John Kerry

Sunday, December 15, 2013

I’m honoured to be named a recipient of a citation for excellence from the United Nations. Congratulations to the winners and all other finalists, especially my friend and colleague in editorial cartooning, Guy Badeaux, from Le Droit, in Ottawa.2013_winners_doc

 

Click here to see the winning cartoons. Here is the cartoon I was recognized for:

Monday, April 15, 2013

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

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)

Friday, September 13, 2013

Friday, September 13, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, September 13, 2013

Syria will give up control of chemical weapons

Syria will cede control of its chemical weapons to the international community, the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has said in a yet-to-be-aired interview on Russian television.

In what is believed to be his first public acknowledgement of the country’s chemical weapon stockpile, Interfax news agency quoted the president as saying the move had not been prompted by US military threats but Russian diplomatic efforts.

“Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision,” Interfax said, quoting the state-run Rossiya-24 channel’s yet-to-be-aired interview.

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Assad also told Rossiya-24 that Syria would submit documents to the United Nations for an agreement governing the handover of its chemical arsenal.

The reports came hours before the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and US secretary of state, John Kerry, were due to meet in Geneva to discuss the proposal, which Lavrov announced on Monday along with Moscow’s plan for implementing it.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said the initiative will not succeed unless Washington abandons plans for potential air strikes to punish Assad for a poison gas attack on 21 August that the US president, Barack Obama, blames on Syrian government forces. (Source: The Guardian)

Double Take 'Toons: Putin Peacemonger?

FEEDBACK

This cartoon was posted to NPR’s Double Take, with lots of commentary from supporters and detractors.

 

Friday, June 21, 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, June 21, 2013

Afghan president has halted negotiations

Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S. and scuttled a peace delegation to the Taliban, sending American officials scrambling to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the militants.

What provoked the mercurial Karzai and infuriated many other Afghans was a move by the Taliban to cast their new office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as a rival embassy. The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: “Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Karzai on the phone, telling him that his concerns were justified and that he would work to resolve the issue.

An American official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to disclose the information, said he still expects to have the first public meeting with Taliban representatives in the next few days in Qatar but that no exact meeting date has been set.

Nevertheless, the militants’ attempt at a publicity coup clearly played to Karzai’s longstanding distrust of both the Taliban and the United States, who had announced Tuesday that they would pursue negotiations in the Qatari capital of Doha — at least initially without the Afghan government.

It may have also given Karzai an excuse to try to head off the Doha talks, which he probably agreed to support only reluctantly and under U.S. pressure. Karzai has for years opposed talks outside Afghanistan and dominated or directed by the U.S. The Taliban, on the other hand, have never really wanted to negotiate with Karzai, preferring to talk directly with the U.S. (Source: CBC News)

Monday, April 15, 2013

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)

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Wednesday, March 20, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Thomas Mulcair’s anti-Keystone rhetoric

Tom Mulcair got himself elected leader of the federal New Democratic Party on a promise he would bring hard-headed realism and a centrist political ethic to the job. He was to be, it was murmured at the time, the NDP’s Tony Blair.

As it turns out, there’s little indeed of Blair’s famous economic pragmatism in Mulcair. He talks the talk but, when push comes to shove, quacks like a duck. Currently, the NDP leader is tromping with big, gnarled feet all over the delicate buds of the Keystone XL pipeline. Criticism of his criticisms, while on a recent Washington D.C. trip, he dismisses as Conservative hypocrisy. All opposition leaders attack the governing party’s positions when travelling overseas!

Except, that Keystone and the issues tied to it are not just political baubles to be toyed with. These are fundamental, shared economic problems – the greatest Canadians now face. The Obama administration’s pending approval or rejection will affect us all from coast to coast to coast, for many years to come. And much of Mulcair’s rhetoric about Keystone is either poorly researched, half-true or spun-up by ideological assumptions that do not hold up for a second in the cold light of day.

First let’s address the idea that Alberta’s nefarious Big Oil oligarchs are foisting oilsands development on a reluctant Eastern Canada, whose citizens will only suffer as the resultant global warming turns James Bay into a gigantic hot tub. This is the putative value proposition: Albertans benefit economically from the oilsands, but the rest of us are harmed. Why should their interests subsume ours? (Source: National Post)