When World War I broke out in the summer of 1914, Italy declared itself neutral in the conflict, despite its membership in the so-called Triple Alliance alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary since 1882. Over the course of the months that followed, Italy and its leaders weighed their options; wooed by both sides, they carefully considered how to gain the greatest benefit from participation in the war.
The decision to join the fray on the side of the Allies was based largely on the assurances Italy received in the Treaty of London, signed in April 1915. By its terms, Italy would receive the fulfillment of its national dream: control over territory on its border with Austria-Hungary stretching from Trentino through the South Tyrol to Trieste. In addition, the Allies promised the Italians parts of Dalmatia and numerous islands along Austria-Hungary's Adriatic coast; the Albanian port city of Vlore (Italian: Valona) and a central protectorate in Albania; and territory from the Ottoman Empire.
 | The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers to form the Triple Alliance with the signing of the August 1914 Turco-German Alliance. The Ottomans had lost territory in Crimea to Russia, and Russia was encroaching in the Caucasus. In the Balkan wars she had lost Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. The Ottoman Empire also was losing territory in North Africa, with Italy taking Libya in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912. Through the assistance of the Turks, the Germans threatened an offensive against the Suez Canal, which was abortive, but served the purpose of requiring British preparation for its defense. Germany saw more than mere military advantage in the Turkish adventure. She was reaching out into the British world which stretched across Persia towards India
The British had to offset the threat of Germans, and with Russians in retreat from the Balkan and losing their faith in the Allies, they needed to bring Italy in on the side of the Allies. Italy had joined (reluctantly) with Germany in the so-called Triple Alliance out of a fear of France, which had formed an alliance with Britain that made Britain responsible for the mutual defense of the English Channel, and freed the French fleet to concentrate in the Mediterranean, possibly against Italy. Italy was worried about the intentions of a victorious Austria Hungary, from which she had taken Lombardy and Venice in the 19th century. So when Britain and France offered her Tyrol and Trieste from Austria, She jumped at the bait and switched sides
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 | | Russian response to Ottomans |
 | This German cartoon is making a jest at the Triple Entente. It shows Germans 'cooking' the English, French and the Russians. The Triple Entente among Great Britain, France, and Russia which was formed during the first decade of 20th century, and led to the outbreak of the First World War was the personal creation of King Edward VII of Britain. It was King Edward who engineered the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France in 1903-04, and who then went on to seal the fateful British-Russian Entente of 1907. It was King Edward who massaged Theodore Roosevelt and other American leaders to help bring about the U.S . -U. K. "special relationship," which dates from the time of his reign. |
 | Bulgaria declares its independence and its prince Ferdinand is named Tsar, Austria-Hungary, in the person of Emperor Francis Joseph, annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II looks on helplessly.
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, born in 1842 and ascending to throne on 31 August 1876 following his brother, Murad V, who was deposed because of early symptoms of mental illness, named Midhat Pasha as Grand Vizier, who wrote the Ottoman Constitution. It recognised the Sultan a caliph, guardian of the Islamic faith and sovereign of all Muslim subjects in 1876. All subjects, regardless of faith or belief were named Ottomans (Osmanlı). Amongst other things, the constitution provided equality before the law for subjects regardless of religion, Christians were able to work for state authorities, security of property was assured, sanctity of life was ensured, vassals were banned, and a free press was implemented, as were reforms of a social, cultural and administrative nature.
However, Midhat Pasha was deposed, arrested and exiled in 1877. The Sultan took side with the Old Turks, under whose influence the parliament was dissolved in 1878. In 1908, the Sultan escaped a plot against his life only by chance, in which 28 people were killed in front of Yildiz mosque.In 1908 when after a meeting between Tsar Nicholas and the English King Edward VII in Reval, there were talks of possible plans by the European powers to divide up the Ottoman Empire. Shortly after this meeting, there was an uprising in Macedonia and the Turkish military units gradually aligned themselves on the side of the Young Turks, to which the Albanian soldiers also aligned, having been the regime’s main supporters. In July 1908, the Young Turk military units and their allies forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution of 1876 and parliament. Bulgaria took advantage of the weakened Ottoman Empire after the Young Turk Revolution and on 5 October 1908,prince Ferdinand declared Bulgaria’s independence in contravention of a number of points of the Treaty of Berlin, which stated that north Bulgaria would become an independent principality under the sovereignty of the Sultan, and that the southern part of Bulgaria would have a Christian ruler with a statute subject to inspection by an international commission. Austria-Hungary did not oppose Bulgaria’s act, instead taking advantage of the step to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. |
 | | Student protesters and demonstrators chanting “Long Live Crete, Long Live Greece” and Sultan Abdul Hamid II advises: "Gentlemen, Students, the Great Turk can very well respond: Be concerned about what is happening at your own borders!". He refers to German treatment of Alsace and Lorraine, Ėdouard Pépin, Le Grelot (No. 1351, Paris) 28 February 1897 |
 | | Sultan Abdul Hamid II wiping his bloody sword on the Constitution, D'ostoya, L’Assiette au Beurre 29 August 1908 |
 | | Reshad Efendi, proclaimed as Sultan Mehmed V and his deposed brother Abdul Hamid II, Charles Léandre, Le Rire, 15 May 1909 |
 | The Young Turks Dispose of the Body of Abdul-Hamid
In 1908, Sultan Abdulhamid II was overthrown as a result of a military coup orchestrated by the Young Turks movement ending his 33 years long reign. In the next ten years following his abdication, the Ottoman Empire was torn apart. Most of the Young Turks had been sent for education to Europe, mostly France. The Young Turks movement originated in 1865, when Ebüzziya Tevfik, an Ottoman intellectual, and six of his friends met up at Yenikoy and continued to the Belgrade Forest. The aim of this movement was to ‘‘take the empire from the Old Ottomans (referring to the Sultan) and fix up their politics and policies’’. The key members of this movement were Cemil Topuzlu, Dr. Marko Pasa, Emanuel Karasu and Talat Pasa. They pursued Pan-Turanian goals in order to consolidate Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire and to expand the state into the so-called Turanian lands including Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan.
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 | Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, The Multiple Dictator, Mavi Boncuk, Punch, November 7 1923
Mustafa Kemal Pasha- " O I AM A COOK AND A CAPTAIN BOLD AND THE MATE OF THIS FANCY BRIG AND A BO'SUN TIGHT AND A MIDSHIPMITE AND THE CREW OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG" Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has been elected the President of the new Turkish Republic. Atatürk was already president of the Assembly. President of the Cabinet and President of the Popular Party |
 | "Towards the Beykoz conference. Pasha: What's up Kosti the soupman, where are you going with your stuff? Kosti the soupman: to the new conference, to play my puppet.", by Sedat Simavi (1896-1953) showing Constantine I of Greece and Mustafa Kemal, leader of the Turkish forces of Anatolia. July 1922
The state of Turkey was headed by Mustafa Kemal’s People’s Party, which later became the Republican People’s Party. The end of the War of Independence brought new administration to the region, but also brought new problems considering the demographic reconstruction of cities and towns, many of which had been abandoned. The Greco-Turkish War left many of the settlements plundered and in ruins.
After the Balkan Wars, Greece had almost doubled its territory, and the population of the state had risen from approximately 3.7 million to 4.8 million. With this newly annexed population, the proportion of non-Greek minority groups in Greece rose to 13%, and following the end of the First World War, it had increased to 20%. Most of the ethnic populations in these annexed territories were Muslim, but were not necessarily Turkish in ethnicity. This is particularly true in the case of ethnic Albanians who inhabited the Çamëria region of Albania.
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. It involved approximately 2 million people (around 1.3 million Anatolian Greeks and 500,000 Muslims in Greece), most of whom were forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands.
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 | The New Turkey, 'The Dallas News', 1922
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk proclaims the abolition of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the new Turkish Republic. |
 | The elite members of the Imperial Club show little enthusiasm for their new member. The cartoonist pokes fun at the Japanese's inappropriate mix of old and new attire: full western frock coat combined with traditional wooden geta on his feet, umbrella held awkwardly under the arm; buck-toothed grin and slitted eyes are easily identifiable racist stereotypes. |
 | One aspect that particularly rankled the Japanese was the blatant way Russia and her henchmen in the Intervention played the race card. It may not have been coincidental that right at this time, a great deal of literature about the "Yellow Peril" found its way into print.The Germans were among the most active and inventive purveyors of the Yellow Peril myth; the term "Yellow Peril" was coined by Kaiser Wilhelm himself. The Kaiser's feelings on race are on record and consistent; he also bandied about the terms "Black Peril" (black Africans) and "Slav Peril" to undergird the theory that the Reich was encircled by enemies, justifying ever-greater military expenditures.
It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows, and in the wake of Russia's duplicity in the Tripartite Intervention, Great Britain reached out to Japan. Japan's capital ships had been built in Britain and many of her leading naval commanders studied in British naval academies and served with the British fleet. So it was that in 1902 Britain signed her first ever foreign alliance: the Anglo-Japanese Pact of 1902. This was certainly aimed at Russia, Britain's rival in the "Great Game" |
 | Emperor of Japan and his British and American well-wishers according to a Russian cartoon.
At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, no one outside Japan had envisaged a Russian defeat. Indeed, the very existence of the Tennō’s empire appeared endangered. The Japanese victory, however, was immediately recognized as a turning point in world history. For the first time in modern history an Asian nation had defeated a European great power. Japan immediately became an important actor in world politics. The impact of the war took on a regional and global character, opening the way to a new constellation of powers and becoming a prelude to World War I. |
 | The Russians had entered Manchuria region during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and, along with Germany and France. This was part of the “Triple Intervention” that forced Japan to give up its demands for ports in South Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula in the wake of its victory in China. Russia moved into the area and took control of Port Arthur, a warm water port with strategic and commercial significance. A Japanese attempt to stage a coup in adjacent Korea was thwarted in part by the Russian presence in the region, and the two nations’ divergent interests appeared more and more likely to clash.
In 1904, the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur before the formal declaration of war was received in Moscow, surprising the Russian navy and earning an early victory. Over the course of the next year, the two forces clashed in Korea and the Sea of Japan, with the Japanese scoring significant, but costly, victories. War casualties were high on both sides. At the battle over Mukden, the Russians lost 60,000 soldiers and the Japanese lost 41,000 soldiers. The military costs were high as well. A Russian fleet made the long trip from the Baltic Sea around Africa and India, only to be half destroyed by the Japanese upon its arrival in Northeast Asia. By 1905, the combination of these losses and the economic cost of financing the war led both countries to seek an end to the war. |
 | The Japanese asked U.S. President Roosevelt to negotiate a peace agreement, and representatives of the two nations met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905. For the sake of maintaining the balance of power and equal economic opportunity in the region, Roosevelt preferred that the war end on terms that left both Russia and Japan a role to play in Northeast China. Though excited by the Japanese military victories, Roosevelt worried about the consequences to American interests if Japan managed to drive Russia out entirely.
The Treaty ultimately gave Japan control of Korea and much of South Manchuria, including Port Arthur and the railway that connected it with the rest of the region, along with the southern half of Sakhalin Island; Russian power was curtailed in the region, but it was not required to pay Japan’s war costs. Because neither nation was in a strong financial position to continue the war easily, both were forced to compromise in the terms of the peace. Still, the Japanese public felt they had won the war, and they considered the lack of an indemnity to be an affront. There was a brief outbreak of protests and rioting in Tokyo when the terms of the agreement were made public. Similarly, the Russian people were also dissatisfied, angry about giving up half of Sakhalin. |
 | The negotiations centered on access to ports and territories in Manchuria and Korea, control of Sakhalin Island, and the question of who was responsible for paying war costs. The chief aims of the Japanese negotiator included first control in Korea and South Manchuria, then the negotiation of an indemnity and control of Sakhalin Island. The Russians wanted to maintain Sakhalin Island, refused to pay a war costs indemnity to the Japanese, and hoped to maintain their fleet in the Pacific. The indemnity issue, along with the dispensation of Sakhalin Island, were the major sticking points in the negotiation, although given its financial straits in 1905, Russia was likely unable to pay an indemnity even if required by a treaty to do so. |
Persia in the Great Game
Caught between imperialist Russia and British India. Persia played smartly in in their Great Game thus preserving her independence while faced with completely unfavorable odds gainst her. Russia forced Fath-Ali Shah to sign the Treaty of Golestan, acknowledging the Russian annexation of Georgia and surrendering a large chunk of the traditionally-Iranian south Caucasus, in 1813. The Czar using the modern warfare technology with heavy guns was able to compel the Shah to sign this humiliating treaty at the same time as the majority of his army was fending off the Napoleon Bonaparte's army. Russia eyeing the enormous wealth of British India attacked Iran again in the 1820's, and by 1828 had pounded the Iranians so badly that they signed the Treaty of Turkmanchai, in which Persia surrendered all claims north of the Aras River. This area now comprises Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Fath-Ali Shah's grandson, Muhammad Shah, succeeded him in 1834. At the behest of the Russians, he launched two unsuccessful attacks on Herat during the next 15 years.
The Central Asian region including Afghanistan was a zone of triangular contest between British Empires and Russian Czars. Czarist Russia and Britain in India were waging an undeclared war and containing each other in Central Asia and Afghanistan. These powers were struggling for establishing their hold in the region. As the Great Game intensified, the British and Russian demarcated the border between Afghanistan and Central Asia in 1884, when Russia annexed southern Tajikistan. Following its policy of annexation, in 1968, Russia annexed northern portion of present day Tajikistan and made it a part of Turkmenistan, a Russian controlled province.
In the old Great Game Afghanistan was the hub of conflict for British and Russian Empires. Element of uncertainty and distrust prevailed between both powers. The British had fear that Russia may threaten British Balochistan via Turkmen region to Herat and may animate the Kabul against British. On the other hand Russians were viewing that British would undermine them in Central Asia. Nasser al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896)who modernized Iran's postal and banking systems (there's an irony here, considering the Persian roots of both), and established technical schools, played the European power against each other to preserve Iran's independence.
 | | Soveriigns, No11, ( Nasser-Ed-Din-Shah), "He endowed Persia with a National Debt," by SPY (Leslie Ward), Vanity Fair, July 5, 1873. |
| May, Philip William, Nāṣer al-Dīn Shah, 1889
Although a younger son of Moḥammad Shāh, Nāṣer al-Dīn was named heir apparent through the influence of his mother. Serious disturbances broke out when he succeeded to the throne on his father’s death in 1848, but these were quelled through the efforts of his chief minister, Mīrzā Taqī Khān, Amir Kabir (Great Leader). Under Taqī Khān’s influence, Nāṣer al-Dīn began his rule by instituting a series of needed reforms. Taqī Khān, however, was later forced from power by his enemies, who included Nāṣer al-Dīn’s mother, and was disgraced, imprisoned, and finally murdered. In 1852 an attempt was made on Nāṣer al-Dīn’s life by two Bābīs (members of a religious sect considered heretical). Unable to regain territory lost to Russia in the early 19th century, Nāṣer al-Dīn sought compensation by seizing Herāt, Afg., in 1856. Great Britain regarded the move as a threat to British India and declared war on Iran, forcing the return of Herāt as well as Iranian recognition of the kingdom of Afghanistan. |
 | Queen Victoria receiving the Shah of Persia at the Sovereign's Entrance, Windsor Castle, June 20. Published in an extra supplement to the Illustrated London News, 28 June 1873.
Nasir al-Din Shah traveled to Russia in 1878 and was impressed by their Cossacks. The next year Russian officers began training the new Persian Cossack Brigade. Amin al-Sultan his chief minister was a skilled politician and pursued a pro-British policy until 1892. In 1889 Nasir al-Din Shah went to Europe for the third time. He approved a lottery promoted by Malkum Khan; but he found opposition at home because gambling is forbidden by the Qur’an. The Shah cancelled the lottery, and Malkum Khan was able to sell his concession before the British were informed. Malkum was dismissed from his positions and lost his titles. He began criticizing the Iranian government in the reformist newspaper Qanun (Reform Law), which he founded in London and smuggled into Iran. The slogan “Unity, Justice, and Progress” was printed at the top, but he made personal attacks on Amin al-Sultan. Malkum quoted the merchant Qazvin who asked, “By what laws does the government sell our national rights to foreign racketeers?” The answer Malkum gave is that the Shah should call together a national assembly “to formulate laws that would initiate social progress.”
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 | Zichy Mihaly Horse-Guardsmen Meeting Nasir-al-Din Shah
Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a Muslim reformer who helped to reconcile secularist reforms with the ‘ulama (learned Muslims), from an Azeri-speaking village in Afghanistan, traveled to India during the Mutiny of 1857-58, developing a hatred of British imperialism. He wrote “Refutation of the Materialists” and gained a reputation for supporting Islam, though he emphasized its social aspects. Jamal al-Din criticized the intolerance of religion that stifles science and serves political despotism, but he praised philosophy that frees one from beliefs. During the 1870s he educated young men in Egypt. Then in Paris he edited the Arabic newspaper al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqa, which promoted pan-Islamism. He went to London to try to influence British policy in Egypt, but he failed and returned to Persia. The Minister of the Press persuaded the Shah to invite Jamal al-Din to Tehran; but his anti-British ideas offended the Shah, who forced him to leave in 1887. |
 | | Introduction of Grand Princess Maria Alexandrovna to Shah Nasiral Dinin the Winter Palace |
 | Qajar King Nasseredin Shah kisses Queen Victoria's Hand in Curtsy upon arrival at Buckingham Palace Reception in honor of the Persian Shah's State first Visit. Nasseredin Shah and Queen Victoria long reign strongly shaped their respective countries history. Victoria oversaw Britains Industrial Revolution ( not without it's share of Dickensian transformations) where as Nasseredin Shah opened Persia to Western economic and cultural Influence, and ideas that were to actually undermine his absolute reign in subsequent years following his assassination in 1848 with the 1906 Constitutional Revolution |
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At six o'clock on the evening of 31 May 1873, Shah Nasir al-Din of Persia, fourth king of the Qajar dynasty, and his entourage arrived at Potsdam Station in Berlin, where they were greeted by the German Emperor Wilhelm I, Crown Prince Friedrich, Chancellor Bismarck and Field Marshal Moltke. Welcomed by the cheering of thousands, the shah entered Berlin along Unter den Linden, sitting in an open carriage next to the kaiser. The Persian monarch returned to the German capital to be received by the Hohenzollern monarchs in the summers of 1878 and 1889. He was the first Persian head of state ever to have visited Europe. Some years later his son and successor, Muzaffar al-Din, was also received in Berlin. He entered the capital in June 1902 and passed through Germany in 1900 and 1905, although he was not formally received on these two occasions. The shahs' sojourns in Germany were part of their six European tours, which also brought them to various other European courts. Nasir al-Din dined with the tsars at the Winter Palace of St Petersburg, enjoyed receptions given by King Leopold II in Brussels and banquets with the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph at Schönbrunn Palace, and attended the World's Fairs in Vienna (1873) and Paris (1878 and 1889). |
 | Nassar Al-Din, Shah, was given admittance to the Order of the Garter by Queen Victoria, he committed Iran to help England against Russian design for India, By Tenniel, 'Punch', July 5, 1873.
Doctors advised the Shah to travel, and the British government loaned the Shah £300,000 so that he could visit London for medical treatment. Amin al-Sultan arranged loans of £3,000,000 at five percent interest from Russia in 1900 and 1902 to repay previous loans. These proved to be financially disastrous. Persia’s annual revenue was about £1,500,000, but in three years they borrowed and spent almost that much. In 1888 Persia gave the Caspian fisheries to Russia. That year Henry Drummond Wolff arrived from London,and he managed to gain economic concessions |
 | Baron George de Reuter. 'The Wicked Baron'. Educated Cambridge. Director: Imperial Bank of Persia. Vanity Fair
Nāṣer-al-Din Shah granted an unprecedented concession in 1872 to Baron Julius de Reuter, a British subject of German origin. The concession, which covered the entire territory of Persia, gave Reuter the exclusive rights and monopoly, for seventy years, to exploit all mineral resources including, but not limited to, coal, iron, copper, lead, and petroleum, and to construct and operate roads, railways, telegraph lines, water canals, irrigation systems, and customs services. Reuter’s concession was cancelled a few years later because of strong political pressure and opposition from the Czarist government, as well as a number of eminent Persians. Reuter never accepted the cancellation of his concession and repeatedly filed claims for compensation. Eventually, as a result of the intervention by the British minister in Tehran, Nāṣer-al-Din Shah granted a new concession to Reuter in 1889, which became known as the Bānk-e Šāhi (Imperial Bank of Persia) concession. Under this new concession the bank had the right to exploit all mineral resources throughout the country, except gold, silver, and other precious metals. |
 | 'Feline Rapprochement', By Tenniel, 'Punch', June 23, 1873 The British lion, the Persion cat and the Russian bear representing "The Great Game"
The Shah opened the Karun River to international navigation. The Russians complained they were supposed to approve any transport concessions, but the Iranian government claimed it was not a concession. Wolff won a settlement of Baron Julius de Reuter’s claims that allowed Reuter’s bank the exclusive right to issue banknotes, and extensive mineral rights were included. This was called the Imperial Bank of Persia and had its headquarters in Tehran with several branches in various cities. The Russian Bank competed by making loans to prominent people, and they received road concessions. |
 | | Illustration shows a man labeled "Persia" and a man labeled "Greece" drinking a toast from a punch bowl labeled "Renewal of Diplomatic Relations". Caption: A long time between drinks. 491 BC-1902 AD |
 | A 1910 issue of the German magazine Simplicissimus cover page titled 'The Persian Lion', showing a tamed, humiliated and impotent Persia being controlled by Britain and Russia.
