 

Friday November 8, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 8, 2019

Western Order Reels on Berlin Wall Anniversary

June 19, 2018

The stage is set at the Brandenburg Gate, the dignitaries are assembling — but 30 years on, is there much cause to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall?

The iconic moment of 1989 crowned a year of revolution that toppled communist regimes across the Soviet bloc, marking the end of the Cold War and the start of a hopeful new era.

The global divisions caused by the 1991 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq stopped that in its tracks. Optimism quickly turned to cynicism, economic boom to bust, and electorates began to look for new answers.

June 9, 2018

Today, the western liberal order that prevailed in 1989 is crumbling. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is resurgent, communist China is the world’s second-biggest economy, and the U.S. under Donald Trump openly scorns multilateralism, belittles NATO and calls the European Union a foe.

But even as the west looks spent, it’s too early to administer the last rites.

The global climate emergency upends politics as we know it and represents a chance for the west to lead, even if Greta Thunberg complains it’s not enough. Europe is a green energy powerhouse. Environmental concerns top the EU’s agenda. Germany’s Green party is vying for first place in opinion polls.

A Green chancellor of Europe’s dominant country: Few could have imagined that in 1989. (Financial Post)

In 1989, a suggestion was drawn in my comic strip Alas & Alack that Donald Trump would buy the Berlin Wall. Interesting prophesy on how history would eventually play out with a future U.S. President and his penchant for walls and keeping people divided.


 

Saturday August 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 24, 2019

Will Trump blow up the G7 summit?

May 24, 2017

The biggest question clouding this weekend’s G7 summit in France is whether the President of the United States will blow it up.

It is a measure of the gulf between America and its allies and of how President Donald Trump has imposed his disruptive character on the world that everyone in Biarritz is bracing for a presidential eruption.

Given the President’s brazen, erratic behavior and mood in the last few days, the idea that he could repeat his tantrum and early departure at the last G7 summit in Canada last year cannot be ruled out. After all, he just pulled out of a state visit to Denmark because it refused to discuss selling Greenland.

Trump frequently flings vitriol across the Atlantic, criticizing foreign leaders who have spent the past two-and-a-half years trying, usually unsuccessfully, to work out how to handle him. His behavior is a promise kept to voters who believe that America’s friends have long taken advantage of its power and security guarantees.

Last month, for instance, he blasted French President Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness” over a digital services tax that hit US companies and vowed to impose tariffs on French wine.

November 14, 2017

Anticipating trouble from Trump, Macron has abandoned the summit’s regular communique in an effort to take the focus off the disagreements set to rumble in the French surfing resort.

The G7, a group of rich democracies that comprise Britain, France, Germany, the US, Italy, Japan and Canada, is exactly the kind of globalized gathering that Trump and his supporters abhor and is in itself almost a rebuke to his America First philosophy.

The President prefers bilateral meetings where he can leverage superior US power, and he believes national sovereignty, not multilateral cooperation, is the foundation of international relations.

Furthermore, Trump’s sharp changes to US foreign policy have opened wide gaps with Europe on climate change, Iran, trade and Britain’s exit from the European Union that preoccupy other leaders.

“What we’re seeing, I think, is the institutionalization of America alone — I think this week we will see President Macron in France attempting to lead the six in a cogent way,” said Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies during a conference call previewing the summit.

“The other countries are trying to figure out who takes up the new mantle, and can they hold on either until the US returns to that leadership role, if it will, or are they going to have to survive in these six dynamics without the US.”

June 9, 2018

The spectacle of Trump feuding with foreign leaders — captured at the G7 in Quebec last year inan iconic photograph horrifies his critics and the US foreign policy establishment.

Which is exactly why Trump may see a political benefit in being the disgruntled odd man out at a meeting that some foreign policy analysts have started calling the G7 minus one. (CNN) 

 

Saturday June 9, 2018


Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 9, 2018

Trump at G7: misses Macron meeting, suggests bringing Russia back

President Donald Trump sounded defiant departing for the Group of 7 summit on Friday, vowing to confront the leaders of America’s closest allies over trade. But he arrived so late to the conference in remote Canada that he missed his first scheduled sit-down. And he’s planning to cut short his visit by several hours a day later.

May 1, 2018

The series of events opened what promises to be a day-and-a-half of open animosity between Trump and infuriated western leaders, who are intent on airing their grievances before the President departs for his talks in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The stark reality of a US president skipping out on fuming western allies to have what he’s described as a “friendly negotiation” with the North Korean despot has not been lost on diplomats and leaders assembled in the Canadian woods.

And Trump has done little to ease their jitters.

December 17, 2016

He suggested just before touching down in Quebec that Russia should be allowed to rejoin the summit after five years in exile — a break in the united front allies had hoped to put forward against Moscow’s destabilization efforts in the US and Europe.

The remark seemed destined to only escalate the existing tensions between Trump and the six other leaders gathered at a riverside resort here. The annual G7 conference is usually a fairly news-free endeavor, with agreements on the global economy hammered out well before world leaders gather for two days of talks.

This year the normally staid affair has been imbued with uncertainty and bitterness. Few expect the assembled leaders will even agree on language for a joint “communique” that typically concludes the summit.

