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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) 

 

Friday December 1, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 1, 2017

Trump’s behavior raises questions of competency

Donald Trump potentially has millions of lives in his hands as the threat of a devastating war with North Korea swiftly escalates.

January 20, 2017

Yet the President of the United States is raising new questions about his temperament, his judgment and his understanding of the resonance of his global voice and the gravity of his role with a wild sequence of insults, inflammatory tweets and bizarre comments.

On Wednesday Trump caused outrage and sparked fears of violent reprisals against Americans and US interests overseas by retweeting graphic anti-Muslim videos by an extreme far right British hate group. Earlier this week he used a racial slur in front of Native American war heroes. He’s attacked global press freedom, after cozying up to autocrats on his recent Asia tour.

August 18 2017

And now there are reports that the President has revived conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama’s birthplace and is suggesting an “Access Hollywood” video on which he was heard boasting sexually assaulting women, and for which he apologized last year, had been doctored.

In normal times, it would be a concern that the President is conducting himself in a manner so at odds with the decorum and propriety associated for over two centuries with the office he holds.

September 20, 2017

But the sudden escalation of the North Korean crisis, following the Stalinist state’s launch of its most potent ever missile on Tuesday, takes the world across a dangerous threshold.

If diplomacy is unable to defuse the North Korea crisis, or slow its march to the moment when Kim Jong Un can credibly claim to be able to target all of the United States with a nuclear payload, Trump will face one of the most intricate dilemmas of any modern President. Will he live with the threat posed by a mercurial, wildly unpredictable adversary? Or, will he launch what could turn out to be a hugely bloody and destructive war to remove Kim’s nuclear threat?

November 3, 2017

There will be a premium on Trump’s judgment, his capacity to absorb the most serious detail and to make choices that could put many, many lives at risk, and draw the United States into escalating situations in Northeast Asia. Trump would be required to switch from the swaggering, untethered political persona he has been reluctant to drop as President into the role of sober statesman, unifying the nation and US allies — a switch he has rarely achieved so far in his 10 months in power.

On Wednesday, in St. Charles, Missouri, Trump stuck to his preferred name calling, again blasting Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and branding him a “sick puppy” after his White House earlier promised severe new sanctions against Pyongyang. But he didn’t elaborate on his vows to “handle” the situation. (Continued: CNN) 

 

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