In March 1890 the Shah gave the British subject Major Talbot a fifty-year monopoly over Iran’s tobacco production and sales in exchange for a gift of £25,000, annual rent of £15,000, and 25% of the profits for Iran, but later in the year the newspaper Akhtar exposed the secret and criticized the concession. Jamal al-Din’s disciples added their leaflets on this issue that affected many Iranians who were involved in the tobacco business. The incident—popularly termed the “Tobacco Rebellion”—is often considered to be the origin of modern Iranian nationalism. When the tobacco company’s agents began to arrive in April 1891, a major protest was led by a religious leader from Shiraz. He was banished to Iraq and conferred with Jamal al-Din, who wrote to the top Shi’i ‘ulama, Hajji Mirza HasanShirazi. He put an interdict on smoking that was widely obeyed. A revolt in Tabriz forced the Government to suspend the tobacco operation, and the general strike spread to Mashhad, Isfahan, Tehran, Qazvin, Yazd, and Kirmanshah. The consumer’s boycott was supported by the Russians as well as Persians. By the end of 1891 a successful nationwide boycott on the sale and use of tobacco was in place. In Tehran troops fired on unarmed demonstrators,killing several, and the Government cancelled the concession in early 1892. The Iranian government contracted its first large foreign debt of £500,000 to the British-owned Imperial Bank, which authorized exorbitant pay to the company. As a result of this British fiasco the Russians became more influential.
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 | | Alexander II and Nasir al-Din Shah on a Parade in the Tsaritsyn Meadow. |
Finances were re-organized; tariffs on native merchants were increased; and reduced court expenditures affected the ‘ulama. Belgian administrators were invited to reform the customs, but Iranian merchants complained that Russians were favored. The Shah sold an oil monopoly to the Australian British subject William Knox-D’Arcy, and new road tolls were granted to the Imperial Bank of Britain. A French company loaned Persia £200,000 to buy arms. The Belgian Joseph Naus mediated a new customs tariff that was signed by Persia and Russia in the Treaty of Erzerum in November 1901, ratified in December 1902, and kept secret until February 1903. People protested against the Belgian administrators and the foreign concessions. In the summer of 1903. Secret societies grew and spread critical literature.
 | Reception of Nasr-ed-Din King of Persia during His Visit to St. Petersburg on 11-14 May 1
The Azerbaijani Fath ‘Ali Akhundov wrote Kamal al-Daula va Jalal al-Daula, a collection of letters criticizing conditions in Iran. In Tabriz intellectuals were led by bookstore owner Muhammad ‘Ali Khan and Sayyid Hasan Taqizada. The Society of Learning was organized in Tehran, and they founded the first national library. Five of the most important organizations were the Secret Center in Tabriz with its journal led by the merchant ‘Ali Karbala-yi, the Social Democratic Party of Iran formed in 1904 in Baku by émigrés led by Azerbaijani school-teacher Narim Narimanov, the Society of Humanity in Tehran founded by ‘Abbas Kuli Khan Qazvini, the Revolutionary Committee headed by Malik al-Mutakallimin, and the Secret Society founded by Nazem al-Islam Kirmani who wrote History of the Awakening of Iranians. In February 1905 the Secret Society listed several demands for reforms including better laws and courts of justice.
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Nasir al-Din Shah was assassinated in 1852. His oldest was excluded from the succession because his mother was of low birth, and the sickly Muzaffar al-Din became shah. He made no more foreign loans, and kept order, but he was not interested in political reform. He promoted music, art, and poetry, and he encouraged the translation of Western literature. The police force in Tehran was modernized, and city services were improved. The postal service expanded and began using stamps. The three progressive writers in Trabzon were extradited and executed at Tabriz. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, the only person implicated by Rida Kirmani, became very ill with cancer and died in 1897. | LE RIRE 1900 N°300 Charles Leandre, Roubille, Willette, Mouzaffer-Ed-Dine Shah of Persia
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In December 1905 the Governor of Tehran bastinadoed some sugar merchants for refusing to lower their raised sugar prices. They took sanctuary in the Royal Mosque of Tehran and were joined by mullahs and tradesmen. Imam Jum‘a helped the agents of ‘Ain al-Daula to disperse them. At Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba’i’s suggestion they moved to the Shahzada ‘Abd al-‘Azim shrine, where they were joined by 2,000 students, lower mullahs, merchants, and common people. They held out for 25 days, demanding a House of Justice (adalatkhana). The Shah dismissed the Governor and agreed to the demand in January 1906. When the government ordered Shaikh Muhammad Va‘iz expelled too, people protested, and on July 11 an officer killed a young sayyid. At his public funeral outside the mosque the Cossacks attacked the crowd, killing 22 and wounding more than a hundred. Many mullahs and others left Tehran and went to Qum, and the crowd protesting inside the British legation grew to 14,000 people organized by guilds. They turned the legation into an open-air school and heard lectures. They demanded that ‘Ain al-Daula be dismissed, and they asked for a representative assembly (majlis) also. |
 | Auguste Roubille, Shah de Perse, ca. 1900, French Political Caricatures Collection. Mozaffer Ed-Dine Shah Qajar (1853-1907) was the fifth Qajarid Shah of Persia, ruling from 1896 to 1907.
On August 5, 1906, Muzaffar al-Din Shah, faced with a general strike in Tehran, agreed to the Assembly (Majlis), which was elected by male voters from the six classes of Mujahids, Qajars, nobles, landowners, merchants, and guilds. Only males literate in Persian between the ages of 30 and 70 who were not in the Government and had not been convicted of a crime were eligible to serve in the Assembly. The first Assembly began meeting in October 1906, and a committee wrote the Fundamental Law that the Shah signed on December 30, five days before he died. He was succeeded by his son Muhammad ‘Ali. He recalled Amin al-Sultan (Atabak) from his travels, and he tried to find a compromise between the Shah and the conservatives in the Assembly. A radical assassinated Atabak on August 31, 1907, the same day that the British and Russians settled their issues in Iran as well as in Tibet and Afghanistan. The treaty was signed before the Iranians were even informed, causing riots in Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tabriz. |
 | The Anglo - Russian Entente and the Division of Iran 1907, By Sambourne, 'Punch', October 2, 1907
Great Britain's interest in Persia began early in the nineteenth century. This interest led to friction with Russia, Persia's northern neighbour. The Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 helped to stabilize nearly a century of intermittent conflict between them. This agreement provided for a Russian sphere of influence in northern Persia while a neutral zone separated it from Britain's sphere of influence in south-eastern Persia. For Russia, Persia represented an area for future territorial annexation. Great Britain, on the other hand, sought no territory in Persia. Rather, its primary concern was not its commercial interests, or oil fields (which were discovered two years later), but the military security of India, its jewel in the East.
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 | THE SALT-WATER CURE,
August 12, 1908. The Ottoman Emperor makes another specious effort to amend his constitution..
Shah of Persia. "Go on in, Abdul—just for the look of the thing. You can always come out if you don't like it."
Sick Man of Europe. "Yes, I know. But one gets so wet!"
Mozaffar o-Din's son Mohammad Ali Shah (reigned 1907-09), with the aid of Russia, attempted to rescind the constitution and abolish parliamentary government. After several disputes with the members of the Majlis, in June 1908 he used his Russian-officered Persian Cossacks Brigade to bomb the Majlis building, arrest many of the deputies, and close down the assembly. Resistance to the shah, however, coalesced in Tabriz, Esfahan, Rasht, and elsewhere. In July 1909, constitutional forces marched from Rasht and Esfahan to Tehran, deposed the shah, and re-established the constitution.The ex-shah went into exile in Russia.
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 | Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister. (Later Earl of Beconsfield). 'He educated the Tories…', By Singe, Vanity Fair, 1869.
Benjamin Disraeli first met Bismarck at the Russian ambassador’s residence in London in the summer of 1862, as leader of the Tory opposition. On this occasion, Bismarck, on the verge of assuming power, spelled out his plans for Prussian greatness under his leadership:I shall soon be compelled to undertake the conduct of the Prussian government. My first care will be to reorganize the army, with or without the help of the Landtag [the legislature] . . . As soon as the army shall have been brought into such a condition to inspire respect, I shall seize the first best pretext to declare war against Austria, dissolve the German Diet, subdue the minor states, and give national unity to Germany under Prussian leadership. I have come here to say this to the Queen’s ministers. For clarity of intent, this is hard to beat. Afterwards Disraeli warned the Austrian envoy: “Take care of that man. He means what he says.” |
Benjamin Disraeli offers Queen Victoria the crown of Empress of India in exchange for the British crown, and in the process reduces the power of the British monarch.
The Royal Parrot, The Odd Fellow, 1841
In October, 1839, Queen Victoria's cousins Ernest and Albert paid her a visit, bringing with them a letter from their uncle Leopold, in which he recommended them to her care. They were at once upon intimate terms, and the Queen confided to her uncle that "Albert was very fascinating." Four days after their arrival she informed Lord Melbourne that she had made up her mind as to the question of marriage. The Queen described her betrothal as follows:
"At half-past twelve I sent for Albert. He came to the closet, where I was alone, and after a few minutes I said to him that I thought he would be aware why I wished him to come, and that it would make me happy if he would consent to what I wished, namely, to marry me. There was no hesitation on his part, but the offer was received with the greatest demonstrations of kindness and affection. . . . I told him I was quite unworthy of him. . . . He said he would be very happy to spend his life with me."
 | Leopold II, King of Belgium, holding bags of money! 'With France and Prussia pressing on each side', By Coide, Vanity Fair, 1869.
The most notable event in Leopold's career was the foundation of the Congo Free State. While still Duke of Brabant he had been the first to call the attention of the Belgians to the need of enlarging their horizon beyond sea, and after his accession to the throne he gave the first impulse towards the development of this idea by founding in 1876 the Association Internationale Africaine. He enlisted the services of Henry Morton Stanley, who visited Brussels in 1878 after exploring the Congo river, and returned in 1879 to the Congo as agent of the Comité d'Études du Haut Congo, soon afterwards reorganized as the "International Association of the Congo." This association was, in 1884-85, recognized by the powers as a sovereign state under the name of the État Indépendant du Congo.
Leopold's exploitation of this vast territory, which he administered autocratically, and in which he associated himself personally with various financial schemes, was understood to bring him an enormous fortune; it was the subject of acutely hostile criticism, to a large extent substantiated by the report of a commission of inquiry instituted by the king himself in 1904, and followed in 1908 by the annexation of the state to Belgium. |
Some of the most recognizable cartoons were published in Harper's Weekly, a New York City periodical that also featured sketches of war scenes and famous personalities - as well as news and serialized literature. Among its illustrators were Winslow Homer (who also worked for the Illustrated Times) and Alfred Waud. The leading illustrator of Harpers Weekly was Thomas Nast. Nast was the most influential American caricaturist in the mid- to late 19th century. Specializing in political cartoons. He was a staunch opponent of slavery and throughout the Civil War produced patriotic drawings urging people to help crush the rebels. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said: "Thomas Nast has been our best recruiting sergeant. His emblematic cartoons have never failed to arouse enthusiasm and patriotism." Nast was also the artist who created the traditional image of Santa Claus and the Republican party's elephant symbol. | | The pedlar and his pack, or the desperate effort, an over balance, James Akin, 1812. The editor of Philadelphia Democratic Press, John Binns, who had published handbills accusing candidate Andrew Jackson of arbitrary executions and other violent acts supports a load of coffins on his back, along with the figures of Henry Clay and incumbent President Adams. |
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Black Recruit and Abraham Lincoln, London Punch, 1862 |
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We Accept the Situation, Thomas Nast for Harpers Weekly, 1867, An emancipated black voting for the first time versus a resentful, disenfranchised former Confederates. |
 | The Spanish American War, President McKinley offering Uncle Sam different "dishes"
The loss of the last Spanish colonies in America and Asia was a consequence of the Spanish American War, a conflict which meant the end of an empire (Spain) and the rise of another one (the USA). This war had an important reflection on newspapers. Experts consider the Spanish-American War to be the first "media war". This conflict was widely covered by the USA newspapers. The press barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, had an important role in the development of the conflict. The way they presented the news contributed to inflame the public opinion in the USA and created the propitious conditions for war. Their newspapers, The New York World and The New York Journal, competed in sensationalism and are considered to be some of the first examples of yellow journa |
 | | The Cuban Melodrama.' American cartoon by C. Jay Taylor, 1896, casting Uncle Sam as the hero, Spain as the villain, and Cuba as the damsel in distress. |
The Spanish-American War is often referred to as the first "media war." During the 1890s, journalism that sensationalized—and sometimes even manufactured—dramatic events was a powerful force that helped propel the United States into war with Spain. Led by newspaper owners William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, journalism of the 1890s used melodrama, romance, and hyperbole to sell millions of newspapers--a style that became known as yellow journalism.
 | President Theodore Roosevelt’ foreign policy: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” 1904
The United States victory in the Spanish-American War ushered in an era of unabashed American imperialism. During this time, the United States often used its “gunboat diplomacy ” to intimidate and to control weaker nations, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Americans agreed that the newly prestigious U.S. Navy should have fueling stations around the world. Carried on a wave of national exultation, and congress approved the annexation of Hawaii on August 12, 1898. | | On April 13, 1906 a cartoon in the New York World featured Mark Twain dethroning Czar Nicholas II with his pen. |
 | Theodore Roosevelt's "trust-busting" campaigns
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit abusive monopolies. At that time, Standard Oil and its affiliates controlled more than 90 percent of the oil refining capacity and most of the oil marketing facilities in the U.S. The Sherman Act authorized the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them, but Supreme Court rulings prevented federal authorities from using the act for some years. Theodore Roosevelt committed himself in 1901 and during both of his mandates to a strong war against monopolies, launching the federal government in 1906 in a lawsuit against the Standard. As a result of President Theodore Roosevelt's "trust-busting" campaigns, the Sherman Act began to be invoked with some success. |
 | President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his work in the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
The negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese war began at Sagamore Hill when Roosevelt invited diplomats on both sides, Russia and Japan, to his home in Oyster Bay. After meeting with all of them, he sent the diplomats out on board of the presidential yacht Mayflower. Negotiations continued at and near a naval base in Portsmouth, because it was federal property and cool in the summer. Delegates also went back and forth to Oyster Bay to confer with the president. The peace treaty was signed at the US Navy base in Portsmouth. Thus the accord is called the "Treaty of Portsmouth". |
 | | Theodore Roosevelt and Anti-Third Term Principle, This cartoon satirize Roosevelt's reversal of his anti-third term promise and his assumption of leadership of the Progressive Party. Both La Follette and Roosevelt lost the Republican nomination to the incumbent, Taft, who still controlled the national convention delegates. Roosevelt, however, had swept 9 of the 12 states with primaries, including Taft's home state of Ohio. 1912 |
 | For a year after the party's defeat in the congressional elections, Theodore Roosevelt remained silent. Then, near the end of 1911, America's political parties began to prepare for the presidential election that would be held the following year. Roosevelt was sure Taft could not be re-elected.
Taft had become very conservative. He had close ties to business interests. So, Theodore Roosevelt began to speak out again in opposition to many of the things President Taft was doing. Roosevelt wanted to be the presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the election of 1912. Earlier, this would have pleased Taft. He would have been happy to leave the White House. Taft believed he could win the Republican nomination for president. He still had the support of many party leaders.
Taft made a strong statement against the progressives. "They are seeking," he said, "to pull down the temple of freedom and representative government." A reporter asked Roosevelt to answer Taft's statement. Roosevelt said: "my hat is in the ring." That meant he was a candidate.
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JP Morgan | | Commercial Might Versus Divine Right, The Modern Trust King (J.P. Morgan) Brings Dismay to the Old Kings of Europe (King Edward VII of Britain & Kaiser William of Germany) |
 | | Theodore Roosevelt as a heavy-bottomed doll that keeps bouncing back, no matter how he is knocked down by the major financial powers.P Morgan, Rockefeller and Skull & Bones E. H Harriman |
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 | | Keppler, Udo J., artist. "Following the Piper. His Music Enchants the World." Color lithograph. Puck, September 17, 1902. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
JP Morgan hired Thomas Edison, a telegraph boy turned inventor, to install electricity in his 5th avenue Manhattan mansion. Morgan’s home became a lab for Edison’s experiments and a small generator was installed to power the home’s 400 light bulbs. Though his father Junius believed it a fad, electric light became a must have modern utility for the city’s elite. Against his father’s advice, Morgan invested everything in Edison to form the Edison Electricity Company. They created the world’s first power station and soon half of Manhattan’s connected. |
 | J.P Morgan used his great wealth, power, and drive to control the finances and politics of the United States. In 1877, when Congress failed to adopt a military budget, Morgan stepped in, and gave $2.5 million to the military payroll, all of which was eventually paid back by the government, angering some Congressmen who grumbled that they had never approved the loan. In 1894, when the country was in danger of defaulting on its loans, Morgan demanded a meeting with President Grover Cleveland who eventually accepted his self-serving solution to the crisis. And then finally in 1907, when Theodore Roosevelt–who was no fan of big business or J. P. Morgan–was confronted with the collapse of several banking trusts, he saw no alternative but to involve the financial magnate. Morgan forced the presidents of the larger and more successful trusts to bail out the smaller, weaker ones–saving the country from financial disaster |
 | The US President Taft Handing the Problematical Mexican Situation to His Successor Woodrow Wilson,
Louis Glackens. 1913 |
 | The Treaty of Versailles was signed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The main signatories of the treaty were the Big Four: the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, the US President Woodrow Wilson, the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and the Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando. "Peace and future cannon fodder", a small child with a copy of the Treaty behind him and his head the sign "1940 class". The Big Four are seen walking past, and there is a caption: "The Tiger: Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!".The final treaty was not popular. Many in Britain and France were angry that Germany hadn't been treated more harshly and that the German Kaiser hadn't been put on trial. Most Germans were humiliated and horrified by the treaty - disgusted at being made to take the blame for the entire war (the War Guilt clause - 231) and having to pay for it. |
 | | Germany's view of the Versailles Peace Proposals, is captured in this cartoon in Simpliccimus issue of June 3, 1919. The American president Wilson, the French president Clemenceau and the British Prime Minister Lloyd George have condemned the country to death. |
 | The Gaol bird is the broken-wing "peace" who is chained to the Treaty of Versailles. Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson announce that she is free! The American politics were deeply divided with President Wilson at the helms of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party dominating the US Congress. Republicans used the Treaty as an opportunity to criticize Wilson for not consulting them about the Treaty. Americans were also queasy about president's vision for a League of Nations. Some Americans felt that the Treaty was lopsided against Germany and Britain and France were imposing harsh financial penalties on Germany to enrich themselves. In the end, the Congress rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. |
Dutch artist Louis Raemaekers (1869–1956) has been called the Great Cartoonist of the Great War. According to president Theodore Roosevelt; The cartoons of Louis Raemaekers constitute the most powerful of the honorable contributions made by neutrals to the cause of civilization in the World War. Born in Roermond, in the Netherlands, Raemaekers, unconvinced by reports of German atrocities in invaded Belgium, crossed the border and returned home outraged. In the early years of WWI, Raemaekers, critical of the United States’ neutrality, in a number of drawings clearly asked for U.S. intervention. His scathing anti-German political cartoons gained rapid fame at home and abroad. By October 1917 more than two thousand newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic were printing his drawings on a regular basis . Raemaekers’s often provocative work resulted in his government’s threatening to place him on trial for jeopardizing Dutch neutrality. After the armistice, Raemaekers used his art to champion the League of Nations and, later, to sound the alarm against German and Italian fascism.
 | | Will they last, Louis Raemaekers, c. 1915, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, the subject of Raemaekers’s many barbed caricatures, put a bounty on his head. |
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China imperialism cartoon-while Emperor Guangxu helplessly looks on, China as a pie is about to be carved up by Victoria (British Empire), Wilhelm II (German Empire), Nicolas II (Russian Empire), Marianne (France), and Meiji (Japanese Empire) |
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Political cartoon by Frederick Opper from Puck magazine showing Queen Victoria and her family panhandling from John Bull on the steps of Buckingham Palace.