May 24, 2017

In the mid-afternoon, Trump emerged with fellow world leaders and smiled broadly for a “family photo.” The underlying tensions weren’t visible as the Saint Lawrence River glinted in the background. But the group retreated quickly behind closed doors for the start of their talks.

Before leaving the White House, Trump previewed a harsh tone for his foreign counterparts.

“We’re going to deal with the unfair trade practices,” Trump said. “If you look at what Canada, Mexico, the European Union, all of them have been doing to us for many, many decades, we have to change it. And they understand it’s going to happen.”

Trump was initially due to meet mid-morning with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who he’d lambasted a night earlier on Twitter. But Trump emerged from the White House South Portico 30 minutes late on Friday morning, and spent another 20 minutes talking to reporters. (Source: CNN) 

 

 

Meanwhile, today the U.S. President embarks on his first trip to Canada to discuss trade issues… #lotsanews

Posted by Graeme MacKay – editorial cartoonist on Friday, June 8, 2018

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Wednesday May 25, 2016

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Wednesday May 25, 2016 Trudeau to take day off during Japan trip to celebrate weddingÊanniversary Justin Trudeau's trip to Japan for bilateral talks and the Group of Seven summit will be about more than just business. The prime minister isn't planning to hold any meetings or events Wednesday, so he can celebrate his 11th wedding anniversary with his wife Sophie GrŽgoire Trudeau. The couple will spend the night at a traditional Japanese inn Ñ or ryokan Ñ before Trudeau heads to the G7 summit on Thursday in the country's Ise-Shima region. "The fact of the matter is we've been working extremely hard today and will be at the G7 meetings on Thursday and Friday, and in the middle of all this, I'm taking a moment to celebrate Ñ on personal funds Ñ my wedding anniversary with myÊwife," Trudeau said of the down time when asked during a news conference whether it would cost taxpayers anything, including the potential financial burden of idle staffers. "This is the kind of work-life balance that I've often talked about as being essential in order to be able to be in service of the country with all one's very best and that's certainly something I'm going to continue to make sure we do." GrŽgoire Trudeau accompanied the prime minister Tuesday in Tokyo during visits to the Meiji Shrine and with the Japanese emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace. She also joined him Tuesday evening for dinner with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trudeau held working meetings earlier in the day with Abe andÊexecutives from the Japanese auto sector. (Source: CBC News)Êhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-japan-sophie-gregoire-wedding-anniversary-1.3597363 Canada, summit, G7, Justin Trudeau, Japan, David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Honeymoon

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 25, 2016

Trudeau to take day off during Japan trip to celebrate wedding anniversary

Justin Trudeau’s trip to Japan for bilateral talks and the Group of Seven summit will be about more than just business.

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - Wednesday December 3, 2015 Trudeau children's nannies being paid for by taxpayers Canadian taxpayers are paying the wages of two nannies hired to care for the children of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie GrŽgoire-Trudeau, according to cabinet orders posted online. The hirings were approved late last week, with cabinet authorizing the appointment of the two women under the Official Residences Act as "special assistants at the prime minister's residence." They will be paid between $15 and $20 an hour during the day and $11 to $13 an hour for night shifts effective Nov. 4 Ñ the day Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in. The disclosure comes after an election campaign where Trudeau repeatedly attacked the Conservatives' enhanced universal child care benefit, or UCCB, and income splitting for families, arguing rich families like his and former prime minister Stephen Harper's didn't need taxpayers' help. "In these times, Mr. Harper's top priority is to give wealthy families like his and mine $2,000," Trudeau said in reference to the Conservatives' income-splitting tax credit. "Let me tell you something: We don't need it. And Canada can't afford it." Trudeau is also entitled to collect annual UCCB payments of about $3,400 for his three children. He promised to give the money to charity. One of the women hired was with the Trudeaus this past week on the prime minister's foreign trip that wrapped up Monday at the UN climate change conference in Paris. She posted photos online of the couple's two children who came on the trip. There were also shots of her with the Trudeaus' youngest child on Facebook visiting museums and at the hotel where they stayed in Paris. The prime minister's director of communications, Kate Purchase, said in an email that the two women who have been hired are doing more than childcare. "Like all families of prime ministers, a small number of staff provide assi

December 3, 2015

The prime minister isn’t planning to hold any meetings or events Wednesday, so he can celebrate his 11th wedding anniversary with his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.

The couple will spend the night at a traditional Japanese inn — or ryokan — before Trudeau heads to the G7 summit on Thursday in the country’s Ise-Shima region.

“The fact of the matter is we’ve been working extremely hard today and will be at the G7 meetings on Thursday and Friday, and in the middle of all this, I’m taking a moment to celebrate — on personal funds — my wedding anniversary with my wife,” Trudeau said of the down time when asked during a news conference whether it would cost taxpayers anything, including the potential financial burden of idle staffers.

Monday November 17, 2014“This is the kind of work-life balance that I’ve often talked about as being essential in order to be able to be in service of the country with all one’s very best and that’s certainly something I’m going to continue to make sure we do.”

Grégoire Trudeau accompanied the prime minister Tuesday in Tokyo during visits to the Meiji Shrine and with the Japanese emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace.

She also joined him Tuesday evening for dinner with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trudeau held working meetings earlier in the day with Abe and executives from the Japanese auto sector. (Source: CBC News)