world

Wednesday August 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 28, 2019

Bolsonaro’s ego stands in the way of saving the Amazon

December 18, 2009

“Did I say that? Did I?” That was Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro talking to reporters on Tuesday morning, apparently denying what his office had told CNN exactly one hour earlier, that he would reject a $20 million pledge from the G7 countries to help fight the fires consuming the Amazon. It was a touch of gaslighting, Bolsonaro style.

The Amazon fires are scorching the Earth’s most vital ecosystem at such a voracious rate that by the time you read this, thousands more trees will have turned to ashes. Brazil’s space research agency calculates that one-and-a-half soccer fields worth of rainforest burns every single minute. That destruction includes more than trees — it is engulfing everything that lives in the forest and cannot escape.

December 4, 2007

As the flames spread, the scale of the devastation could reach a point where the damage may become irreversible. Amid rising pressure from abroad, and from inside Brazil, Bolsonaro has instead busied himself with a childish (and sexist) dispute over whether he has a more beautiful wife than French President Emmanuel Macron and posturing that efforts to help from abroad amount to an assault on Brazilian sovereignty. Meanwhile, more rainforest burns.

Brazil should receive help not only because what happens in the Amazon will affect the entire world, but because it should not bear the cost of preserving the Amazon all alone. Whether or not Bolsonaro feels he has something to prove, Brazilians have much to be proud of. They have a spectacular country, and they have shown in the past that they are capable of protecting it. There is no shame in accepting assistance from a world that is eager to help. They have every right to run the operation. It is their country. But their problem is affecting everyone. If everyone wants to help, why not let them? The obstacle, as often happens with demagogues, is their president. It’s a perfect — perfectly awful — example of what happens when nationalist demagogues take power.

June 2, 2017

It is hardly a surprise that Bolsonaro has been described as the “Trump of the Tropics.” There’s much about his political style that echoes the US President, including his approach to the environment.

Urged by foreign leaders to fight the fires — which open up more land for powerful Brazilian ranchers and miners to graze cattle and extract mineral wealth — Bolsonaro declared, “You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours.”

It was not unlike what President Donald Trump said in his press conference three days later, when he was asked if he is still skeptical about climate change. In his rambling answer, he said he is an “environmentalist,” and went on to describe precisely the opposite, saying, “I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet,” adding, “I’m not going to lose that wealth; I’m not going to lose it on dreams.”

The nationalists’ creed is centered on some version of MAGA, Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan, which is at its heart a call to mistrust cooperation with other countries and to reject the prospect of sacrifices for a common good shared with other nations. (Continued: CNN)  

 

Tuesday April 16, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 16, 2019

Fire torches Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

A massive fire engulfed the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the French capital Monday, toppling its spire and sending thick plumes of smoke high into the blue sky as tourists and Parisians watched in horror from the streets below.

November 16, 2015

A spokesman said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too.

“Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame,” Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot told French media. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the world’s most famous tourist attractions.

The cause of the catastrophic blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is “potentially linked” to a 6 million-euro renovation project on the church’s spire and its 250 tons of lead. Prosecutors opened an investigation as Paris police said there were no reported deaths.

Flames shot out of the roof behind the nave of the cathedral, among the most visited landmarks in the world. Hundreds of people lined up bridges around the island that houses the cathedral, watching in shock as acrid smoke rose in plumes.

The iconic building in the center of the city is the most visited monument in Paris, with more than 12 million visitors a year — nearly double the people who visit Eiffel Tower.

February 22, 2003

French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a televised speech to the nation because of the stunning blaze and was going to the cathedral himself.

Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said emergency services are trying to salvage the famed art pieces stored in the cathedral.

Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine, the cathedral’s architecture is famous for, among other things, its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses.

Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent.

The cathedral was immortalized in Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” published in 1831, and has long been a subject of fascination in popular culture as well as the traditional art world. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

I couldn’t help the fact that this 1980’s song by the House Martins re-ran through my head as the Cathedral burned:

 

Friday April 13, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 13, 2018

‘We do not participate in Twitter diplomacy’: Russia responds to Trump

November 3, 2017

In the wake of President Trump’s tweet taunting Russia while promising a missile attack on Moscow’s ally Syria, Russian politicians and officials are jumping at a chance to show they are the more mature and serious party. Here’s how Russian officials from the president on down have responded to Trump.

President Vladimir Putin did not address the tweets directly while greeting new foreign ambassadors to Moscow at the Kremlin. But he reiterated his frequent call for global stability — which can only be accomplished, in the Kremlin’s view, by giving Russia a prominent role in a “multipolar” rather than U.S.-led world order.

“Indeed, the state of things in the world cannot but provoke concern. The situation in the world is increasingly chaotic. Nevertheless, we hope that common sense will prevail in the end and that international relations will become more constructive — that the whole global system will become more stable and predictable.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the tweets in comments to Russian journalists. While he dismissed Trump’s Twitter diplomacy, he left unmentioned that Russia’s own diplomats in London are no stranger to it.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova quickly took to Facebook, wondering whether an American strike would only be a pretext for erasing all evidence of a chemical-weapons attack that Russia has described as staged.

“Smart missiles should fly in the direction of terrorists and not a legal government that has been fighting for several years against international terrorism on its territory.… Or is the whole idea to quickly wipe away the traces of a provocation by striking them with smart missiles, so that international inspectors would have nothing left to find in terms of evidence?” (Source: Washington Post) 

Published in the Waterloo Region Record

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Tuesday January 16, 2018

Tuesday January 16, 2018

Hawaii Democrat: false missile alarm shows Trump failure on North Korea

The false alarm about a ballistic missile strike that terrified Hawaiians on Saturday showed Donald Trump’s policy on North Korea is wrong, a Democratic US representative from the state said on Sunday.

“What makes me angry,” Tulsi Gabbard told CNN’s State of the Union, “is that, yes, this false alarm went out and we have to fix that in Hawaii but really we’ve got to get to the underlying issue here, of why are the people of Hawaii and the US facing a nuclear threat coming from North Korea?

“And what is this president doing, urgently, to eliminate that threat?”

Trump was on the golf course in Florida when the alert went out on Saturday morning, Hawaiian time. The alert text read: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

“It was definitely kind of a panic zone,” Ashley Trask, 39 and from Kauai, told the Guardian. “Everyone knows you have about 15 minutes until detonation and no one knows where it will land.”

Family members “called us and they were crying because they realized they wouldn’t have made it to us”, Trask said.

Beth Ann Brooks of Haleiwa said she and her husband sheltered in their bathroom with their children.

“The fear I felt was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” she said. 

As tension between the Trump White House and nuclear-armed Pyongyang has risen, Trump trading public insults with Kim Jong-un and bragging about the size of his “nuclear button”, fears that North Korea could reach US territory with a nuclear weapon have surged. (Continued: The Guardian)