Queen Victoria made important financial concessions to parliament over the course of her reign. She accepted a smaller civil list and a smaller annuity for her consort than had been paid to any of her predecessors. She disclosed the accounts of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, both of which had formerly been considered private property. She also reduced her income by subjecting it to the newly re-instituted income tax. Despite these concessions, she managed to acquire a considerable private fortune. The principal sources of this fortune were improving incomes from the two duchies and better management of the civil list. Both sources benefited from reforms imposed by the prince consort. The queen used her private fortune to pay for items formerly paid for from public funds. She built houses and erected monuments. She paid partly for the golden jubilee and wholly for the debts that accumulated when the civil list became inadequate from the 1880s. Parliament in turn used evidence of her private fortune to decrease the size and number of public grants to her offspring. |
 | The record of political eloquence. - Sacred jabber, what nonsense will you force me to endorse? by R. Laban de Váralja
Chancellor Bülow is distressed by Wilhelm II's speech and deplores the consequences of his imperial master's words. Of all allegations against William II, the one about him talking too much - and talking too indiscreet- is probably the most accurate -- often before 1914. If the Kaiser actually showed an immoderate taste for speeches and sensational statements, at least he always employed a very chatty language in public. It is true that in private he did not hesitate to show sometimes more direct, giving even more salt to the anecdotes he liked to recall about one of his British relatives. |
 | THE STORY OF FIDGETY WILHELM
(Up-to-date Version of "Struwwelpeter") "Let me see if Wilhelm can Be a little gentleman; Let me see if he is able To sit still for once at table!" "But Fidgety Will He won't sit still." Just like any bucking horse. "Wilhelm! We are getting cross!" Feb. 1, 1896 |
 | SOLID, Entente Cordiale GERMANY: "Donnerwetter! It's rock. I thought it was going to be paper." (Aug. 2, 1911)
On March 31, 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany arrived in Tangiers to declare his support for the sultan of Morocco, provoking the anger of France and Britain in what will become known as the First Moroccan Crisis, a foreshadowing of the greater conflict between Europe's great nations still to come, the First World War.
A Second Moroccan Crisis flared in April 1911, when the French pushed troops into the country, claiming to be defending the sultan against riots that had erupted in Fez but actually violating the terms of the Algeciras convention. In response, Germany sent its own warship, the Panther, which arrived in the port of Agadir on May 21, intensifying the enmity between the two nations and, by extension, their allies. Slightly more than two years before the outbreak of World War I, then, the two Moroccan crises left no doubt that the traditional power balance in Europe had shifted into large blocs of power, with Germany relatively isolated on one side—enjoying only lukewarm support from Austria-Hungary and Italy—and Britain, France, and Russia on the other. |
 | The Entente Cordiale, an agreement between Britain and France, resolved a number of longstanding colonial disputes, and established a diplomatic understanding between the two countries, which however stopped short of binding either to any military undertaking in support of the other. France, keen to build a buffer against possible German aggression, signed the agreement in a bid to encourage an Anglo alliance with France. Similarly Britain was willing to encourage co-operation between the two countries with an eye on Germany's decision to expand her naval strength in competition with Britain.
Germany, concerned over the signing of the entente agreement, determined to test its practical strength by provoking a crisis in Morocco in 1905, leading to the Algeciras Conference (1906). The entente was extended in 1907 to include Russia, culminating in the alliance that formally took on the Central Powers during World War One. |
 | UNCONQUERABLE, 1914
THE KAISER: "So, you see--you've lost everything." THE KING OF THE BELGIANS: "Not my soul."
On 2 August 1914, the day before Germany declared war on France, the German government wrote to the Belgian government demanding the right of free passage across Belgium for its troops, so that the latter could most efficiently invade France and reach Paris. Belgium's reply to what amounted to a German ultimatum (grant free passage or suffer occupation as an enemy of Germany) was delivered on 3 August 1914.
Germany's invasion of Belgium on 4 August 1914 quickly prompted allegations of 'war crimes'. Some of them were confined to excesses committed in the military conflict. But the accusations of atrocities committed against civilians in occupied Belgium were far more damaging to the German cause. During the autumn of 1914, the British Foreign Office received a number of disturbing 'eyewitness' accounts from fleeing British subjects and Belgian refugees.
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 | THE EXCURSIONIST, November 1914
TRIPPER WILHELM: "First Class to Paris." CLERK: "Line blocked." WILHELM: "Then make it Warsaw." CLERK: "Line blocked." WILHELM: "Well, what about Calais?" CLERK: "Line blocked." WILHELM: "Hang it! I must go somewhere! I promised my people I would." |
 | THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED. January 1915
THE EMPEROR: "What! No babes, Sirrah?" THE MURDERER: "Alas, Sire, none." THE EMPEROR: "Well, then, no babes, no iron crosses." (Exit murderer, discouraged.)
Throughout 1914 the Zeppelin air ships were used for reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea, but the German Admiralty was pressing for permission to use them for attacks against England. The Kaiser, somewhat reluctantly, granted such permission and on the 19th of January the Germans carried out the first Zeppelin raid against Britain, killing two and injuring sixteen. This was the first of many raids, which continued at a rate of about two per month, in parallel with the continuing reconnaissance patrols. The German Admiralty was very enthusiastic about the results, and asked for permission to bomb London. This was only granted by the Kaiser after a series of raids by French bombers on German cities. On the 31st of May 1915 the first raid was carried out against London, killing seven and injuring thirty five. |
 | THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA SINBAD THE KAISER:
"This submarine business is going to get me into trouble with America; but what can an All-Powerful do with a thing like this on his back?"
At 1:40 p.m. on May 7, 1915, the German U-boat, U-20 launched a torpedo at the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, famous for its luxurious accommodations and speed capability. The sinking of Lusitania enraged Americans and hastened the United States' entrance into World War I. |
 | REALISATION
("When I went to Bulgaria I resolved that if there were to be any assassinations I would be on the side of the assassins." STATEMENT BY FERDINAND.)
The Kaiser, Ferdinand and Hamid II stand over the corpse of Armenia. On 19 May 1915, Britain, Frence, and Russia condemned Turkey's massacre of Armenians. Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand decided on 23 September 1915 to join the Central Powers, and on 14 October 1915 declared war on Serbia. In retaliation Britain and France declared war on Bulgaria on 16 October. Russia followed suit a few days later. |
 | AN UNAUTHORISED FLIRTATION
THE KAISER (to Austrian Emperor): "Franz! Franz! I'm surprised and pained. "
In the summer of 1915 Austria approached Serbia with proposals for a separate peace, Kaiser was dismayed.
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 | THE RETURN OF THE MOCK TURTLE-DOVE, December 1916
| KAISER | } |
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| BETHMANN-HOLLWEG | } |
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THE BIRD: "Wouldn't even look at me!" |
 | THE DAWN OF DOUBT
GRETCHEN: "I wonder if this gentleman really is my good angel after all!"
Gretchen's character in Faust represents the ability of humanity to become corrupted because of a turn towards the subjective self. Gretchen originally represents goodness and morality; even Mephistopheles finds no fault in her. However, Faust's influence on her inward life causes her to lose this morality by focusing on a selfish love affair that costs her life and faith. |
 | | THE LAST THROW, February, 1917. |
 | ALSO RAN, March, 1917.
WILHELM: "Are you luring them on, like me?" MEHMED: "I'm afraid I am!" |
 | DYNASTIC AMENITIES, April, 1917.
LITTLE WILLIE (of Prussia): "As one Crown Prince to another, isn't your Hindenburg line getting a bit shaky?" RUPPRECHT (of Bavaria): "Well, as one Crown Prince to another, what about your Hohenzollern line?"
After the German declaration of War on France on August 3, the Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia joined his regiment, which saw action at the Battle of Longwy. For his service the Crown Prince was awarded the Iron Cross. Soon the winds of war changed, German troops had been close to Paris, but came to a halt at the Marne. The bitter fighting and the heavy losses of men and material made the Crown Prince write a memorandum in which he stated that he favored an end to the senseless hostilities. Russia was very much on his mind. In 1917 the Crown Prince tried to persuade Chancellor Hollweg to sue for a reasonable peace. This time a firm refusal came from the High Command of the Army (Hindenburg and Ludendorff) In another letter dated July 18, 1917 he tried again to influence Reich politics. He brought forward several suggestions for the possible achievement of Peace. Again, he was rebuffed.
He was not involved in the reform efforts in the fall of 1918; he was at the time with his regiment. The peace negotiations were of the utmost importance for the future of the House of Hohenzollern, as the opposing nations demanded the abdication of the Kaiser. However, the Kaiser refused to give up. At the beginning of November 1918, in view of the hopeless situation on the fronts and the intolerable situation at home, a group of sailors of the Imperial Navy refused to take their ships out for a last senseless slaughter, and soon this revolution spread all through Germany, reaching Berlin on November 9. The Kaiser was at his headquarters and still refused to budge. Chancellor Max von Baden took it upon himself to announce that the Kaiser of Germany and King of Prussia, Wilhelm II, had decided to denounce the throne. His hand forced in this way, the Kaiser was persuaded to seek asylum in neutral Holland. He avoided capture but made it impossible to retain the monarchy in Germany. Both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince signed the document of abdication. With this, the 500-year-old dynasty had come to an end |
 | A WORD OF ILL OMEN, June, 1917.
CROWN PRINCE (to Kaiser, drafting his next speech): "For Gott's sake, father, be careful this time, and don't call the American Army 'contemptible.'"
On 3 February 1917, President Wilson addressed Congress to announce that diplomatic relations with Germany were severed. In a Special Session of Congress held on 2 April 1917, President Wilson delivered his 'War Message.' Four days later, Congress overwhelmingly passed the War Resolution which brought the United States into the Great War. |
 | RUSSIA'S DARK HOUR, August, 1917.
Since early 1917, Russia, one of the Entente's principal powers, had been in a state of turmoil. In February of that year, the Czarist government's poor management of the war had helped to inspire a popular uprising, the February Revolution. This revolution forced the abdication of Czar Nicholas II and placed in power a Provisional Government of liberal and socialist factions, ultimately under the leadership of Socialist Revolutionary party member Alexander Kerensky. This brief experiment with pluralist democracy was a chaotic one, and in the summer months, the continual deterioration of the war effort and an increasingly dire economic situation caused Russian workers, soldiers, and sailors to riot ("The July Days").
On October 24-25, 1917, Bolshevik (left-wing socialist) forces under Vladimir Lenin seized key government buildings and stormed the Winter Palace, then the seat of the new government in Russia's capital, Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). The "Great October Socialist Revolution," the first successful Marxist coup in history, dislodged the ineffectual Provisional Government, and ultimately established a Soviet Socialist Republic under Lenin's leadership. The new Soviet state's radical social, political, economic, and agrarian reforms would in the postwar years unnerve Western democratic governments, who so feared the spread of Communism throughout Europe that they were willing to compromise or appease right-wing regimes (including Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany) in the 1920s and 1930s.
But the immediate effect of the Russian Revolution on the European stage was a brutal and enduring Civil War in Russian lands (1917-1922) and the decision of the new Bolshevik leadership to make a separate peace with the Kaiser's Germany. When negotiations foundered over German demands, the German army launched an all-out offensive on the Eastern Front, resulting in a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk on March 6, 1918. |
 | THE INSEPARABLE, September, 1917.
THE KAISER (to his people): "Do not listen to those who would sow dissension between us. I will never desert you." |
 | BETRAYED, December, 1917.
THE PANDER: "Come on; come and be kissed by him." |
 | MADE IN GERMANY, March 1918
CIVILISATION: "What's that supposed to represent?" IMPERIAL ARTIST: "Why, 'Peace,' of course." CIVILISATION: "Well, I don't recognise it--and I never shal |
 | THE DEATH LORD, April, 1918.
THE KAISER (on reading the appalling tale of German losses): "What matter, so we Hohenzollerns survive?" |
 | THE SANDS RUN OUT, October, 1918.
On November 9, 1918, in the midst of widespread unrest and deserted by the commanders of the German Army, Emperor (Kaiser) William II abdicated the German throne. On the same day, SPD delegate Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed Germany a republic, with an interim government led by Friedrich Ebert. Two days later, German representatives, led by Catholic Center Party (Zentrum) representative Matthias Erzberger, met with a delegation of the victorious Entente powers under French Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch, the commanding general of the Entente forces, in a railcar in Compiègne Forest and accepted armistice terms. |
 | | Ilych Lenin ridding the world of monarchs, capitalists and clerics, Viktor Deni, 1919 |
 | | The Gap in the Bridge, by Leonard Ravenhill, in the British magazine Punch 1919 |
This cartoon is critical of America. Although President Wilson had been the originator the the idea of a League, now America is refusing to join -- in spite of the USA being the 'keystone'.
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 | | Woman’s Vote, William H. Walker, 1920. In the first presidential election in which they could vote, women were wooed by both major parties. |
 | A bread line or a run on a bank? Chester Garde, 1931.
Hoover, facing harsh criticism from the American public for his policy inaction, reluctantly established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), in 1932, which provided loans to failing banks, and through the additional power of the Emergency Relief Act, the RFC was authorized to provide loans to state governments for unemployment relief. But, these efforts were too late to stop the economic downslide of the country. He was overwhelmingly defeated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. For the rest of the depression, though, Hoover attacked every substantive measure for relief and what he saw as radical influences in Washington. |
 | | “A Scene from the ‘Good Old Days.’” from Brennessel, the Nazi humor magazine, January 1934. Marx is portrayed as a theoretician that leads German workers into a ruinous path. |
 | | Hoover Prosperity, Tulley, ca. 1932. A sarcastic interpretation of Herbert Hoover’s contention that prosperity was just around the corner. |
 /td> | | Mephisto to Faust: You Can Trust me, Louis Raemaekers, 1939, A sarcastic interpretation of the Non- Aggression Pact of 1939 signed in August with a secret agenda between Stalin and Hitler. |
 | | Constitution of the United States Canceled, Greaves , 1940. F.D.R.’s pursuit of a third term suggested that he acts like a king who considered himself above the law. |
 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt tells the old men on the Supreme Court to get in step with his New Deal legislative efforts. 1937, by O. Seibel.
The New Deal faced drastic opposition from the Supreme Court, which took its consrvative stance from a legal viewpoint and in 1935 it effectively declared the National Recovery Administration (NRA) illegal. In the following year it declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) unconstitutional thus killing off the AAA. The point made by the Supreme Court was that any efforts made to help farmers etc. should come at a state level and not federal level and that these parts of the New Deal went against the powers given to the states by the Constitution. 11 out of 16 of the Alphabet Laws were decreed unconstitutional in cases heard by the Supreme Court. The argument of the Supreme Court was that Roosevelt had tried to impose the power of the federal government on state governments – and this was unconstitutional. |
 | | “The Calendar of a Condemned Man.” a German propaganda cartoon in Lustige Blätter, 1941. Churchill crosses out the names of English cities as the gallows waits behind him. |
 | | Nazi propaganda cartoon, Brennessel, 1938. Mars is speaking to the "warmongers" Eden and Churchill, who had been objecting to Chamberlain's appeasement policies. This was Brennessel's last cover cartoon featuring Churchill before closing down in that year. |
 | | “American Candelabra,” an anti-Semitic propaganda cartoon in Lustige Blätter, 1942. Roosevelt is portrayed as the upholder of the Jewish Interests |
 | | The Russo-German Pact, A Japanese perspective. |
 | | The Nightmare. “A frightening thought. Our voters are demanding that we fulfill our campaign promises...” |
 | Punch cartoon, 1933. Adolf Hitler is carried to power on the shoulders of President Paul von Hindenburg (Left) and Chancellor Franz von Papen (Right). By dismissing Prussia's social-democratic state government in July 1932, Papen struck a fatal blow against the beleaguered Weimar Republic. |
 | | Hitler's Dream |
 | In 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain was a national hero in France for his victory at the Battle of Verdun during World War I. Following the German invasion of France in May 1940, the well-respected eight-four-year old was asked to form a government. Seeing the French army defeated, the “Hero of Verdun” asked for an armistice. With the German army occupying two-thirds of the country, Pétain believed he could repair the ruin caused by the invasion and obtain the release of the numerous prisoners of war by cooperating with the Germans. He, however, opposed Franco-German collaboration advocated by his vice premier Pierre Laval, whom he dismissed in December 1940. When the Germans forced Pétain to take Laval back as premier, he himself withdrew into a purely nominal role. Yet he balked at resigning, convinced that, if he did, Hitler would place all of France directly under German rule.
After Allied landings in November 1942 in North Africa, Pétain secretly ordered his forces to aid the Allies. But, at the same time, he published official messages protesting the landing. His doubledealing was to be his undoing. When Pétain dispatched an emissary to arrange for a peaceful transfer of power, General de Gaulle refused it. Brought to trial in France for high treason, he was stripped for all rank and sentenced to death. The High Court requested that the sentence should not be carried out in view of Pétain’s great age, and later de Gaulle commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment. |
 | | The Dummy That Spoke by Itself. Adolf/Benito } (together). "Where did that one come from - you or me?" (the dummy, General Franco of Spain, says "Withdraw All Volunteers!" as neither Hitler or Mussolini knows which of them is really controlling the puppet) |
 | | Illingworth, 2 November 1939, Hitler is being advised by his advisers ‘Why not an offensive today?... Wait until the spring .. Russian gold is behind us... Germany is bankrupt... Why not bomb Britain?... there might be reprisals...’ |
 | | Arthur Szyk, 1944 |
 | Europe is getting hot! We've got to move to the western hemisphere , 1944 Arthur Szyk, 1944.
Szyk portrays the Axis plot to dominate the world. Hitler sits at the head of the table (left), flanked by Joseph Goebels and Hermann Goering on his left, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to his right, and Heinrich Himmler across. |
Leslie Gilbert Illingworth's Second World War
 | | Finland and Russia, while the US offer small help |
 | | Germany and Italy's aggressive moves in the Balkan countries. |
 | | Fall of Paris, and Roosevelt's pledge |
 | | France's Armistice |
 | | Britain lonely fight with France being fallen and Roosevelt not ready yet to join |
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 | | Hitler's Rumania dish |
 | | Hitler and Mussolini serenading General Franco of Spain |
 | | The Yalta conference |
 | | Hitler's myth |
 | | A soviet propaganda cartoon depicting Uncle Sam exploiting South Americans, Israelis and others. |
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Harry Truman playing Stalin a chess game the board is Germany, and the opening gambit occurs in Berlin. Leslie Illington, National Library of Wales.
Stalin’s pieces include “Eastern Bloc,” and “Berlin Blockade.” Truman's pieces include a knight, “Air Lift,” and a piece looking a lot like Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, “Atlantic Alliance.” Stalin's real concern was for the emergence of an economically viable West Germany that would fall under the shadow of American control and eliminate any potential opportunity for Soviet influence in either the western zones or western Berlin. He saw the world in terms of competing hegemonies, one in the East controlled by the Soviets and one in the West by the United States. |
 | On April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman, the Vice President of the United States, was elevated by the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Presidency of the United States. With the war in Europe near its triumphant end, Truman had immediately to deal with Soviet intentions to impose Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and possibly to exploit the economic breakdown in Western Europe. Simultaneously he had to seek military and political solutions in the war against Japan. He was interested when Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson explained the atomic project to him on April 25, 1945-- "If it explodes, as I think it will, I'll certainly have a hammer on those boys," "On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force," Truman recalled. "The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was that he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make 'good use of it against the Japanese.'"
Truman established 12 points for the maintenance of World peace in a speech on Navy Day. The UK's Prime minister Attlee suggested to president that the five permanent members of the World Security Council -- Britain, America, Russia , France and China - share the atomic bomb secrets, meaning that the Big Five would be able to use the bomb against an aggressor nation, but no aggressor, except a member of the Council, would be able to retaliate. Truman later explained his policy on his State of the Union speech on January 7, 1953. Arguing thatThe communist rulers are moving, with implacable will, to create greater strength in their vast empire, and to create weakness and division in the free world, preparing for the time their false creed teaches them must come: the time when the whole world outside their sway will be so torn by strife and contradictions that it will be ripe for the communist plucking. To overcome this threat he suggested that:Like the pioneers who settled this great continent of ours, we have had to carry a musket while we went about our peaceful business. We realized that if we and our allies did not have military strength to meet the growing Soviet military threat, we would never have the opportunity to carry forward our efforts to build a peaceful world of law and order--the only environment in which our free institutions could survive and flourish. The first major step in the cold war to develope unity, strength and resolute will of the free nations according to himwas the determined and successful effort made through the United Nations to safeguard the integrity and independence of Iran in 1945 and 1946. |
| Cy Hungerford, "An Uncomfortable Situation." December 3, 1953.
This editorial cartoon comments on the political problems Senator Joseph McCarthy presented to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was a little-known junior senator from Wisconsin until February 1950 when he claimed to possess a list of 205 card-carrying Communists employed in the U.S. Department of State. From that moment Senator McCarthy became a tireless crusader against Communism in the early 1950s, a period that has been commonly referred to as the "Red Scare." As chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigation Subcommittee, Senator McCarthy conducted hearings on communist subversion in America and investigated alleged communist infiltration of the Armed Forces. His subsequent exile from politics coincided with a conversion of his name into a modern English noun "McCarthyism," or adjective, "McCarthy tactics," when describing similar witch hunts in recent American history. [The American Heritage Dictionary gives the definition of McCarthyism as: 1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition.] Senator McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 1954 and died May 2, 1957. |
 | “Have A Care, Sir.” By Herblock (Herbert Block), Washington Post, 1951
Block was not an Eisenhower fan, considering him an ineffective President who did not tackled important issues. His portrayal of Eisenhower, though is not mean. However, dealing with Joe McCarthy Block tries hard to show his dark and dangerous side. Herblock’s McCarthy cartoons proved to be so popular that McCarthy soon took to shaving twice a day so that he would not have the heavy stubble look that Herblock showed in the cartoons. |
| David Low, "Ssh! Welcome!" 23rd Oct. 1957
Macmillan wanted the repeal of the 1946 McMahon Act which blocked the sharing of nuclear infor- mation between the United States and the United Kingdom. At the Bermuda conference of March 1957, Macmillan succeeded at least in rebuilding a public front of Anglo-American solidarity. During August 1957, fears plagued Washington that Syria might be about to become a fully fledged Soviet satellite state. In a bid to thwart this development, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles agreed to pool efforts with the British in a joint Syria working group established during September 1957. The purpose of the group was to examine the options available to Britain and America to block the advance of Soviet influence in Syria through covert action.
