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brinkmanship

Saturday January 22, 2022

January 22, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 22, 2022

Fears of an Invasion

March 4, 2014

Russia has stationed about 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s government has issued a list of demands that Western powers are highly unlikely to meet. And President Biden said yesterday that he expected Putin to send troops over the border. “But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it,” Biden added.

Today’s newsletter offers a Q. and A. on the risks of war in Eastern Europe.

“The overall threatening rhetoric from the Kremlin and the movement that military analysts are seeing on the ground give us a lot of ground for concern,” Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, told my colleague Claire Moses. “It’s a very serious situation.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia’s foreign minister are scheduled to meet for talks tomorrow in Geneva.

Here are 5 questions on the latest regarding recent events between Russia and Ukraine:

Posted in: International Tagged: 2022-03, bridge, brinkmanship, International, map, Russia, suicide, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, war

Wednesday November 13, 2019

November 20, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

November 13, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 13, 2019

There’s still time to avoid school strikes in Ontario

On the surface,  there isn’t much reason for optimism in the ongoing labour standoff between Ontario’s government and educators.

August 29, 2019

The unions are uniformly unhappy with progress made to date in negotiations. Most have already held strike votes and received strong mandates, and those that have not will soon.

The government insists it is being reasonable and remains ready to negotiate and reach agreements.

In other words, contract talks are proceeding as they tend to – slowly, painfully and stressfully.

But looking a little deeper yields some reason for optimism.

First,  there is the government’s newly announced desire to govern reasonably as opposed to with a draconian heavy hand.

After a disastrous first year, Doug Ford has become the least popular populist in Canada.

All sources agree – he doesn’t like that.

March 19, 2019

He doesn’t want his government to be or be seen to be ideologically extreme. He wants to fulfil his agenda but not like a bull in a china shop. He’s seen how well that worked his first year as premier.

While it’s true that Ontarians take a dim view of school strikes, it’s also true the blame for them is typically apportioned to both sides.

In fact, given the unpopularity of many Ford initiatives so far, there’s a good chance he and his government will be blamed more than teacher unions if we do end up with one or more strikes.

If he’s bothered by how unpopular he is now, just wait until school strikes are factored in.

No doubt, as is the case with most labour negotiations,  there are a host of issues on the table. But most are probably not strike-worthy.

October 8, 2019

Typically, only a couple of issues are worth taking that big step to the last resort.

In this case, one is class size. On this, the government should yield.

It has already agreed to reduce its target of 28 students per average class to 25, compared to the current 22.5.

But that offer contained a poison pill that would have required unions to sign off all control on class size caps and trust the government to do the right thing.

That’s not going to happen, nor should it.

The class size issue has nothing to do with educational outcomes and everything to do with saving money.

The larger average size will eliminate 10,000 teaching jobs. It will do nothing for students and families.

According to last week’s financial statement, the provincial deficit is about half of what Ford previously claimed it was.

That, plus higher than expected revenues, should allow the government to back away from this particular savings scheme.

Then there’s money, of course.

The province wants to cap all public-sector wage increases at one per cent. Teacher unions want two per cent. Inflation is running just under two per cent.

A full percentage point below the rate of inflation is not reasonable and won’t fly with most public sector unions as it amounts to a pay cut.

The government has already signalled that its one-per-cent cap is an aspiration not a hard deal breaker.

There should be room here for a compromise that can avoid a strike, and all the negative fallout that entails. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2019-40, brinkmanship, bullseye, Doug Ford, education, labour, Ontario, populist, strike, teachers

Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Monday, April 15, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Monday, April 15, 2013

China must do more to resolve N. Korean Missile Crisis

Secretary of State John Kerry has called on China to do more to help resolve the North Korean missile crisis, saying the country provided the Pyongyang regime with a “lifeline.”

In an interview with NBC’s TODAY that aired on Monday, Kerry also said any deal with the rogue state would need to be structured so that Pyongyang could not later renege on its terms.

In recent days the North Koreans have readied missiles for launch and some speculated this would happen on Monday, when the nation celebrates the birth of founder Kim Il Sung, current leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather.

In an interview in Tokyo before flying back to the U.S. on Monday, Kerry said that if the missiles were not fired “that would mean perhaps we’re turning a corner and there’s a possibility of moving in a better direction.”

“Everybody understands the negative side of what happens if there is a shoot. And my hope is that we can move in a different direction here. China, I think, is serious about this,” he said. “They understand the instability this is creating.”

Kerry said it was “very important” for the United States to make clear to North Korea that there would be “consequences for their action” and to reaffirm its security agreements with its allies in the region.

“That done, I think it is very important to the Chinese to focus on the fact that … if they’re not prepared to put the pressure on the North — and they have the greatest ability to have an impact on the North — then this can become more destabilizing,” he said. “And that instability is not in China’s interest, certainly. It’s not in anybody’s interest in the region.”(Source: NBC News)

Posted in: International Tagged: Ban Ki Moon, brinkmanship, China, diplomacy, Editorial Cartoon, International, John Kerry, Kim Jong Un, Korea, North Korea, South Korea, UN, United Nations, USA

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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