It was with the example of the cooperation forged over Syria in mind that Macmillan responded to the momentous news of the launch of the Sputnik satellite on 4 October 1957.24 The launch prompted the dispatch of a crucial personal message from Macmillan to Eisenhower on 10 October. In it, Macmil- lan linked the Syrian experiment with the Sputnik challenge. Arguing that Sputnik had served to bring home the need to pool efforts to meet the formi- dable Russian threat, in a s diary entry, Macmillan wrote:The Russian success in launching the satellite has been something equivalent to Pearl Harbour [sic]. The American cocksureness is shaken. . . . President is under severe attack for first time . . . Foster is under still more severe attack. His policies are said to have failed everywhere. . . . The atmosphere is now such that almost anything might be decided, however revolutionary. |
 | | On 15 June 1959, illustrating the settlement of the status of the City of Berlin, the British cartoonist, Michael Cummings, considers the risk of military confrontation between the Western powers and the Soviet Union (rocket on the left, from left to right: the US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the French President, Charles de Gaulle, the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. Rocket on the right: Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and his Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko). |
Leslie Illingworth , "There's Nothing In It.", Punch, October 1951
After nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, the ring master, Prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran, passes the circus hoop to the Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa el-Nahhas, encouraging him to nationalize Suez Canal, and forcing the British lion to jump through the hoop. | Michael Cummings, "The problem is really one of not being taken for a ride..." Daily Express, 11 Jul 1951,
Muhammad Mossadegh, the Iranian prime minister overthrown by US and British agents in 1953, was a man who declined a salary, returned gifts, and collected tax arrears from his beloved mother. Frugality was allied to punctiliousness in this droopy-nosed aristocrat who enraged the West by insisting that Iran, not Britain, should own, sell, and profit from Iranian oil. A member of the princely Qajar family, he retained a noblesse-oblige gentility even as he became the symbol of postwar Iranian assertiveness.
Two years after Mossadegh’s nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1951, the CIA unloosed Kermit Roosevelt and his fellow American agents on Tehran to oust him. The operation, code-named TPAJAX, carried forward to a bloody denouement what Britain’s MI6 had first plotted. The objectives of a rising America and a declining Britain diverged; they overlapped just sufficiently for both to do their worst. Iran was fragile, and Mossadegh’s constitutionalism was a nuanced idea in an environment where bazaar toughs with nicknames like Brainless Shaban whipped up crowds.
Cummings used the following pieces of the news to represent a British perspective on Mossadegh
News: 9 Jul: Speeches by Ministers and Press comment in Teheran suggested that the Persian Government intended to ignore the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, recommendations on interim measures for dealing with the oil dispute.
News: 9 Jul: Mr Morrison, the Foreign Secretary, said that the Persians did not have the skill and experience to produce, refine and market the oil. He said the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had provided houses, education, hospitals and clubs for its Persian employees.
News: 11 Jul: Mr Mason, Mr Drake's deputy, announced that Mr Cox Fields, the general manager of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, was visiting Goshen to arrange for the withdrawal of five British staff to Abadan. The company had offered the Persian temporary board the field with 333 Persian workers, to operate it themselves, but they had not responded. Oi |
 | Leslie Illingworth, The Merchant of Persia. If you deny me, fie upon your law! (Shylock) So vital is the cause at stake to the nation that Persia cannot afford the slightest risk of an unfavourable decision. (Moussadek), Punch, June 1952.
Most of Iran's oil reserves were in the Persian Gulf area and had been developed by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil company and exported to Britain. For a number of reasons — a growing consciousness of how little Iran was getting from the Anglo-Iranian Oil company (AIOC) for its oil; refusal of AIOC to offer of a ‘50–50% profit sharing deal' to Iran as Aramco had to Saudi Arabia; anger over Iran's defeat and occupation by the Allied powers — nationalization of oil was an important and popular issue with "a broad cross-section of the Iranian people."[On 28 April 1951, the Majlis named Mosaddeq as new prime minister by a vote of 79–12. Aware of Mosaddeq's rising popularity and political power, the young Shah appointed Mosaddeq to the Premiership. On 1 May, Mosaddeq nationalized the AIOC, cancelling its oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets. The next month a committee of five majlis deputies was sent to Khuzistan to enforce the nationalization. Oil production came to a virtual standstill as British technicians left the country, and Britain imposed a worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil. In September 1951, Britain froze Iran's sterling assets and banned export of goods to Iran. It challenged the legality of the oil nationalization and took its case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The court found in Iran's favor,but the dispute between Iran and the AIOC remained unsettled. Under United States pressure, the AIOC improved its offer to Iran. |
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The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran's democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow. Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded. British documents show how senior officials in the 1970s tried to stop Washington from releasing documents that would be "very embarrassing" to the UK. Official papers in the UK remain secret, even though accounts of Britain's role in the coup are widespread. In 2009 the former foreign secretary Jack Straw publicly referred to many British "interferences" in 20th-century Iranian affairs. On Monday the Foreign Office said it could neither confirm nor deny Britain's involvement in the coup. (Guardian) |
 | | Herbert Block, The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1963. When U-2 spy planes sent by the CIA revealed that Soviet missile sites were under construction in Cuba, it led to a serious threat of nuclear war and tense negotiations between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. |
 | | It was the Cuban Missile Crisis in the autumn of 1962, that formed the backdrop to Khrushchev's fall from power. President Kennedy (embarassed by the Bay of Pigs and the Berlin Wall) was determined to stand firmly against the deployment (and arming) of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, a scant 90 miles from Florida. Khrushchev seemed equally determined to do so. In the tense, indeed terrifying, standoff of October, 1962, the Soviet fleet sailed towards Cuba, but, at the last minute, turned around. Score a point for Kennedy! It was as close to open, overt warfare that the United States and the Soviet Union came. This "balance of terror" made possible some lightening of tensions. It did, as well, have the effect of humiliating Khrushchev. In 1964, he was ousted from power. |
 | Conrad, Denver Post (1963), This cartoon pertains to the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which U-2 spy planes sent by the CIA revealed that Soviet missile sites were under construction in Cuba, leading to tense negotiations between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. |
 | | Next to the symbol of the Cold War – the Berlin Wall – Khrushchev says to Kennedy: “I just closed off what belongs to me. I’m willing to negotiate about the rest.” (Pulitzer Prize winner Edmund Valtman’s political cartoon collection) |
 | Vicky [Victor Weisz], Evening Standard, 14 May 1959 Nikita Khrushchev(1894-1971) of Soviet Union and his foreign secretary Anastas Mikoyan are selling arms to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) while Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) and his foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd arming Iraq's dictator Abdul Karim Kassem; (1914-1963) |
 | Paul Labowsky, Berlin, 1963
Castro used the two communist rivals in his struggle against the US policies. Mao Zedong resented Russia's willingness to compromise with capitalism in "peaceful coexistence, and had aggressive plans for advancing Marxist-Leninist goals in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and conflict with Soviet policies in those places was inevitable. Khrushchev badly miscalculated Cuban situation, which he feared would be invaded by Americans. He sought to parry the American advantage by installing short-range Soviet missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba, supposedly under his control (not Castro's). On Tuesday, the 23rd, 1962, U.S. ships took up positions along a line 800 miles from Cuba. The naval blockade was traditionally an act of war, but the U.S. public saw it as a step in defending the country. Khrushchev and his colleagues were opposed to a "beautiful death" and a glorious showdown with the U.S. that Castro and Che Guevara had been advocating. He told Castro that "We aren't struggling against imperialism in order to die." Castro remained furious with Khrushchev, accusing him of having no cojones. Mao joined in the criticism. He denounced Soviet leadership for giving in to the U.S. The China-Soviet split was still on, and, in 1963, Mao would find fault with the Russians for signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United States and Britain. Khrushchev responded by declaring that Mao's policies would lead to nuclear war.
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 | Patrice Lumumba, by Bernard Safran (1924 – 1995)
Patrice Lumumba, was the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He was assassinated, on 17 January, 1961. This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed.
Ludo De Witte, the Belgian author of the best book on this crime, qualifies it as "the most important assassination of the 20th century". The assassination's historical importance lies in a multitude of factors, the most pertinent being the global context in which it took place, its impact on Congolese politics since then and Lumumba's overall legacy as a nationalist leader. |
 | | Michael Cummings, Sunday Express, 21 Aug 1960 |
 | | February 2002. The Belgian parliamentary commission investigating the death of Patrice Lumumba finds that the Belgian government carried a “moral responsibility”. Louis Michel apologizes to the Congolese people. No further legal action was taken. |
 | Herblock, Washington Post, 1967.
The Vietnam War was extremely long as well as highly unpopular. America became involved in the War in 1955 and the first troops arrived in Vietnam in 1965. The war continued on into the 70’s, ending in 1973. Many groups of people on the home front opposed the Vietnam War and disagreed with American domestic and foreign policies.
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 | | Conrad, Nixon drills a hole in the wall of the Democratic headquarters and claims that he’s from the phone company. Los Angeles Times, 1972. “Watergate was a godsend to political cartoonists,” said Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist Tony Auth. |
 | Bill Garner, Détente, 1976
Henry Kissinger is stuck in in detente, while Leonid Brezhnev and Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) are watching.
Joseph Stalin had not backed Mao against the nationalists during World War II, and his insistence that China pay cash for weapons during the Korean War was a source of grievance. Over time, the Soviets decided that Mao was unreliable and that China was a potential rival. When they withdrew their support of China's nuclear weapons program, the Chinese proceeded on their own, exploding their first atomic bomb in 1964 and a hydrogen bomb in 1967. Nixon and Kissinger sought to improve relations between the United States and its two communist opponents. While Americans viewed all communist nations as a united enemy, the relationship between the Soviet Union and China showed signs of strain by the early 1970s. Kissinger decided to use this widening rift to his advantage. If the United States improved its relationship with China, the Soviets would have no choice but to cooperate with the U.S., or risk become isolated. |
 | She might Invaded Russia, The Brezhnev Doctrine of Soviet Foreign Policy
…Moscow’s goals in Czechoslovakia led most observers on both sides of the iron curtain to regard the intervention as a decisive Soviet victory. In the arena of east-West confrontation, the negative repercussions of the operation were short-lived. Relations with the west experienced some setbacks, particularly for the recently concluded Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) was also delayed; President Johnson refused to travel to Leningrad in September 1968 and his successor, President Nixon, hesitated to reestablish contacts in 1969. Ultimately, however, the need to involve Moscow in negotiations with North Vietnam eclipsed American indignation, and Washington soon proved willing to mend fences in the interest of détente […] The invasion was most significantly experienced within the socialist community. It created instant tensions with the East European nations that had not taken part in the operation. As for the nations remaining in the Soviet-led alliance, the invasion confirmed that autonomous political reforms would not longer be tolerated. In the broader international socialist movement, the invasion seriously damaged Moscow ability to mount a united front against the Chinese… [Matthew J, OuitmetThe Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy, ] |
 | | By 1977, the Soviet government, led by Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) and Aleksey Kosygin (1904-1980), was made up of old hard-line Communists who had been raised under the tutelage of Stalin. Valtman was prescient in his speculation that a new breed, who had never known the ideological fervor of the Russian Revolution, would lead the Soviet Union in a more modern direction. |
 | | Conrad, President Carter acting as Sisyphus, 1978. The cartoon portrays Carter attempting to push a giant boulder composed of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin up a mountain, referring to Carter’s struggles in brokering a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. |
 | | David Low (1891-1963), Daily Herald, 24 Jul 1952 |
 | "Explain slowly--what does he need all those weapons for, and why does he need nuclear reactors?"
The Washington Post, March 20, 1975, Herbert L. Block
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger delivering a box of nuclear material to Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1975, the United States signed a cooperative agreement with then-ally Iran, permitting the U.S. to sell nuclear energy equipment to the middle eastern country. |
 | Shah of Iran, le Nouvel Observateur, 4 novembre 1977, Wiaz
In 1971, when the 'junket' to Persepolis was organised, the Shah of Iran was embarking on one of the twentieth century's most blatant exercises in megalomania and tyranny. The sudden surge in Iran's oil revenues seemed to remove all limits to his two central ambitions: to enrich his own family, and to build the most powerful arsenal on earth, outside the United States and Russia. The following year, United States President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger visited the Shah, appropriately enough on their way back from peace talks in Russia. There, as representatives not merely of their country's government but also of its armaments industry, they wrote the Shah a blank cheque for any American arms he wanted to buy. In February 1973, the Pentagon revealed that the Shah had contracted to buy two thousand million pounds worth of arms from the United States, a figure which represented about a quarter of the entire national income of Iran. The American arms manufacturer Grunman spared no pains to win the Shah to the delights of their new jet fighter, the Tomcat. In his book, The Arms Bazaar, Anthony Sampson (now a colleague of Dr Owen's in the Social Democratic Party) described the scene near Washington when the Shah was shown the plane by Grunman:
The Tomcat performed amazing acrobatics touching down in front of the Shah and then shooting up again like a rocket. The Grunman men observed the Shah's delight as he illustrated the swoop with his hands. The contract was signed, naturally not without a little bit of corruption. Houshang Levi, an 'arms lobbyist', got his cut, a standard 28 million dollars. The Shah's zest for more weapons obliged him to help himself more and more liberally to his country's straining coffers. As opposition grew to his policies, he redoubled his already monstrous power. His secret police, SAVAK, modelled itself on the KGB both for efficiency in detecting dissidents and in ruthlessness in dealing with them. Torture of political and religious dissenters was widespread, and well documented. [Paul Foot, (1983) HIM and his Friends, Socialist Register, Vol 20 ] |
 | Emmwood [John Musgrave-Wood], Daily Mail, 16 Oct 1971
15 Oct 1971: Six hundred guests attended the Shah's banquet to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian monarchy. The menu consisted of quails' eggs stuffed with golden imperial caviar; mouse of crayfish tails, roast saddle of lamb with truffles, champagne sorbet, fifty peacocks with tail feathers restored, encompassed by roasted quails and served with nut and truffle salad, fresh figs with cream in raspberries and port wine. The peacocks were mainly for decoration, as the peacock is an emblem associated with the Persian crown. The Shah did not like caviar and had artichoke hearts instead. .... [The Times] |
 | | Jak [Raymond Jackson], Evening Standard, 04 Dec 1979 |
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Ray Osrin, ...And No Further Interference Into The Internal Affairs Of Iran, Ohio -- Cleveland, 5th November 1980
This editorial cartoon depicting Ayatollah Khomeini with a voting machine with the names Reagan, Anderson and Carter on it under his robe, refers to Ayatollah's interference in the 1980 election, which indeed marked a true sea change in American history. Reagan was FDR in reverse, and made it clear that as president he intended to dismantle the welfare state created under the New Deal. Like his Republican predecessors Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, Reagan planned to lower taxes on the rich in order to stimulate America's productive energies.
In June 1980 the shah, then in Cairo, died, prompting speculation that the crisis might end. Khomeini, however, had other ideas, demanding the return of the shah's assets, the release of Iranian assets in the United States, and a U.S. pledge not to interfere in Iranian affairs. When that wasn't forthcoming, on September 9 the Iranian government informed Carter through the West German foreign minister, who was in Tehran, that Khomeini was ready to discuss a resolution of the hostage situation. A breakthrough finally occurred on September 22, 1980, when Iraq and Iran went to war; suddenly Khomeini realized his nation could not take on two powerful enemies at once. According to Gary Sick "Suspicions about a deal between the Reagan campaign and Iran over the hostages have circulated since the day of President Reagan's inaugural, when Iran agreed to release the 52 American hostages exactly five minutes after Mr. Reagan took the oath of office. Later, as it became known that arms started to flow to Iran via Israel only a few days after the inauguration, suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded." |
 | | Paul Conrad, Los Angeles Times (February, 1987). |
 | | The Iran-Contra affair was a constitutional crisis that embroiled the Reagan administration in its last two years (1986-88), raised the prospect of Ronald Reagan’s impeachment, clouded the presidency or George H.W. Bush and contributed to keeping it from extending to a second term. The scandal entailed illegal funding and arming of Nicaragua’s right-wing contras fighting the leftist Sandinista regime as well as illegally trading arms with Iran. Cartoon is inspired by Bernard Gillam and his attacks on James Blaine in 1884. |
 | "What do I do now?" Oleg Lukianov, 1989
An interpretation of the different policies of previous Soviet leaders and president Gorbachev. |
 | | Mikhail Gorbachev and a shattered hammer and sickle, Edmund Valtman, 1991 |
 | Edmund Valtman, I Can't Believe My Eyes!, 1991, The Waterbury Republican and The Middletown press, 1991;
Between 1985 and 1990 Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev (1931- ) steered Russia's foreign relations in a new conciliatory direction by working with Presidents Reagan and Bush to sign a series of arms control agreements, withdrawing Soviet troops from Afghanistan, and improving relations with China. He also transferred power from the Communist Party to elected legislatures in Russia's union republics. Such developments, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall and unification of East and West Germany, signaled the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev leads the funeral procession in Valtman's imaginative, skillfully realized drawing which memorializes the demise of communism as its hallowed trinity-Karl Marx (1818-1883), Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), and Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) look on in consternation. |
 | | Dmitri Medvedev left the Russian presidency in May 2012. Many political cartoonists, portrayed him as the ultimate ‘mini-me’ to Vladimir Putin, the puppet on a string, the dog ordered to fetch, basically a doormat. |
 | | President Bush and his White House counsel Alberto Gonzales had done everything they could to unleash military and CIA interrogators from the constraints of the Geneva Convention and common human decency. The result was the sad spectacle that transpired inside the crumbling walls of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq which is the subject of this cartoon. |
 | According to Human Rights Watch, World Report 2006; Authorized Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogation techniques apparently include a notorious method the administration has renamed “waterboarding” (when practiced by Latin American dictatorships, it was called “the submarine”)—forcefully submerging a suspect’s head in water or otherwise making him believe he is about to drown. The director of the CIA has stated that waterboarding is a “professional interrogation technique.” As noted above, the Bush Administration asserts that U.S. treaty obligations to refrain from cruel, inhuman and degrading (CID) treatment do not apply to the conduct of nonmilitary U.S. personnel interrogating non-U.S. citizens outside of the United States. Led by Vice President Cheney, the Bush administration strongly resisted efforts by Congress to strengthen the legal ban against torture. A measure proposed by Republican Senator John McCain to prohibit torture and other ill-treatment of detainees anywhere by the U.S. military and the CIA passed 90-9 in the Senate but at this writing had not been approved by the full Congress at least in part because of administration objections
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 | More than 100 professors of law and legal studies sent an open letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in April 2006, criticizing his failure to condemn as illegal a number of abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, exposure of detainees to extreme temperatures, forced standing, binding in stress positions, and severe sleep deprivation. The letter, whose signatories included several former government attorneys, asks Gonzales to issue a clear public statement regarding the humane treatment of detainees overseas, and to clarify that abuses such as waterboarding are subject to prosecution as crimes. The 2006 Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress in January 2006, contains new provisions clarifying that all individuals acting under the color of U.S. law categorically are prohibited from engaging in or authorizing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. These provisions were passed by Congress to rectify lack of clarity in regard to detention and interrogation techniques, and to prevent conduct that is prohibited by international law and illegal under domestic criminal law.
We are particularly concerned about your continuing failure to issue clear statements about illegal interrogation techniques, and especially your failure to state that “waterboarding”—a technique that induces the effects of being killed by drowning—constitutes torture, and thus is illegal. We urge you to make such a statement now.
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 | | Bush's Last Year as President, Mont Wolverton, 2007 |
 | | Wall Street Bailout, Pat O'Connor, Los Angeles Daily News, 2008 |
 | | Jacques Chirac's offer of friendship to George Bush |
 | | President Bush's Term Comes to an End, Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News, 2008 |
Steve Benson, Arizona Republic
Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
John Sherffius, Boulder Daily CameraPete King doesn't look like McCarthy, but he sure sounds like him: Are you now, or have you ever been, a Muslim? The very title of his hearings tells his bias from the beginning: "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community (which presumes such radicalization exists) and That Community's Response" (which presumes it's been anything but cooperative). In fact, long before the hearings began, King had already announced his belief that 80 percent to 85 percent of American mosques are controlled by Islamic radicals; and that American Muslims have refused to cooperate with law enforcement officials in combating terrorism.
Neither of which is true. In fact, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post writes that a recent Duke University/University of North Carolina study found "a drop in attempted or actual terrorist activity by American Muslims -- 47 perpetrators and suspects in 2009, 20 in 2010." Perhaps more significantly, the report by UNC terrorism expert Charles Kurzman showed that "the largest single source of initial information" about alleged terrorist plots -- 48 out of 120 cases since September 11 -- "involved tips from the Muslim American community." In fact, the only law enforcement official to testify before King's committee was Los Angeles Sheriff Leroy Baca, who praised the cooperation of the Southern California Muslim community. Bill Press, "Joe McCarthy is born again -- as Peter King", Tribune Media Services, March 10, 2011
 | | President Obama and the problem of Taliban, Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner, 2011 |
 | On September 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed in New York Times urging President Obama not to strike Syria, arguing that "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation”. "American exceptionalism"-- a combination of simple nationalism and a belief that the United States can and should play a special role in shaping the world, was at the core of Obama's justification for American strike. Putin made a number of points, many of which were also made by American analysts, he stated: The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.(...) Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.(...) Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.(...) It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.
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  | | In February 2014, Putin installed 150,000 troops along Ukraine's borders after the overthrow of Moscow ally Viktor Yanukovych by pro-European protesters. President Obama delivered a blunt warnings to Moscow. "We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine," he told reporters at the White House. Ukraine accused Russia of a 'military invasion and occupation', saying Russian troops have taken up positions around a coast guard base and two airports on its strategic Crimea peninsula. Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych made his first public appearance since fleeing the country in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was the first confirmation that he had left the country, and he said he was 'forced' to do so only after his family received threats.'I intend to keep fighting for the future of Ukraine,' he said. |
 | | Iran's president has accused the West of nuclear "intimidation" in a UN General Assembly address boycotted by the United States and Israel. It was using a nuclear arms race to threaten other nations to accept the status quo, said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He told reporters later that Iran was ready for talks with the US. The West suspects Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes. 'Soulful breeze' It was Mr Ahmadinejad's eighth and final speech at a debate of the UN General Assembly before he steps down. "[The] arms race and intimidation by nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction by the hegemonic powers have become prevalent," he told the 193-nation annual gathering. BBC - 26 September 2012 |
 | In his speech to the UN general assembly, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu adopted the persona of an elementary school science teacher talking to a particularly dim class to explain Iran's nuclear programme and the point at which it must be stopped. His Cartoon nuclear bomb certainly grabbed attention, but not necessarily the kind he wanted. No doubt it was intended as a bold and graphic way of presenting the Iranian nuclear threat, but much of the initial response – on Twitter, at least – was ridicule.[September 2012, Guardian] |
 | Patrick Chappatte of Switzerland for the International Herald Tribune.
On Friday afternoon of September 27, 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hasan Rouhani held a brief and apparently cordial conversation, the first such interaction between the leaders of the two countries since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. It concluded with small courtesies magnified by their historic import. Mr. Rouhani said, “Have a nice day,” in English. Mr. Obama thanked him and said goodbye in Farsi. The call between the leaders was the culmination of a dizzying week of diplomacy during the annual United Nations meetings in New York. |
 | The Haaretz’ editorial cartoon shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran walking into the UN building in New York, in September 2013. Netanyahu holding his bomb diagram cartoon, that used in his 2012 speech is thinking, “Where is Mahmoud when I need him.” The former Iranian hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was an easier foil for Netanyahu.
According to Haaretz, (Sep. 20, 2013):Call it a charm offensive, seduction sortie, bewitchment blitz or wooing war, one thing is certain: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is waging an all-out public relations onslaught on American hearts and minds that poses unprecedented new challenges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli policymakers.
Following initial skirmishes and reconnaissance patrols over the past few weeks on Twitter and Facebook, Rouhani has now unleashed a preparatory salvo of moderate-sounding, peace-hugging statements on NBC and in the Washington Post. The main thrust of his campaign will be rolled out next week in New York, where Rohani will use his status as the star sensation of this year’s United Nations General Assembly to launch a barrage of interviews, speeches and public appearances, all aimed at convincing America of Iran’s benevolent policies and benign nuclear plans. |
 | Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington, Patrick Chappatte, The New York Times, February. 27, 2015
Netanyahu and the congressional Republican leadership organized the speech without informing the White House or congressional Democrats. He intends to speak out against President Barack Obama’s support of nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers. The speech takes place exactly two weeks before the Israeli elections. Netanyahu's goal was to convince Congress to torpedo the US-led Iranian nuclear negotiations, which he thought would result in a deal that hands Iran the bomb on a silver platter. He wanted Congress to vote to impose new sanctions on Iran, which would kill the talks, and thus significantly alter US policy toward the Middle East.
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 | Dan Wasserman, March 03, 2015, The Boston Globe
President Barack Obama said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress would not be harm ties with Israel beyond repair, but that he sees it as a distraction from preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, this speech has little to do with security, and everything to do with Netanyahu’s re-election campaign. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken were among Congressmen that skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress. Warren, a leading Democrat in Congress and one of the most popular politicians among progressives in the United States, took issue with House Speaker John Boehner's politicizing Israel's security by inviting Netanyahu.“I strongly support Israel, and I remain deeply concerned about the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon, which I discussed in detail with Prime Minister Netanyahu when we met in Jerusalem last November," Warren said in a statement,“It’s unfortunate that Speaker Boehner’s actions on the eve of a national election in Israel have made Tuesday’s event more political and less helpful for addressing the critical issue of nuclear nonproliferation and the safety of our most important ally in the Middle East.” |
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Amos Biderman, Haaretz, October 2015 As the son of a prominent historian, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress that the idea for murdering the Jews was the brainchild of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. According to Netanyahu, when Hitler and the mufti met in November 1941, Hitler had not yet thought of exterminating the Jews but simply wished to expel them. When Husseini complained that expelled Jews would all come to Palestine, according to Netanyahu, a perplexed Hitler asked, “So what should I do with them?” The mufti supposedly responded, “Burn them.” And so the Holocaust ensued.
Many people including professor Dina Porat, chief historian of Yad Vashem, called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim “completely erroneous, on all counts. Deborah Lipstadt wrote in HaaretzThe murder of the Jews began in the summer of 1941, five months before this meeting. By the time Hitler and the mufti had their tete-a-tete, hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children had been shot. At Babi Yar alone, the Germans murdered 34,000 Jews in September 1941, over two months prior to the meeting, without any encouragement from the mufti. Gas wagons were already in use prior to this meeting. Someone who wishes to only expel a people does not rely on mass shootings and gas wagons. |
 | Iran Nuke David Fitzsimmons, the Arizona Star, and Cagle Cartoons
Americans broadly back direct negotiations with Iran about that country's nuclear program, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And although about half (49%) say some Republican senators went too far by sending a letter to Iran's leaders warning that any agreement with the Obama administration would require Senate approval, only about one-third (39%) think the letter hurt U.S. efforts to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Jennifer Agiesta, CNN Polling Director CNN- March 17, 2015 |
U.S. Election 2016
 | After seeing Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) continuously repeating his various memorized speeches, Gov. Chris Christie in one of debates called out Rubio for giving memorized speeches. "I want the people at home to see this. That is what Washington DC does," he said. "The drive-by attack at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and then the memorized 25-second speech." "The memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn't solve one problem for one person." -- an argument Rubio went on to inadvertently support. While responding to Christie's attacks, Rubio gave the same memorized speech three times, repeating, "Obama knows what he's doing." "There it is," Christie said after Rubio made the remark for the third time. Rubio repeated the comment again later in the debate and was booed. |
 | Appearing on ABC’s “This Week on September 2015,” Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon whose popularity was surging in the Republican field, was asked if he stands by his controversial opinion that a Muslim should not be president of the United States. “Well, first of all, you know, what I said is on a transcript and it’s there for anybody,” he replied, avoiding the question of whether he stood by the remark. The host of the show, Martha Raddatz, interrupted: “I’m reading the transcript, Dr. Carson, that’s exactly what you said.” |
Donald Trump's 'chaos' presidency  | Donald Trump went from a long-shot contender to the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president in April 2016. There was much Republican hand-wringing over his presumptive nomination to face against his Democratic challenger to the White House, but the boastful billionaire said he doesn’t care, and it doesn’t matter. A growing chorus of senior Republican leaders joined the “anything but Trump movement,” including 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the last two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush. |
 | A litany of gaffes, scandals, and bad news created a havoc with the Republican Donald Trump candidacy in October 2016. According to Rolling Stone: Trump's shocking rise and spectacular fall have been a singular disaster for U.S. politics. Built up in the press as the American Hitler, he was unmasked in the end as a pathetic little prankster who ruined himself, his family and half of America's two-party political system for what was probably a half-assed ego trip all along, adventure tourism for the idiot rich. |
 | Donald Trump, like many a businessman-turned-politician before him, argued that if he was elected, he would bring his managerial acumen to Washington, making government run like a business with efficiency and skill. What we’ve seen instead is the most chaotic and incompetent White House in living memory. And it’s only getting worse. Paul Waldman July 27, 2017, The Washington Post |
 | Media outlets including Vanity Fair have noted that [Richard] Spencer, at a 2016 alt-right conference, said, "To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conqueror. We build, we produce, we go upward. And we recognize a central lie of American race relations. We don’t exploit other groups -- we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around. ... America was, until this past generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us." (...)
Stephen Miller was ‘claimed as a mentee by Richard Spencer, who is an avowed open white nationalist’, ..., According to Vanity Fair, Spencer says he became aware of Miller when both were at Duke University and was "impressed" with his communications ability.
[Steve] Bannon, a senior counselor to the president, did previously run Breitbart.com before joining the Trump presidential campaign. And he did tell Mother Jones, "We’re the platform for the alt-right," during an interview at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Sebastian Gorka "wore the medal of Vitézi Rend, a Nazi organization." Gorka serves as deputy assistant to the president and also appears on television to represent the administration. But Gorka has attracted controversy for, among other things, wearing symbols of a successor group to Vitézi Rend, an honorary order that had originally been founded in 1920 by Miklós Horthy, a Hungarian ally of Adolf Hitler.
-- Louis Jacobson, August 15th, 2017, Politifact |
 | The dismay expressed by many Republicans about President Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville last weekend will probably further increase the already existing speculation about whether Trump will be the Republican nominee again in 2020. (...) Republican elected officials seem fed up with Trump’s incompetence and name-calling. There are also signs that Mike Pence is building a political operation with 2020 in mind.
-- Richard Skinner, Aug 15, 2017, Vox |
 
  | After months of escalating tensions between North Korea and the United States, officials made a stunning announcement on March 2018: Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, had invited President Trump to meet and discuss his country’s nuclear program — and Mr. Trump accepted. The report was particularly surprising given that no sitting American president has ever met with a North Korean leader, and that Mr. Trump himself had ruled out direct talks unless North Korea agreed to take measurable steps toward relinquishing its nuclear arsenal. |
   On June 14th 2018 Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist, announced that, after a weeks-long conflict with his editors regarding unpublished anti-Trump cartoons, he has been fired from the paper. ... But in the past few weeks, editorial director Keith Burris and publisher John Robinson Block have refused to publish six of Rogers’s cartoons, all criticizing Trump or his policies. Block and Burris have also rejected many of Rogers’s rough sketch ideas for several months. This wasn’t the first time Block has used his position to defend President Trump’s actions; in January he demanded an editorial run in the Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade (where he is also the publisher) supporting Trump’s use of the term “shithole countries.” I realize now I didn’t recognize this other danger of an authoritarian president: his enablers and the willing supporters who squash dissent and help attack the free press and subvert the Constitution.(...) The purpose of an editorial cartoonist is to hold politicians and powerful institutions accountable — and we all know how little President Trump thinks he, his family or his sycophants should be held accountable. Rogers was the first American editorial cartoonist to lose his job as a result, but he won’t be the last. Trump has many “fixers.” -- Democracy Dies in Darkness, Ann Telnaes, The Washington Post, June15, 2018
 | The Times is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. -- OP Ed. New York Times , Sept. 5, 2018
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader. It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall. The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. |
The Financial Crisis and Great Recession,
 | The sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008
Eugene Fama, a Chicago University economics professor who in the 70s came up with the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH), which stated that financial markets price assets at their true worth based on all the publicly available information, encouraging the belief that the best thing to do was to pile in when prices were rising. Bubble-think, in other words.
The changes pushed through in the US and the UK in the 80s by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher removed constraints on bankers, made finance more important at the expense of manufacturing and reduced union power, making it harder for employees to secure as big a share of the national economic cake as they had in previous decades. After a fierce lobbying campaign, Bill Clinton agreed to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between investment and retail banks. The move heralded the coming of superbanks, huge behemoths that took in retail deposits and used them to take highly-leveraged punts in the markets.
As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 for his "contribution to global economic stability", cut interest rates and left them at rock-bottom levels for two years. Cheap borrowing costs encouraged Americans to load up on debt to buy homes, even when they had no savings, no income and no job prospects. These so-called sub-prime borrowers were the cannon fodder for the biggest boom-bust in US history. The housing collapse brought the global economy to its knees.
In Britain Sir Mervyn King, who became Bank of England governor in 2003, failed to "lean against the wind" during the economic upswing, leaving interest rates too low, and then waited too long when the economy was nosediving into its most severe postwar recession before cutting bank rate. Gordon Brown's last big speech as chancellor of the exchequer before becoming prime minister, made at the Mansion House in June 2007 just as the financial crisis was about to break, praised the bankers for their remarkable achievements and predicted "the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London".
The US treasury secretary in 2008, Hank Paulson big mistake was to put Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into conservatorship, wiping out the stakes of those who had invested $20bn in the two government-backed mortgage lenders over the previous 12 months. Unsurprisingly, there was no great rush among private investors to rescue Lehman Brothers when it ran into trouble the following week, and when the US treasury allowed the investment bank to go bust every financial institution in the world was seen as at risk.
Paulson triggered the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. (Larry Elliott, economics editor The Guardian, Friday 3 February 2012)
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 | | Financial Bailout of Greece by Eu, Arend van Dam, Netherlands, 2011 |
Schrank, The Independent, May 2012
David Cameron, François Hollande, Barack Obama, and Angela Merkel at the Delphic temple for oracle of Delphi. Obama asks, "Will Greece crash out of the eurozone, oh oracle?" The oracle replies, "That'll be another 100bn euros".Despite receiving billions of euros in bailout funds, Greece was still in danger of being forced to leave the euro (the famous Grexit). The cartoon relates to the G8 summit at Camp David, where the eurozone crisis was top of the agenda.
Frederick Deligne, Global Financial Crisis, Nice-Matin, Nice, France, 2011
 | Michael Ramirez, American Debt Crisis, 2009,
Michael Ramirez is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 and 2008, and a three-time Sigma Delta Chi, Society of Professional Journalism Award winner. |
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Tom Janssen, the European debt crisis, Dutch Cartoonist, 2011 |
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Martin Rowson, Barack Obama and John Boehner's slow-moving attempt to find a compromise on debt ceiling, 2011, Guardian |
 | | Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor known as the Oracle of Omaha, in an op-ed titled Stop Coddling the Super-Rich, published on August 14, 2011 in the New York Time, made a strong case that he and his mega-rich peers should be paying more in taxes |
 | | OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks... My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.Warren E. Buffett, Stop Coddling the Super-Rich, August 14, 2011 |
 | | Uncle Sam bewildered in between the Tea Party, on the right, and Occupy Wall Street, on the left, movements, Kal, 2011. Kal finds the both movements loud and confusing for poor Uncle Sam. |
 | | The Tea Party demand vs Occupy Wall Street demands, Vines, 2011. It appears that Vines is more sympathetic towards the Tea Party's single demand. |
 | | An unsympathetic view from the right suggesting Occupy Wall Street would lead to communism. |
 | | Slippery Slopes, gives a cynical warning, Occupy Wall Street soon morphs into Occupy Private Ownership. |
 | | Time to Take Occupy Wall Street Seriously, Cam, 2011. Cam warns that if the movement is not taken seriously heads may role by guillotine. |
 | | An interesting take on the issue, a mea culpa admission. |
 | | "I liked it when it was Egypt, but not here," a play on the hypocrisy of men in suits |
 | News that the International Monetary Fund initially demanded to loot a shocking 40% of savings from the private bank accounts of Cypriots underscores how residents of the Mediterranean country could be the latest victims of the infamous “IMF riot,” as the chief economist of the German Commerzbank calls for Italians to be similarly plundered for 15% of their savings.
According to Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian in an interview with CNBC ; the decision to loot the bank accounts of Cypriot savers could blow up Europe and lead to civil unrest across the continent. - El-Erian said that the European Union had lit two sticks of dynamite in backing a proposal that could see bank accounts raided for up to 15% of their value in what has ludicrously been described as a “wealth tax” yet amounts to nothing less than an act of wanton financial plunder. - “By including small depositors, they are risking social unrest, political disorder, and potentially an exit from the eurozone,” said El-Erian, referring to people with under 100,000 euros who will still be hit by a levy of 6.75% under current proposals. Savers with 500,000 euros in the bank face losing as much as 75,000 euros. |
 | Americans awoke Tuesday, October, 1st, 2013, to the fact that nearly half the federal government was shut down, and to a certainty that one-sixth of the U.S. economy was profoundly altered via Obamacare. Senator Ted Cruz was leading the charge in the Senate (and apparently the House) to defund the Affordable Care Act. He stated
" I intend to donate my salary to charity for each day the government is shut down. Elected leaders should not be treated better than the American people, which is precisely why hardworking Americans deserve the same Obamacare exception that President Obama has already granted Members of Congress.” Hundreds of thousands of "nonessential" government became idled for hours, days, weeks. Many federal offices were closed, workers furloughed while Congress tried to unknot itself. (Essential services — cutting Social Security checks, patrolling the border, keeping airports safe — were continued.) The Republicans argued that Obamacare's mandates are so unpopular that Americans will understand a shutdown. |
 | The Republican-led House of Representatives insisted on delaying President Barack Obama's healthcare reform - dubbed Obamacare - as a condition for passing a bill. More than 700,000 federal employees faced unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock was over. It was the first shutdown in 17 years. President Obama blamed the House of Representatives for the stalemate and said he would "keep working to get Congress to reopen the government [and] restart vital services". |
The Snowden Affair
 | Steve Kelley's comment on the Obama Administration invasion of citizen's privacy
The whistle-blower Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and an employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, was responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history. He said he was content to sever his 'very comfortable life,' which included a six-figure salary, a girlfriend, a home in Hawaii and his family, to shine a light on the NSA's widening surveillance net.'I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building... NSA chiefs were 'intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them, ... I don’t want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity. The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to.'' |
 | Scott Stantis, Obama and Bush-Nixon legacy
According to Lee-Anne Goodman,"Not so long ago, a bad week for U.S. President Barack Obama was one that sparked comparisons to Jimmy Carter, a popular whipping boy for the right who was considered weak and ineffectual by many Americans. Seven months into his second term, and the Carter comparisons are a distant memory: now Obama’s being likened to former presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, popular targets for the commander-in-chief’s liberal base. Revelations about the Obama administration’s sweeping surveillance practices, as well as the ongoing investigation into the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party organizations, have resulted in a litany of comparisons to both former presidents in recent weeks. Edward Snowden himself, a libertarian who donated to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in 2012, made the comparison in explaining why he leaked details of two top-secret U.S. government surveillance programs to two news organizations last week. “I believed in Obama’s promises,” Snowden told Britain’s The Guardian. “He continued with the policies of his predecessor. I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded .” |
 | A hero or a traitor?
Oliver Stone, the Oscar-winning director whose profound understanding of freedom and democracy is a breath of fresh and uncontaminated air in Obama's era defended the American whistlebower Edward Snowden:"It's a disgrace that Obama is more concerned with hunting down Snowden than reforming these George Bush-style eavesdropping techniques. (...) To me Snowden is a hero because he revealed secrets that we should all know, that the United States has repeatedly violated the fourth amendment". John Cassidy of New Yorker agrees"He is a hero. In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, he has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed.(...) So, what did the leaks tell us? First, they confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever. If the publicity prompts Congress to prevent phone companies such as Verizon and A.T. T. from acting as information-gathering subsidiaries of the spying agencies, it won’t hamper legitimate domestic-surveillance operations—the N.S.A. can always go to court to obtain a wiretap or search warrant—and it will be a very good thing for the country." |
 | | German Chancellor Angela Merkel uses her mobile phone before a 2011 meeting at a European Union summit in Brussels. News magazine Der Spiegel reported that an apparent NSA document indicates Merkel's phone was first listed as a target in 2002. German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained to U.S. President Barack Obama after receiving information her phone may have been monitored. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich was quoted as telling newspaper Bild am Sonntag he wants "complete information on all accusations" and that "if the Americans intercepted cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil." He added wiretapping is a crime and "those responsible must be held accountable." News magazine Der Spiegel, whose research prompted the government's response, reported that a document apparently from an NSA database indicates Merkel's cellphone was first listed as a target in 2002. The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous." |
 | | President Obama was aware of NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2010, German media have revealed. An NSA spokeswoman later denied the allegations. According to German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which cited US intelligence sources, National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander briefed Obama on the bugging operation against Merkel in 2010. "Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue," an unnamed high-ranking NSA official told the newspaper. Moreover, the paper said, the US president later ordered the NSA to prepare a comprehensive dossier on Merkel. |
Obama and the Arab Spring,
 | Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt's top military commander, told the country that Egypt's constitution had been suspended and President Morsi had been replaced by the head of the constitutional court until new elections could be held. No timetable for those elections were spelled out. The general warned the Egyptian people to protest peacefully and said the authorities would not tolerate any violence.
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 | "US Secretary of State John Kerry has again refrained from characterising the ousting of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi by the military as a coup. Washington's hesitation to use the term has drawn accusations from the pro-Morsi camp that the US was complicit in the coup. For the White House, it is an on-going and agonising determination that has legal and possibly even security implications". BBC
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 | Despite his failings, and there were plenty, President Mohamed Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, and his overthrow by the military on Wednesday was unquestionably a coup. It would be tragic if Egyptians allowed the 2011 revolution that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak to end with this rejection of democracy. Crisis in Egypt NY Times, Editorial. July 3, 2013 |
 | The impasse into which Egypt has been forced by the army's intervention in politics is daily becoming more dangerous. Every time the security forces open fire, their mission of bringing back order and restoring social peace becomes less credible. You cannot advance toward legitimacy over the bodies of martyrs. Editorial The Guardian, Sunday 28 July 2013 |
 | Steve Bell, ceci n'pas un coup, The Guardian, Monday 4 November 2013
... First, the hearing was delayed because Mohamed Morsi’s refusal to recognise the authority of the court stretched to a refusal to wear the required prison uniform. Then his repeated interruptions – “this is not a legitimate trial, this trial is part of the coup” – and the chanting of “illegal, illegal” by his 14 co-defendants, proved unendurable and matters were put off until January. Out on the streets, the last-minute change of venue, aimed at avoiding mass demonstrations, was only partially successful.
It is difficult not to concede Mr Morsi’s point. Unpopular or not, he was still democratically elected. Not only was his toppling in July a coup; what has followed gives little cause for optimism. More than 2,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters have been killed in clashes with security forces, the organisation’s activities have been banned, and the state-backed media has gone into overdrive whipping up anti-Morsi and anti-US sentiment in equal measure. With freedoms increasingly restricted, dissenters harassed, and the military back on top, Egypt feels uncomfortably as if it has reverted to pre-Arab Spring type, albeit without Hosni Mubarak. The Independent, Editorial, Monday 4 November 2013 |
 | On March, 28 2014 Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi's announced that he has resigned as defence minister to run for the presidency. The announcement was broadcast live by Egyptian broadcast media.
Randall Enos' illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, NBC, National Lampoon, Playboy, Boy's Life, Atlantic, Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Forbes
I've been working at this stand for 52 years making pretty pitchers fer the people in just about every magazine and newspaper in the land except that damned New Yorker who won't return my calls. . |
 | | Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) rapidly advanced through mostly Sunni areas of Iraq in June 2014, |
 | | Wealthy individuals and religious foundations in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf have channelled millions of dollars to the anti-Assad opposition, though it is not clear with what degree of official connivance."There is Saudi money flowing into Isis but it is not from the Saudi state," said Lina Khatib of the Carnegie Foundation. |
 | | According to Clinton’s leaked memo, Saudi donors constituted “the most significant source of funding to terrorist groups worldwide.” Radical Salafists across the Middle East receive ideological and material backing from within the kingdom. |
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A Wikileaks cable clearly quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." She continues: "More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups." And it's not just the Saudis: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are also implicated in the memo. The West may have to pay a price for its alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, which have always found Sunni jihadism more attractive than democracy...Saudi Arabia has created a Frankenstein's monster over which it is rapidly losing control. The same is true of its allies such as Turkey which has been a vital back-base for Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra by keeping the 510-mile-long Turkish-Syrian border open. |
 | | On Oct. 2, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi, who at the time resided in Virginia and worked as a columnist for the Washington Post, was one of the Western world's most prominent critics of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — a man who was known to had little tolerance for dissent but often was hailed as a modernist by Western media. According to an anonymous Turkish official, a Saudi assassin squad flew into Istanbul on private jets and waited for Khashoggi inside the consulate. The squad included a physician who specializes in autopsies. They also took a bone saw. |
  | | President Trump has come under fire for his tepid response to Khashoggi's disappearance. Multiple cartoonists used this news as inspiration to illustrate Trump's seeming adulation of dictators. Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin echoed this sentiment in a recent column about Khashoggi, writing:"Trump has embraced authoritarian leaders who openly threaten journalists with murder, such as Filipino leader Rodrigo Duterte, or who silently tolerate such murders, such as Vladimir Putin." |
 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on February 2019, sharply rejected an assertion that the Trump administration is complicit in a cover-up of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Pompeo's remarks came after Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., accused the administration of turning a "blind eye" to evidence that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered Khashoggi’s killing. "This amounts to the Trump Administration aiding in the cover up of a murder," Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. "America should never descend to this level of moral bankruptcy." The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, also slammed the White House's refusal to comply with the law. “Everyone involved in this gruesome crime must be identified and held accountable," McCaul said. "When the United States fails to lead, we compromise our integrity and abandon those pursuing justice around the world." Asked about the allegations from Kaine and others, Pompeo said they were "dead wrong." "Sen. Kaine is just dead wrong," Pompeo told reporters traveling with him in Budapest. "America is not covering up for a murder."  | Steve Breen, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the San Diego Union-Tribune. December 2015
"The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking" in which we asked who is the one "breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has? Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge |
 |
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bolstered by the electoral triumph of his conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., has shown a troubling penchant for benign neglect toward the jihadi Islamists — enough for them to establish a Turkish network.
What does Erdogan — in theory a key American ally leading a NATO state — see in the knife-wielding jihadis of the Islamic State? They are useful in confronting Turkey’s nemesis, the Kurds, who have taken over wide sections of northern Syria and established self-government in an area they call Rojava. That in turn has raised the specter of a border-straddling Kurdistan, the nightmare of the Turkish republic. Roger Cohen, NY Times,NOV. 7, 2015 |
 | The Obama administration signaled for the first time on June 16, 2014 that it was willing to enter into discussions with Iran. In an indication of how sensitive in Washington any such cooperation would be, officials quickly rowed back from remarks by Kerry, who had declined in an interview to rule out military cooperation with Tehran. But officials later insisted that any contact would be limited to informal discussions that would take place on the margins of nuclear talks in Vienna.. |
 | Carlos Latuff, Brazil
MOST generals who seize power promise to return their country swiftly to the state of democratic civilian rule from which it lapsed owing to the misdemeanours of venal or incompetent politicians. Often, alas, no suitable civilian can be found. So the general swaps his uniform for a business suit, crushes the opposition and proceeds to establish a pliant parliament. Egypt’s strongman, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, is treading this familiar path. But he will do nothing to resolve Egypt’s many problems; he may lead his country into its next crisis.Economist, Oct 10th 2015 |
Saudis Connection,
 | Saudi Arabia and Human Rights Council, Tom Janssen, The Netherlands.
The September 2015 decision to appoint a Saudi diplomat to chair the UNHRC's Consultative Group, responsible for the selection of dozens of experts charged with addressing human rights cases in countries around the world, has been met with astonishment given Saudi Arabia's human rights record. |
 | | David Horsey, Los Angeles Times |
Pope Benedict's Resignation ,
 | | On February 28, 2013, in an unexpected move, Pope Benedict XVI -- born Joseph Ratzinger -- announced, that he is to resign. Benedict was elected pope in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II. In his statement, Pope Benedict -- who was turning 86 in April -- said he had come to the certainty "that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry." |
 | |
 | The big takeaway from the plane chat, or at least the big media takeaway, was the pope's acknowledgement that gay priests exist and that they have as much right to their affinity with God as their heterosexual counterparts. When asked about the so called "gay lobby" within the Vatican, the pope replied:
When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalized. (...)When the thorny issue of women in the church came up, the pope kindly acknowledged that a woman's role "does not end just with being a mother and with housework," (something mainstream society figured out about a century ago). He went on to pay lip service to the need to expand women's role in some way, but while he had no concrete ideas on what this might entail, he made it clear than it would never include the right to be ordained alongside men:
On the ordination of women, the church has spoken and said no. John Paul II, in a definitive formulation, said that door is closed. Sadhbh Walshe, The Guardian. Wednesday 31 July 2013 |
 | After years of tense relations and inflammatory rhetoric between Muslims and the Vatican that sparked protests across Muslim-majority countries, Pope Francis sought to ease tensions, emphasized mutual values and shared beliefs, kissed a Quran and pushed for dialogue with Muslim communities since his election. His efforts mended a deep wedge between the two communities, as Muslims realized that the pope has come to embody religious values to which their communities also adhere. The growing relationship between the two faiths flourished as Pope Francis for the first time toured the U.S. in September 2015 amid growing anti-Muslim sentiment from Republican and conservative leaders. |
Bro Jonathan (the old name for Uncle Sam) trying to seduce Miss Canada, while the chaperon, John Bull, falling asleep.
 | In 1867, Canada became a federation under the British North America Act. The anxiety over being annexed by the US was one of the key contributing factors in the creation of Canadian Confederation. In the election of 1864 the Republican Party used annexation issue to attract Irish Americans vote. An annexation bill introduced by General Banks was passed in the United States House of Representatives in July of 1866. The bill authorized the United States President to"publish by proclamation that, from the date thereof, the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the Territories of Selkirk (present-day Manitoba), Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, with limits and rights as by the act defined, are constituted and admitted as States and Territories of the United States of America" (Library and Archives of Canada) The United States was to pay the Hudson’s Bay Company ten million dollars for the release of all of the property. |
 | We in Canada Seem to Have Lost All Idea of Justice, Honor and Integrity, by J.W. Bengough,
The Mail, September 26th, 1873.
In this cartoon related to Pacific Scandal, the first major political scandal in Canada after Confederation, Macdonald responds to Alexander Mackenzie, the leader of the opposition: “I admit I took the money and bribed the electors with it. Is there anything wrong about that?” The scandal led to the resignation of Macdonald, and a transfer of power to Mackenzie's Liberals.
The scandal was related to John A. Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues George-Etienne Cartier solicitation of financial contribution from Hugh Allan, a Montreal shipping magnate and railway builder, for the 1872 general election, in exchange for giving Allan the lucrative contract to build the railway to B.C. . The Conservatives needed money to fight the election, particularly in Ontario and Québec, where a number of seats were in jeopardy. Despite Allan’s generosity in providing more than $350,000, Macdonald did poorly in the vote.
John Wilson Bengough, originally a Toronto journalist, was Canada’s first important political cartoonist. His career paralleled the latter part of Macdonald's. |
 | | In 1896 the Liberals under Wilfrid Laurier came into power. Between 1896 and 1905 Clifford Sifton, the main character in this cartoon, who became the new Minister of the Interior, assumed responsibility for immigration and settlement in Canada. He offered Canada as a commodity to potential overseas migrants, particularly to the American farmers, who had skills and capital. Sifton, and his successors, believed the darker the skin, the more 'foreign' the immigrant was. The ideal immigrant should have had the same religious, political and social institutions as the British. |
 | Wilfrid Laurier and Frederick Debartzch Monk Issues: Separate School, Autonomy Bill, and Dual Language, N. M'Connelly
Wilfrid Laurier, leader of the Liberal Party 1887–1919 and prime minister 1896–1911, was Canada's first French Canadian Prime Minister. Guided by his belief in the future independence of Canada, he resisted every effort the British Empire made toward federation of the empire in political, economic, or military terms. Nonetheless, in 1899, he agreed to help defray the costs of transportation and material of Canadians wishing to fight for England in the South African War; this conciliatory stance would bring reproach from those French Canadians fiercely opposed to any participation. Frederick Debartzch Monk’s was thus the only Conservative mp from Quebec to survive 15 years of Wilfrid Laurier’s regime. Throughout his political career, He tried to reform the Conservative party along the lines of the nationalist principles supported by the majority of French Canadians, and he worked to give it credibility in Quebec so it might become the pre-eminent force in the province.The South African War from 1899 to 1902 led him to demand increasing autonomy for Canada in all political, military, and commercial relations with Great Britain. On 18 November 1901, he put forward a political program entitled “Canada for Canadians,” which was based on respect for the two founding European “races,” autonomous in its relations with the British empire, and capable of directing its own economic development. |
 | "What price unity?", Gib Potter , Saskatoon,1942
William Lyon Mackenzie won the Liberal party leadership in 1919 and led the party into government two years later. After a brief stint in opposition in 1926, the voters returned him to power later in the year. He lost the 1930 election, but was back on top in 1935. He is Canada's longest serving prime minister who redefined Canada's role in the British Empire. In fact, in his assertion that Canada would not necessarily follow the dictates of the government in London, King, more than anyone else, brought about the rebranding of the empire into the British Commonwealth. His government introduced Canada's first old age pension and he is the prime minister who led Canada out of the Great Depression, as well as leading Canada into and out of the Second World War until being retired in 1948. |
 | "Him? - er, now let's forget him! Besides every family has got one in the cupboard .."
Vicky [Victor Weisz], Daily Mirror, 26 Jun 1957
John Diefenbaker at Commonwealth Conference of 1957, with Harold Macmillan of Britain ; Jawaharlal Nehru of India ; Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana; Roy Welensky of Rhodesia, Robert Gordon Menzies of Australia, Chaudhri Muhammad Ali of Pakistan, Tom Macdonald of New Zealand; Eric Louw of South Afica; and M. W. H. de Silva of Ceylon.
In 1956 Diefenbaker was elected leader of conservative party and led it to what many deemed to be impossible - a minority victory - in 1957. In 1958, he led the party to the largest majority in Canadian history. In 1962, his party won another minority government in spite of the vote splintering caused in Quebec by the Ralliement des Créditistes led by Réal Caouette. In the Suez crisis, Diefenbaker and his Conservatives opposed the American position against Britain and France, and strongly rejected then-prime minister Louis St. Laurent's likening the role of the two European allies in Suez to that of the Soviet Union in its recent crushing of the Hungarian uprising.
A staunch nationalist and a true believer in the fading Commonwealth, Dief saw advantage in continued close trade with the U.K. as a bulwark against Canadian domination by the rising U.S. superpower. Yet the world was changing. Britain was actively looking to enter the European Common Market, a move that would almost certainly strip Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth of trade preferences. |
 | "Its Devastating!", Duncan MacPherson,
Kennedy hated Dief largely for his anti-nuclear stance. Lester Pearson was the President's choice. Kennedy gave the go-ahead to his friend and America's leading pollster, Lou Harris, to become the Liberal's secret campaign advisor in the 1962 election. Diefenbaker survived with a minority government. The plot to bring down Canada's government came to a head in January, 1963. On Jan.3, top U.S. Air Force General Lauris Norstad held an Ottawa press conference and criticized Canada's antinuclear stance. On Jan. 12, Pearson announced his new policy of supporting U.S. nuclear weapons in Canada. In protest, Pierre Trudeau called Pearson the "defrocked priest of peace" and refused to run for the Liberals.
Based on the advice of Willis Armstrong, head of the State Department's Canada Desk in Washington U.S. State Department issued a press release which called Diefenbaker a liar on nuclear issues. Fights broke out in Cabinet. Diefenbaker recalled Canada's ambassador from the U.S. On Feb. 5, Defense Minister Harkness announced his resignation and Pearson called for a non-confidence vote. Dief's minority government fell. |
Tom Innes, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's complete focus is on repatriation of Canadian Constitution, Calgary Herald, October 9, 1980
During the 1980 referendum debate in Quebec, Pierre Trudeau had committed to bring Quebec into Canadian confederation. He saw the way to this end through the act of repatriating the Canadian Constitution form Great Britain with an amending formula and entrenched rights for all Canadians. After the Federal forces were victorious in the referendum, Trudeau quickly set to work to come up with an agreement among the Provincial Premiers which could be taken the British Parliament with the request that they pass an act giving recognizing Canada's complete sovereignty over all matters in Canada.
On April 17, 1982 after the Canada Act had been passed in the British Parliament, it was signed into law by the Queen at a ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Canada finally had brought the constitution and the Charter of rights and Freedoms home.
 | Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney, Aislin (alias Terry Mosher), 1988,
It was the most controversial agreement of its kind in Canadian history. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's vision of free trade with the U.S. read like a Harlequin romance: Canada played the neglected lover, U.S., the negligent partner. It signalled a new era in Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan belted out a rendition of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling that would make their ancestors proud. The St. Patrick's Day performance capped a very cozy 24-hour meeting in Quebec City. The Shamrock Summit would go down in history for the number of handshakes, embraces and praises. |
 | Ingrid Rice, “The Reform Party has finally shaken its image of being nothing but a bunch of white racists” “We now have racists of every colour” , April 29, 1997
There’s always been something phoney about Preston Manning’s populism. Remember how he was going to turn Stornoway, the official residence of the leader of the Opposition, “into a bingo hall”? Then, when he became leader of the Official Opposition he, er, moved in. Remember how his candidates — and newly elected MPs — railed against the “gold-plated” parliamentary pension plan? Then, with time, they all quietly opted in.
Manning spent much of his own long political career channeling popular resentment against government by painting a picture of venality, corruption, self-interestedness and indifference to the popular will among everyone but himself plying the political trade. It was Manning’s caucus that dressed up as a mariachi band to mock the Senate. It was his party that ran campaign ads crossing out the faces of francophone leaders of other parties. In other words, Manning did what he could to corrode belief in our political institutions. But when it came to the test — on Stornoway, on pensions, or on Wildrose — he and his followers often could be found slinking quietly away. Paul Adams, Preston Manning’s democratic deficit , ipolitics, Dec 31, 2014 |
 | Aislin (Terry Mosher), November 1976, and September 2012.
The separatist Parti Québécois won its first election in November 1976 and changed Quebec's political landscape forever. The cartoon on the left depicts a rumpled PQ leader René Lévesque standing beside a lean, lanky and defeated federalist Liberal premier Robert Bourassa,(the cartoon now sits in Montreal's McCord Museum of Canadian History). On the right Pauline Marois the Parti Québécois leader who claimed victory over the incumbent Liberal Party Leader Jean Charest is depicted with François Legault, the leader of the third party CAQ. |
 | | A two-year inquiry into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with German-Canadian arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber has concluded that the former prime minister acted in an “inappropriate” way when he accepted large amounts of cash from Schreiber.The report by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant said Mulroney “failed to live up to the standard of conduct that he himself adopted in the 1985 ethics code.” |
 | By Graeme MacKay, July 5, 2009,
Queen Elizabeth has appointed prime minister Jean Chrétien to the Order of Merit, and a line up of former prime ministers (John Turner, Kim Campbell, Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin and Joe Clark) wonder how Chrétien, a self-described "little guy from Shawinigan, always gets away with it."
The award, founded in 1902 by King Edward VII, is given to "individuals of exceptional distinction in the arts, learning, sciences and other areas such as public service," according to a news release from the press secretary of the Queen. The order is restricted to 24 members as well as additional foreign recipients. |
 | The Ghost of President Nixon consoling Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Harper persistently maintained that he knew nothing about the $90,000 cheque that his right-hand man gave to Senator Mike Duffy. In a bitter speech in the Senate, Duffy tabled documents that showed a lawyer for the Conservative Party of Canada also paid his $13,560 legal bill as part of orchestrated effort to make the controversy over his living expenses go away."The reality is,that Mr. Duffy still has not paid a cent back to the taxpayers of Canada. He should be paying that money back. The fact that he hasn't, the fact that he shows absolutely no regret for his actions, and the fact that he has told untruths about his actions means that he should be removed from the public payroll ... On our side, there is one person responsible for this deception. That person is Mr. Wright.' — Prime Minister Stephen Harper According to Toronto Star it was Harper's administration culture that was responsible for this scandal.It’s the kind of culture where enemies and secrecy abound. It’s a culture that breeds devotion among Harper’s largely white, male, pin-stripe-adorned disciples — not so much to a prime minister, but to an all-powerful potentate, who must be protected, whatever the cost. It’s a culture that permits a destructive hubris to flourish like a drug-resistant virus until it can’t be halted by shopworn political or public relations tactics. This constellation of corrosive characteristics was, of course, the defining nature of Tricky Dick Nixon and his criminal, constitution-subverting co-conspirators in the Watergate affair. |
 | Michael de Adder, The Hills Time
In July 2014 the RCMP charged Mike Duffy, a former television journalist who became a senator, with 31 counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in relation to his Senate expenses. The charges were related to living and travel expenses claimed, contracts awarded by his office and a deal in which he received $90,000 from the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff to reimburse the government for his controversial expenses. Wright resigned when his payment to Duffy came to light, but the scandal grew as Harper faced repeated questions in Parliament over what he knew about the affair. He initially defended Wright and Duffy, but then changed his approach and called for Duffy’s suspension and claimed that Wright had been fired. Although Harper came to office promising he would never name an un-elected Senator, he included Duffy along with 17 others as part of a mass appointment that gave him a Conservative majority in the Senate.
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 | Having unveiled its proposal, which would ban public workers from conspicuous religious garb, Culture Minister Maka Kotto, a rare members of a visible minority in the PQ caucus justified the policy,“If I wanted to play the mystic, I could go around with my panther’s head on my chest. It’s my family totem. But I don’t, because I adhere to what are accepted as the values of the society that welcomed me,” Louis-Philippe Lampron, a law professor at Laval University, noted that the values charter would require some people to shed an intrinsic part of themselves while the majority doesn’t have to make the same sacrifice. “The charter says that if you want to integrate into Quebec society you have to leave your religious symbols in the closet,” Prof. Lampron said. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau expressed disappointment in the proposed Charter of Quebec Values. Prime Minister Stephen Harper reminded reporters that Quebec's Parti-Quebecois government is a minority. He says the opposition parties in the National Assembly will keep the values charter from becoming law. |
 | "Poloz's slave ship": Glob and Mail editorial cartoon by David Parkins.
Speaking to a House of Commons committee on November 2014, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, suggested young Canadians and others struggling to find work should acquire more experience through unpaid internships or volunteering until the country's hobbled job market picks up. |
 | One of Stephen Harper’s most remarkable achievements in politics has been to navigate his way from the nativist, turban-queasy, anti-immigration policies of Reform to those of a modern party, supporting immigration and wooing the ethnic vote. With his sidekick Jason Kenney scarfing perogies and papadums with equal enthusiasm, in 2011 Harper led the Conservatives to an even bigger victory among voters born abroad than he won among the general population.
(...)
Turbaned Sikhs, Lebanese Christians and brown-skinned Hispanics know full well — from looking south of the border, for starters — that when the mood turns ugly for Muslims, the racism that ensues doesn’t bother with fine distinctions. Visible minority voters are critical in many of the seats around Toronto and in the lower mainland of B.C. on which the next election may turn. (...) More dramatically, the Conservative MP and former Harper communications chief, John Williamson, embarrassed the party when he talked about unemployed white people being displaced by “brown” temporary foreign workers. Stupid. Of course. Not just because it sounds racist, but because at least some of the “brown people” who vote will use it to connect the dots between themselves and Harper’s campaign of fear. That’s why several Conservative MPs criticized Williamson rather than close ranks around him. [Paul Adams, iPOLITICS, Mar 10, 2015] |
 | Cartoon by Bruce McKinnon at the Chronicle Herald, March 2015
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of deliberately sowing fear and prejudice against Muslims in Canada. The charge came in a strongly worded speech Mr. Trudeau delivered in Toronto Monday night to highlight his views on the importance of liberty in Canadian society. “These are troubling times,” the Liberal leader told a gathering organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “Across Canada, and especially in my home province, Canadians are being encouraged by their government to be fearful of one another. “Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.” |
 | Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 11, 2015
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 | By Low, 'The Manchester Guardian', May 15, 1953
Churchill is implying that the withdrawal of 80,000 British troops from the Suez Canal Zone will remove a critical buffer zone between Egypt and Israel that will lead to war |
 | By Low, 'The Daily Herald', February 17, 1953
Neguib amiable greets Eden while asking Britain to evacuate the canal zone forthwith without conditions. |
 | | Decline and fall of the British Empire, By Cummings, 'The Daily Express', September 8, 1955 |
 | | By Cummings, 'The Daily Express', March 5, 1956 |
 | | By Vicky, 'The Daily Mirror', August 13, 1956 |
 | by Illingworth, 'Punch', September 26, 1956
Depicted: John Foster Dulles, Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet |
 | | 'Head on a Plate' Sir Anthony Eden's resignation. By Illingworth, January 12, 1957 |
 | | By Vicky, 'The Daily Mirror', February 1, 1957 |
 | | President Kennedy got a more ambiguous reception overseas than he did at home. Many cartoons played up his youth and inexperience. This one is by Vicky, the pen name of Victor Weisz. Weisz was the opposite of the gag-first political cartoonist. He was a passionate and driven man who wanted to use his cartoons to change the world. His left-leaning politics clashed with the editor of the News Chronicle in 1947, sending him first to the Daily Mirror and then the Evening Standard. |
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David Low, The "New Democratic Party", 1946
In 1946 Winston Churchill asked Macmillan to join a committee to look into reshaping the Conservative Party. On 3rd October, Macmillan published an article in the Daily Telegraph where he suggested that the name should be changed to the "New Democratic Party". In the article he called for the Liberal Party to join Conservatives in an anti-socialist alliance. He wrote in his diary that to obtain an alliance with the Liberals, it would be worthwhile "to offer proportional representation in the big cities in exchange." |
Keith Waite, "WE'RE MERELY PROTECTING OUR UNDER COVER MEN."
John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in the British government under Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan began an affair with Christine Keeler, a London call girl in 1961. Keeler had been the lover of Yevgeny "Eugene" Ivanov, a senior naval attache at the Russian embassy in London. Profumo was forced to step down from his position on June 5, 1963. An official report was released in September 1963 and a month later Prime Minister MacMillan resigned claiming ill health.
 | | On 3 December 1969, the British cartoonist, Michael Cummings, outlines the inflexibility of the stance taken by France's General Charles de Gaulle and his successor Georges Pompidou regarding the issue of the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Communities, despite efforts made by successive Prime Ministers, Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson, to comply with France’s wishes. |
Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson, On US entry into Vietnam War ,The New Statesman Magazine April 1965
Paul Rigby, " But, Monsieur, 'se are your Friends?" The Sun, 19th Oct. 1972
 | | ‘One less obstacle, but not the end of the road.' For the cartoonist Fritz Behrendt, a multitude of problems awaits the British Prime Minster, Harold Wilson, before the UK can accede to the European Communities, despite the exit of General de Gaulle from the political stage. (12 June 1969) |
The Heath Government was elected in June 1970 determined to take Britain into the E.E.C. The key question was whether the French would agree? Twice before, under De Gaulle, France had vetoed British applications. De Gaulle's successor, Georges Pompidou, was known to be more favourable, but a French "oui" could not be taken for granted. The key question, posed by Pompidou to Heath was; is Britain ready to make "a historic change in (its) attitude", a "fundamental choice" in favour of the European Community?
 | | In the wake of the Treaty of Rome being signed in Parliament the cartoon cover by Glan Williams for the edition of October 23 1971, shows a miniscule Edward Heath handing over the British Isles on a platter to a cluster of historical figureheads including Ceasar, Emperor Nero, Kaiser Willhelm, Mussolini, Hitler, Richelieu and Napoleon. |
Edward McLachlan, The SDP - pudding in danger - or - Carving up the votes, Mail on Sunday, 17 Apr 1983This cartoon depicting Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)and Michael Foot (Labour) carving of Roy Jenkins (SDP) is based on James Gillray's cartoon The plumb-pudding in danger: - or - state epicures taking un petit souper' depicting William Pitt and Napoleon Bonaparte; published 26 February 1805. Michael Foot inherited the leadership at the most difficult time for the Labour party.Two things happened that made it impossible for him to win the 1983 general election. First, in 1981, the party came close to falling apart as the "gang of four" - Shirley Williams, Bill Rogers, David Owen and Roy Jenkins - walked out and formed the SDP in protest at his left-wing polices. Second the Falklands War, which made Margaret Thatcher hugely popular – before then she had been a very unpopular prime minister. Put together, it made it impossible for Foot to carry victory.
Stanley Franklin, Daily Mirror On 19 January 1976 Thatcher made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union, declaring that “The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen...They put guns before butter...” The Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (“red star”) gave her the nickname "Iron Lady", and this was eagerly taken up by her supporters.
 | | This cartoon was published in the Daily Mirror the day after Thatcher's longest-serving cabinet minister, Geoffrey Howe, delivered a scathing resignation speech, voicing his discontent over her refusal to better integrate the United Kingdom with European economies: |
Trog [Wally Fawkes], Observer, 20 Mar 1988,Thatcher retired from Parliament at the 1992 General Election, but she left a lasting legacy. This cartoon by Brookes shows her as an elderly and surprisingly masculine figure, rejoicing in the success of her offspring - the New Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Steve Bell on the revelation that Tony Blair thought Gordon Brown 'mad, bad and dangerous'Steve Bell’s career at The Guardian started in 1981. He was born in London in 1951, he studied art at Leeds University and worked for magazines including the New Statesman and Time Out before joining The Guardian. His job gives him the chance to comment through humour on some of the biggest events of the past 25 years and mercilessly rib the people that made history. But altogether he was handed such ridiculous looking characters as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to work with, it was not always easy to produce a daily strip. He recalls struggling with Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader from 1983 until 1992. He said: "Kinnock was very hard to draw, because all there was to him was the fact he was basically ginger. I always used to go big on the freckles, just to add some definition. It wasn’t very fair, he wasn’t that freckly but that was all I could think of for those nine long years.
Peter Brookes, The Times, May 25, 2010The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne's £6.2 billion of budget cuts included banning first-class travel for government departments, and scrapping chauffeur-driven cars for specific ministers.
Dave Brown, phone-hacking scandal at The News of the World with Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron, The Independent, July 6, 2011The phone-hacking by its journalists has led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper, the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry, an MPs' inquiry and the launch of three police investigations. According to prosecutors Andy Coulson ( News of the World's editor between 2003 and 2007 and Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman who quit in January 2011) and Rebekah Brooks ( the former tabloid editor and News International chief executive) were among five people being charged in connection with alleged payments to police and public officials. In the conclusion of his lengthy investigation into the phone hacking and other scandals surrounding News Corporation's British tabloids, Lord Justice Brian Leveson, accused Rupert Murdoch, his son James and News Corporation of either failing to address allegations of "widespread criminality within the organization” or — if they didn’t know about it — being guilty of a "significant failure in corporate governance."
Gary Barkers, David Cameron, Rupert Murdoch and Paul Stephenson, snug as a bug political cartoon, The Guardian
Rupert Murdoch's once-commanding influence in British politics dwindled to a new low on July 12th 2012, when all three major parties in Parliament joined in support of a sharp rebuke to his media empire and a parliamentary committee said it would call him, along with two other top executives, to testify publicly next week about the phone hacking scandal enveloping his media empire. The following day, Murdoch's News Corporation announced that it is withdrawing its bid for BSkyB. Cameron's judgment, and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, in appointing the former editor of the News of the World Andy Coulson as their director of communications looked increasingly inexplicable. Cameron was being accused of an improperly contractual relationship with Neil Wallis, a former News of the World deputy editor, as his meetings with News International executives in a year exceeded those with all other news organisations put together. Not a single figure from the BBC was granted an audience. Implying that he could not impart operational information to Cameron since he was too compromised with the chief suspects, Sir Paul Stephenson announced he was stepping down as the UK's most senior police officer. Just hours before his resignation, Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, told the BBC that a growing public perception of police corruption was deeply concerning. Stephenson dated his relationship to Wallis back to 2006. From October 2009 to September 2010, Wallis's part-time work at the Met involved strategic communications, advising the commissioner, as the force said there was no need to reopen the investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.
Libor, the London inter-bank lending rate, is considered to be one of the most crucial interest rates in finance, upon which trillions of financial contracts rest, and the exposure of its rigging has shocked many beyond the world of finance. Every day a group of leading banks submit rates for 10 currencies and 15 lengths of loan ranging from overnight to 12 months. Since the rates submitted are estimates not actual transactions it's relatively easy to submit false figures
At the height of the financial crisis in late 2007, many banks stopped lending to each other over concerns about their financial health with some banks submitting much higher rates than others. Barclays was one of those submitting much higher rates, attracting some media attention. This prompted comment that Barclays was in trouble. Following much internal debate and a controversial conversation with a Bank of England official, Barclays began to submit much lower rates. The Libor scandal has further undermined trust in banks. BBC 
Economist David Blanchflower argued there is no longer a credible candidate among top UK bankers to take over as the next governor of the Bank of England in the wake of recent banking scandals. Professor Blanchflower, who served on the Bank's monetary policy committee between 2006 and 2009, believed the escalating Libor crisis meant Sir Mervyn King's replacement could not come from the banking sector. An internal appointment was also out of the question, he argued, with Bank staff such as deputy governor Paul Tucker facing criticism over their actions. He proved to be right.
 | According to Time magazine: "From the South Sea bubble in 1720 to the 1990s implosions of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and of Barings Bank and through a gallery of rogue traders and dodgy deals that have posed existential threats to financial institutions on several continents during the past quarter of a century, the common factor is not that they were caused by foreigners in London. London itself, especially its compact financial district known as the City, is implicated. ... Individuals and institutions may end up on trial. Yet a swelling sentiment would like to see a bigger entity in the dock: London. It's no longer enough to explain the City's supremacy as a global incubator for scandals by citing its global supremacy as a center for international finance, the world's most potent competitor to New York City, a place where transactions covering literally trillions of dollars, pounds and euros are executed every day." |
 | The Spanish banking crisis, Chris Riddell, The Observer
In 2012, Spain asked euro region governments for a bailout worth as much as 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to rescue its banking system, thus becoming the biggest euro economy up to then to seek international aid. In this cartoon UK prime minister David Cameron tells German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "We must do something Angela!". Merkel replies, "We?". |
The Chancellor's New Clothes, 27 November, 2012George Osborne stunned the markets by announcing that Mark Carney, the Canadian central banker, will replace Sir Mervyn King as the next Governor of the Bank of England. Carney is "the outstanding central banker of his generation with unparalleled expertise in financial regulation" Osborne said." He has got what it takes to help bring families and businesses through these incredibly challenging economic times...my responsibility was to get the best for Britain, and with Mark Carney we've got that."Canada came through the financial crisis of 2007-8 relatively unscathed, thus boosting Carney's reputation. Under his governorship, the Bank of Canada cut interest rates to record lows and supplied emergency liquidity to the banking system to prevent a collapse.
 | Ben Jennings, The Guardian, Friday 13 September 2013
"The Bank is acutely aware of the risk of unsustainable credit and house price growth and will be monitoring it closely," Mark Crney said in Nottingham in August 2013. "The important thing to recognise is that we now have tools other than interest rates that can be used to contain risks in the property and financial sectors. We are now fully prepared to deploy them if that were needed." The Bank could, he said, use its newer tools to recommend that banks and building societies "restrict the terms on which new credit is provided, or even to raise capital requirements on mortgage or other types of lending". This would allow the Bank to avoid raising wider interest rates across the economy even as it acted to put the brakes on specific areas. |
 | Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider of Financial Post on August 2913, asked Did Mark Carney make the best-timed job switch ever?
Mark Carney has been in office for barely over a month, and all the economic data is looking bright. The history books will show a remarkable rebound right as he assumed office. Brilliant timing. |
 | | November 2013, Mark Carney was forced to defend his forward guidance against criticism that the policy is ineffective.The Governor of the Bank of England told lawmakers that he and fellow policymakers were wary about official measures of investment in Britain. "We're not putting full weight on that data and it has to be said that it doesn't entirely feel right that investment is, as measured, falling at a time when we see continued strengthening investment intention,(...) I was much more comfortable with the data in Canada," Carney said. |
 | Bank of England chief Carney, the 'unreliable boyfriend' has left savers in a perilous situation
The Bank of England governor acted last month with what some saw as undue haste by halving interest rates to just 0.25 per cent. Now, building societies are following suit. Mr Carney insisted the emergency cut would save Britain from recession and soaring unemployment — just as our post-Brexit economy began firing on all cylinders. The dapper Canadian, dubbed the “Unreliable Boyfriend” by City cynics after repeatedly getting his forecasts wrong, infamously caused a Brexit storm with overblown warnings of economic doom. Many think he should have been sacked for stoking the very economic uncertainty he claimed an Out vote would cause. Now his impetuous rate cut has made life tougher for a generation brought up to believe thrift was good.-- Trevor Kavanagh, Sun Columnist 5th September 2016, |
 | Scotland voted decisively to stay in the United Kingdom by about 55% to 45%.
Prime minster Cameron promised draft legislation by the end of January 2015 on handing more powers over tax, spending and welfare to Scotland, which should had come into effect after the May 2015 general election. According to him: "Just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues, of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as the settlement for Scotland."
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 | Joep Bertrams, Dutch political cartoonist, 2016
With less than ten weeks before British referendum on the EU on 23 June, and with undecided voters still in huge numbers, David Cameron is having a hard time persuading his fellow citizens to vote "In", as the Panama papers leaks revealed British Prime minister and his family took advantage of an offshore fund owned by his late father. |
Brexit Referendum
 | The UK was to vote on whether to remain in the EU on Thursday 23 June, 2016. Prime Minister David Cameron made his historic announcement in Downing Street after briefing the cabinet. He said he would be campaigning to remain in a reformed EU - and described the vote as one of the biggest decisions "in our lifetimes".Mr Cameron claimed his EU reform deal will give Britain "special status" within the bloc - tackling concerns over migrants getting "something for nothing" from the benefit system and exempting the country from the EU drive for "ever-closer union". But critics argued it did nothing to tackle high levels of immigration or take back powers from Brussels. |
 | | So, Europeans stay at home ... and we stay in Europe. |
 | | British fine taste: - As usual the special sausage! |
 | Slovakia, June 26, 2016, Martin Stove
The United Kingdom's break with the European Union is an unprecedented "political earthquake" that sweeps away decades of diplomatic harmony and unravels a post-World War II dream of a unified voice to guarantee peace, economic prosperity and security.
After 43 years in European coalitions, the U.K. is parachuting out of a 28-nation bloc that is riven with divisions over the refugee crisis, weighed down with the Greek debt drama and relatively powerless in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. The EU is also weathering populist, far-right revolts among large swaths of its 500 million citizens in France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland.( Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, June 26, 2016) |
 | Slovakia, June 30, 2016, Marian Kamensky
The economic fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was swift and stark. The pound cratered to its lowest level in three decades. When the London Stock Exchange opened the next morning, its leading share index immediately fell by more than 8 percent, the largest single-day drop since the 2008 financial crisis. |
 | The world is looking at Britain and asking: What on Earth just happened? Those who run Britain are asking the same question. Never has there been a greater coalition of the establishment than that assembled by Prime Minister David Cameron for his referendum campaign to keep the U.K. in the European Union. There was almost every Westminster party leader, most of their troops and almost every trade union and employers’ federation. There were retired spy chiefs, historians, football clubs, national treasures like Stephen Hawking and divinities like Keira Knightley. And some global glamour too: President Barack Obama flew to London to do his bit, and Goldman Sachs opened its checkbook. And none of it worked. The opinion polls barely moved over the course of the campaign, and 52% of Britons voted to leave the EU. That slender majority was probably the biggest slap in the face ever delivered to the British establishment in the history of universal suffrage. [FRASER NELSON, The WSJ June 24, 2016, ] |
 | The Brexit vote will fuel concerns in Westminster that the future of the United Kingdom is now in serious doubt. The SNP warned during the campaign that if - as has happened - the UK overall voted to leave the EU but Scots voted to remain, Scotland would be taken out of the EU "against its will" and this could be the trigger for another independence vote. Senior SNP figures have said the vote shows Scotland sees its future in the EU and the issue of its own constitutional status could be revisited. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the issue is now back "on the table" while her predecessor Alex Salmond has gone further, saying a second vote could take place within the next two and a half years, depending on how long it takes the UK to depart. (...) There are also concerns in Northern Ireland about the implications of the Brexit vote for its relationship with the Republic of Ireland. Remain campaigners warned that a Brexit vote could herald the return of "hard" border controls between the North and South. The Irish government has said the future of the border is one of a number of priority issues in its contingency planning.[BBC] |
 | Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap U.K. general election in the hope of strengthening her hand in negotiations to take Britain out of the European Union. But that gamble has backfired: Rather than handing May a landslide victory, the election has left no party with a clear majority, throwing into doubt who will govern Britain. |
Jean Eiffel,"Acceptez vous de prendre pour mari et légitime époux?", L’Express, septembre 1958De Gaulle returned to power in 1958 thanks to the crisis of May 13. The crisis stemmed from the institutional weakness of the Fourth Republic, concentrating too much power in the parliament at the expense of the executive branch. As a result there were 24 governments in 12 years since the end of WWII. Meanwhile, the French army faced a daunting crisis due to the uprising of French Algeria. De Gaulle agreed to become President in exchange for constitutional reform
Fritz Behrendt, Algemeen Handelsblad, June 1962,The German cartoonist reflects on the the oversized ego of General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic.
Michael Cummings (1919-*), 'Anything to declare, gentlemen?', L'Aurore, July 1961.Paris customs officers Konrad Adenauer, German Chancellor, and Charles de Gaulle, French President, ask Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister who tries to smuggle the Commonwealth into the common market despite the warning: 'Common market: imports of special favours for the Commonwealth and agricultural protectionism forbidden.'
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The cartoonist, Spinga, legitimately asks if Bonapartism is not one of the characteristics of French politics. Obviously, there are differences between Gaullism and Bonapartism. De Gaulle did not attack the civil liberty (assaults on the freedom of the press had begun under the Fourth Republic during the war in Algeria). De Gaulle never introduced aggressive militarist strategy ( in fact, his most resolute opponents were senior army officers). Furthermore, De Gaulle never aimed at establishing an empire. Nevertheless, some elements of Bonapartism may be detected in the regime that he established in 1962. The Gaullists are supporters of a strong sovereign state. They like a planned economy and a centralized authoritarian state led by a charismatic and powerful leader such as Bonaparte or De Gaulle. |
 | General de Gaulle’s European policy, Ekö, 7 September 1960
Charles de Gaulle’s road to Europe: not together, but side by side.’ Following a press conference held on 5 September 1960, General de Gaulle is accused of rejecting supranationality as a means of unifying Europe; instead, he develops his idea of a Europe of states. To the right of the French President, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. |
William Elias Papas, The Guardian, May 1967,Charles de Gaulle's action plan towards the United Kingdom’s application for accession to the European Communities.
JAK, Raymond Jackson (1927 - 1997), Evening Standard, Dec. 1969"Well, for a start, Harold, can you do this?" French President Georges Pompidou and Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Lodge, Nevile Sidney, 1918-1989; Evening post (Newspaper. 1865-2002),1973'Pardon, Monsieur The President, but as he was leaving, the New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister scribbled on your front door!,' A disgruntled Deputy PM has been to visit Pompidou to protest nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific without success. To show his frustration, the visitor has changed the name on the door to President Bombido and the presidential aide is telling the president about the graffiti.
Fritz Behrendt, ‘A teaspoonful a day,’ 1974.The French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and the German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt's recommended dose of European Economic Community (EEC) medicine for the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson's ailment.
 | ‘Ludwig, why are you opposed to this union?", Hans Geisen, 1964
In January 1963, Konrad Adenauer signed the Franco-German friendship treaty with Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The "mystical communion" between the two old Catholics was strong, and both men shared the same political belief: Europe was no stronger than the bonds that linked France and Germany. It was a far-reaching treaty, unique for both countries in the kind of political machinery it set up.
However, a few months later Adenauer and his "German Gaullists" were gone, and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, an avowed Atlanticist, replaced Adenauer as party leader. He understood that France could not provide the protection the U.S. could, and noted the relative importance of America in the world economy, thus believed it would be best to stick with the Atlanticist approach. The Bundestag had added a preamble to the treaty that de Gaulle told Willy Brandt was a "personal offense," and the General, wearily, would remark that treaties, like young girls and roses, faded all too quickly. Erhard’s emphasis on the primacy of economics over concern for security and national interests first reflects a basic tenet of Atlanticist thought: the west is linked not just by common values and interests, but also by close economic ties that link the interests of countries in a way that makes a pure nationalist read on policy impossible. |
 | "After so many years ..." Hans Geisen, Swiss, 1980
President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt pursuit of a policy of rapprochement between France and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is represented as the growing relationship of the nascent collaboration of their predecessors, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles de Gaulle. |
 | Mirko Szewczuk, "Better holding Acheson's hand when Stalin is on the roof!", 1949
Dean Acheson was the first Secretary of State who visited the Federal Republic. He was Truman's Secretary of State, and he came here at the request of President Truman. It was extremely important and valuable for us that it was Dean Acheson, whom I esteem highly, who came at that time and the visit strengthened our morale profoundly. Adenauer Dean Acheson visited Adenauer shortly after the founding of the Federal Republic in November 1949. American policy aimed at integration of the Federal Republic in the Western world. Gradually will Adenauer revitalize the potentials of the Federal Republic. However, the cartoonist suggests that the East German Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl and the President of the Republic Wilhelm Pieck, acting as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's guard dogs, are the real threat. Otto Grotewohl began taking an active part in the revived Social Democratic Party of Germany after the defeat of the fascist regime in Germany. He fought for the unity of the German workers’ movement as a result of which the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Germany were united as the Socialist United Party in the eastern part of Germany. At the unification congress in April 1946, Grotewohl was elected to the Central Board of the Socialist United Party, and he and Wilhelm Pieck became its chairmen. After the proclamation of the German Democratic Republic on Oct. 7, 1949, he became the prime minister of the GDR. Wilhelm Pieck who had moved to Soviet controlled Germany after the Second World War, was elected President of the newly-established German Democratic Republic in 1949. He was part of the 1919 Spartakist rebellion, along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknechton, which had been crushed and most of its leaders were arrested and executed, but he was released unharmed, and remained active in the German Communist Party. |
 | | The formation of the European Common Market (composed of France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) in 1957 brought unprecedented prosperity to those countries. By 1962, 11 additional countries in Western Europe had applied to join. The Soviet Union and its East European satellites held aloof, but Valtman suggests that they may be viewing the development with considerable concern. Here Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) watches construction while his little dog (who resembles East German leader Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973)) strains at the leash. |
Plantu,‘I’ve even included a catalytic converter, just for you!’ , April 1985The French President, François Mitterrand tries to sweeten the deal for the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as part of his plan for the Eureka (European Research Coordination Agency) project, coordinating scientific and technological research at Community level .
Walter Hanel, "Welcome", 1993French President François Mitterrand and the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl are standing at the door to welcome the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the European Community, but the quality of life inside the house is not much different.
Steve Bell, Guardian, June 2004Jacques Chirac gently decried George Bush's plan to reform Arab states with free elections, independent media and improved legal systems. Democracy was not a commodity that could be exported. It had to be an Arab model of democracy not a western one.
Carlo Schneider, 2005On 4 March, President Jacques Chirac announced that France will hold its referendum on the European Constitution on 29 May 2005. Chirac’s statement came less than two weeks after the Spanish people had voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Constitution, albeit with a low turnout. Just a few days before the announcement of the French date, the Dutch government had decided to hold its consultative referendum on 1 June. Against the background of the Constitutional Treaty’s rejection in the referendums in France and the Netherlands in spring 2005, the referendum euphoria changed into a referendum phobia. All member states except of Ireland where a referendum was legally required decided to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon via the parliamentary procedure only.
Christo Komarnitski, Apologies to Delacroix, Sarkozy and Carla Bruni.
Carla Bruni- Sarkozy's wife claimed to journalist Nathalie Saint-Cricq that "Nous sommes des gens modestes". This invited ridicule in her bid to recast her husband Nicolas a “man of the people". According to Daily Telegraph reporter Henry Samuel; "The comment from the heiress to a tyre fortune who earned almost £5 million per year at the height of her catwalk fame has turned Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy into a laughing stock on the internet. One commentator on Le Monde’s website describing the claim as coming from “Marie Antoinette in Sarkoland.””.
Sarkozy's expulsion of Roma gypsies was a dark episode in the history of France. According to Libération: “France stands accused”. It stated that "the degraded image of Sarkozy’s France isn’t just an image. It’s a reality as reported day after day in the foreign press.”
 Dave Brown, The Independent 2012. Nicolas Sarkozy tried to exploit a Toulouse shootings in March to boost his chances of re-election and keep the focus on security.
Hagen, Verdens Gang - Oslo, Norway, 2012.
Sarkozy as the train bearer for the Miss France, who's no other than the far-right candidate Marine le Pen
After his electoral victory Francois Hollande went to Berlin to talk with Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel. He stated "I want growth to be not only a word, not just a word that can be uttered and followed by tangible acts in proof. The best method is to put everything on the table." and Merkel responded: "I am pleased that we have agreed on talking about the different ideas in terms of growth. And I'm not worried that we could not have common ground. Possibly we have some different opinions but I really look forward to our cooperation."
 | When al-Qaeda-linked insurgents who had took over the northern half of the Mali in 2012, and then in the early January 2013, moved farther south, imperilling the capital, Bamako, France’s Socialist president, François Hollande, who has been wary of throwing his weight around in his country’s former colonial domains, send troops to bolster Mali’s feeble and fractious administration . According to Economist:
Getting into a war is always easier than getting out. France therefore needs to limit its ambitions. ... Europeans and others should help with economic development and military training. But for the country to have a hope of working properly, Malians must also sort out their chaotic politics. A year ago, soldiers at the head of Mali’s ragged army overthrew an elected government. On paper, civilians are back in charge, but no one is sure who really pulls the strings. Outsiders can clear the way, but in the end it is the Malians who must mend Mali. |
 | Angela Merkel, is having dinner with French president, François Hollande, at Das Austerity Euro-Café. Austerity preaching Merkel is having a miniscule single sausage for dinner, while Hollande is enjoying a sumptuous repast and obviously ordering the most expensive wine from the list.
On January 2014, Didier Migaud, president of the independent Cour des Comptes body, warned that France faced a costly increase in its debt servicing costs once interest rates rise, as is likely when the economy begins recovering. "The level that's been reached has put our country in a danger zone," Migaud said. "Efforts undertaken so far are not sufficient to get out. What wasn't done in 2011, 2012 and 2013 only adds to the extra distance that will have to be travelled in the coming years," Migaud said. "This extra distance won't be the least demanding - quite the contrary." |
   Emmanuel Macron visited Washington in April 2018 that was dominated by differences with the United States over trade and the nuclear accord with Iran. Donald Trump gave his French counterpart a red carpet welcome at the White House. The media called them "An odd couple". According to Bloomberg: The world seems fascinated by the strikingly warm rapport between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron — one of those relationships that has many reaching for the cliched "bromance" label. Both men like to play up their friendship with long, vigorous hand-shakes and air kisses. They exchange endless smiling pleasantries and talk about how often they speak on the phone, like a cooing young couple. Chancellor Angela Merkel's Germany | Berlin was uneasy about Hollande's war. Experience has shown that those involved, no matter what their capacity, can quickly become enmeshed in war, said one source in the Merkel government. Germany feared that if the French meet more resistance from the Islamists than expected, Paris could request additional urgent military support from its partners. Such a situation would have placed Berlin in a difficult dilemma, having to choose between solidarity with France and its own declared unwillingness to become directly involved in the fighting. |
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Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany frequently stressed the limits of Germany’s powers to bail out other countries and rejected joint efforts like eurobonds to pool debt. Behind the scenes, however, Ms. Merkel was pressing allies in Paris, Rome and elsewhere to cede more power to Brussels over their national budgets before Germany would agree to provide further backing for efforts to bolster the euro zone.
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 | | Vive l’Independance Européenne! (Three Cheers for European Independence!), Plantu (Jean Plantureux), 2012 |
 | Exhibition Tour: small pointed compliant? Putin of Russia and Merkel of Germany in the bustling Hanover international trade-fair. the signs read; "Process automation control technology", and Hanover trade fair. Merkel says; "So here is the department 'short-process'... To which Putin thinks "Now she comes right back with 'Pussy Riot'.
In November 2012, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin clashed in Moscow over human rights and democracy as they struggled to show a united front amid rising criticism from Germany. Putin fired back at the visiting German Chancellor for raising questions about the imprisonment of the Pussy Riot protesters, suggesting she was poorly informed about the punk group's true nature. The exchange, at a Russian-German business forum in Moscow, came amid growing German criticism of Russia's human rights record and its moves to crack down on dissent.
Later in April 2013 when in Germany one of the world’s largest industrial exhibitions - Hannover Messe-2013 opened, Russian President laughed off a protest against him by topless women in Germany, joking that he liked what he had seen while sharply rebuffing German criticism of his human rights record. Merkel told Putin in a speech at the fair that Russia needed "an active civil society" including freedom for non-governmental organisations, after a wave of controversial state inspections of foreign-funded NGOs in Russia.
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 | Why Angela Merkel wins the election?
Chancellor Angela Merkel won a stunning, near-historic victory in Germany's elections in September 2013, with her Christian Democrat-led conservative bloc scoring 41.5 per cent of the vote to 25.7 per cent for the Social Democrats, her main rivals. Under Germany's mixed-member proportional electoral system, that left her five seats short of the first single-party absolute majority in the Bundestag in 50 years. |
 | I bet this is a friendship test, and the more you withstand, without defending yourselves, the more they respect you!
Now that a German intelligence official has been arrested under suspicion of passing secret information back to America – potentially concerning an NSA investigation, and reportedly under direction by the CIA – finally the Merkel government is admitting that the long honeymoon is over. Tap my cellphone, shame on you; fool me with a double agent, shame on an ignorant nation. (Malte Spitz in Berlin, the Guardian , Monday 7 July 2014) |
 | | It is so relaxing in China, You do not even deny that you're eavesdropping on me,so let's drop pleasantries and go straight into talking business! |
 | The group, which calls itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (and goes by the German acronym PEGIDA), demonstrates against economic migrants and a supposed "cultural foreign domination of our country" -- whatever is meant by that. Marian Kamensky is the editorial cartoonist for the switzerland satirical montly magazine Nebelspalter and Germany's satirical magazine Eulenspiegel and the US-Payboy.
What is going on in Germany, the world's second most popular destination for immigrants? Has the open-mindedness for which Germans had long been praised now ended? Are we seeing a return of the vague fear of being overwhelmed by immigrants that Germany experienced in the 1990s, when a hostel for asylum seekers was burned down? How large is the new right-wing movement, and will it remain limited to Dresden, or is it spreading nationwide?
So far, protests held under the PEGIDA label in under cities -- like Kassel and Würzburg -- have attracted only a few hundred people at a time. In fact, some of the protests attracted significantly larger numbers of counter-demonstrators. And while thousands of "patriotic Europeans" aim to take to the streets in Dresden again in the coming days, their counterparts in Germany's western states are taking a Christmas break. PEGIDA supporters are waiting until after the holidays to return to the streets in cities like Cologne, Düsseldorf and Unna. (The End of Tolerance? Anti-Muslim Movement Rattles Germany, By SPIEGEL Staff -December 21, 2014) |
 | - Are they supposed to be Germans? - Probably foreigners! |
 | | In 2017, La République En Marche, the new center-left party founded by the 39-year-old new president Emmanuel Macron, the youngest president in French history took over the parliament — giving him the actual power to govern |
 | Macron to Merkel, "I love older women."
From the start Macron positioned himself as a global player. He stood up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik news “agencies of influence and propaganda, lying propaganda,” while standing next to Putin at a press conference. He has positioned himself as Trump’s direct opponent on climate change, has made it very clear his allegiances lie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on international issues, and has cheekily presented France as a viable alternative for scientists and globalists seeking to escape Trump’s America.[Many cartoonists have tried to make fun of the fact thatMacron's wife is 65 to his 39, of which this is an example, which at least refers to a political message] |
 | Merkel as the Statue of Liberty, Heiko Sakurai, 2015
Merkel is holding a sign saying "We can do it!", while standing on a podium with the inscription "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." In 2015, in the climax of the refugee crisis, Merkel surprised the world by allowing nearly a million refugees into Germany |
 | | The German election, in September 2017, saw Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party lose ground to most rivals, particularly the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Marian Kamensky, Vienna |
European Debt Crisis
 | David Simonds, the Observer, Mario Draghi , Governor of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mark Carney (Governor of Bank of England) , Janet Yellen chair of Federal Reserve Board and Bank of Japan's Governor Haruhiko Kuroda are competing in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, 2014.
So let’s play central bank Strictly. The first one safely through to the next round is the US Federal Reserve. Always confident and assured, the Fed presides over an economy that is growing at 3% a year and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs every year. The judges were impressed at the elegant way it is planning to start raising rates next year.
Also through to the next round is the Bank of England. Threadneedle Street’s very own Anton du Beke, Mark Carney, has refused to be panicked into an early increase in interest rates and has been rewarded with a combination of robust growth, falling inflation and a cooling housing market.
The Bank of Japan is also through. In previous rounds, the judges have been critical of the BoJ’s hesitant performances and said Tokyo needed to start “going for it”. The improvement since the BoJ embraced aggressive quantitative easing has been obvious, although there is plenty of work still to be done.
Now for the first bank in this week’s dance-off: the central bank of Russia. Clearly, it has not been a good week for Moscow. The oil price is collapsing, and because energy accounts for 70% of Russia’s exports, that’s led to a dramatic fall in the rouble. A lower rouble means higher inflation and the threat of capital flight. The judges’ problem with the CBR is that it appears to be trying to do two dances at once: it can’t make up its mind whether it should be supporting the rouble or not. So it pushed up interest rates last week, but only by a percentage point; not enough to hold up the exchange rate. The upshot will be higher inflation and weaker growth: a dance disaster.
The other central bank in this week’s bottom two is the European Central Bank. Unlike the central bank of Russia, the ECB has been in the dance-off many times and is still struggling with its familiar problem: keeping time with the music. Week after week, the judges call for the ECB to raise the tempo, and their low scores reflect the fact that Frankfurt has yet to show it can jive as well as waltz.
Up until now, the ECB has been kept in the process because the viewers clearly like Mario Draghi. They go for his easy charm and are seduced by his promise that the ECB is practising new moves. By hinting that the ECB is about to embark on its own QE programme, Draghi has proved what you can do with a flash of leg.
But it’s all too little, too late. The eurozone is not growing and deflation looms. An election in Greece that brings to power the anti-austerity Syriza party threatens to reignite the euro crisis, and next time it could be terminal. By the time the ECB gets around to QE – assuming it ever does – bond yields in Greece, Italy and Portugal may well be going through the roof. The judges always say on Strictly that any one can be taught to dance. The ECB proves them wrong. (the Guardian, 14, December 2014) |
 | "Greece won't take orders any more, especially orders through emails," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told his left-wing parliamentary group, denying that he had returned empty-handed from a European tour.
In an apparent reference to the tough stance taken by the ECB and others, Tsipras said: "Greece cannot be blackmailed because democracy in Europe cannot be blackmailed."
The ECB's decision to stop accepting Greek bonds in return for funds shifted the burden onto Athens' central bank to finance its own banks, dealing a big setback to government efforts to buy time to negotiate a new debt deal. (Feb 5, 2015) |
 | Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government said it will not extend a bailout programme due to expire at the end of February 2015, and refused to cooperate with the so-called troika of international lenders. It also said it will reverse some unpopular measures imposed by foreign creditors and halt some privatisations, raise the minimum wage, rehire fired public sector workers and restore a bonus for poor pensioners.
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 | Exiting for utopia -- "not "Memorandum" but "Programme"; not "Troika" but "Committee"; not "Yiannis" but "Yanis"
Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis demanded for Greece to be awarded an emergency bridging loan to help keep the country afloat as it seeks to negotiate with the Troika.
In an ominous prelude to the showdown between Europe's largest creditor and its most indebted government, it was revealed that Wolfgang Schauble German finance minister refused a request from George Osborne to give Varoufakis his personal mobile phone number. Mr Varoufakis was in London for talks with the UK Chancellor earlier that week.
In a tense exchange, Schaeuble said Europe’s creditors had gone to the limit of what was “possible and reasonable” on Greece’s debt arrangements. “Yes we must respect Greek voters, but we must also respect the voters of other European countries,” said Mr Schauble. (February , 2015)
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 | "we insist on soap from your fat" ... "we are discussing fertilizer from your ashes",
The cartoonist of the leftist Greek newspaper Avgi depicts German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in a Nazi uniform. "I always uphold the principle of free speech, but on a very personal level I find this caricature offensive and the cartoonist should be ashamed," German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said during a press conference. (February 2015) |
 | The acclaimed Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Lattuf portrays Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras holding Greece in order not to collapse, as he is returning an envelop that reads “austerity” (crossed out) to an EU authority.- July 2015
Greeks voters overwhelmingly rejected austerity proposals from the country’s creditors - the ECB, EU and IMF - in a snap referendum called by the leftist Syriza government. "If the Greek government thinks it must hold a referendum, then let it hold a referendum," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble when he arrived at the eurozone finance ministers meeting on May 2015. He went on to add, "That might even be a helpful measure for the Greek people to decide whether it is ready to accept what is necessary, or whether it wants something different." After months of negotiations between Greece and its creditors over a deal to extend its bail-out programme, on June 26th Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, shocked his counterparts by terminating negotiations just days before the bail-out was due to expire and announcing he would put the matter to a referendum. |
 | A desperate Alexis Tsipras pledged to impose the very austerity measures which he urged his compatriots to reject in the Greek's referendum. His government has proposed a raft of budget cuts and tax rises in order to secure a new three-year rescue programme worth €75 billion (£53 billion). As he arrived for the meeting of finance ministers in Brussels , Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said the pledges of Greece’s government carried no credibility.
Members of his own party, Syriza, voted against the reform plan in parliament, with 17 lawmakers voted against the plan, abstained or were absent from the vote. This meant that although Mr Tsipras has an overwhelming majority in his parliament - of 251 votes out of 300 - he was forced to rely on other parties after failing to gain more than 151 votes from Syriza MPs.
According to Daily Telegraph" Less than a week after they triumphantly gave international creditors a bloody nose by rejecting a harsh austerity plan, angry and bewildered Greeks are left wondering how they now find themselves swallowing an even worse deal"
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 | In the end, Europe’s wealthy powers decided to grant Greece a new lifeline in exchange for new budget-cutting and tax-hiking measures, and Greece is slated to avoid a sudden banking collapse that would likely have forced it out of the 15-year-old currency pact. The agreement in Brussels Monday likely avoids not only an economy-crushing event but also a major reversal for 60 years of increasing European unity. But the story is far from over, with Greece in line for years of economic adjustment (read: pain), and many new doubts about the long-term potential of the euro zone and its capacity to turn the continent into the United States of Europe. Matt O’Brien The Washington Post, Jul 13 2015 |
Ukraine Crisis
 | Merkel and Hollande joined Poroshenko of Ukraine and Putin for a marathon negotiating session that began early on February 11th, 2015 evening and continued into the morning of 12th.
The summit discussions came as pro-Moscow separatists tightened the pressure on the Ukrainian government by launching some of the war's worst fighting, |
 | | "After 17 hours, negotiations in Minsk have finished: ceasefire from Feb. 15 at zero hours, then withdrawal of heavy weapons. Therein lies hope," Ms Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter. |
 | | The deal reached in the Belarussian capital included a ceasefire that would come into effect on 15 February, followed by the withdrawal of heavy weapons. |
 | | Uluschak, Edd: ROCKET CAPABILITY WORLD WAR III “Deal me in!” (April 29, 1970) |
 | Edd Uluschak, "Funny, you don't look like a decadent, warmongering, depraved imperialist, capitalist dog." "Yes, but would you buy a used rick-shaw from him?"February 21, 1972
In the mid-1960s, having failed to win either the presidency or the governorship of California, Richard Nixon had ample time to think about international relations, his primary policy interest. Like most China specialists, he concluded that the United States should end its efforts to isolate China. After winning the presidential election, Nixon's initial overtures to Chinese leaders won a favorable reception. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was burning out, and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai were uneasy about what they perceived as the rising Soviet threat. The invitation they issued to their suitors from Washington indicated that a high-level mission to China would be welcomed -- provided the Americans understood that resolution of differences over Taiwan would be the price of rapprochement.. |
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