China's Great Wall of Steel

"It is necessary to speak to invaders in the language they know."

"That is, a war must be fought to deter invasion, and a victory is needed to win peace and respect." 

Chinese President Xi Jinping 

 

"The strategic takeaway for China is pretty simple."

"Don't assume your adversaries will pay by the rules. They may strike without warning, and they may do whatever it takes, ignoring both the results of the game and the rules of war."

Song Zonping, former Chinese military officer 

Smoke plumes rise following missile strikes in Tehran on 1 March 2026. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

 

"On 28 February, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) Fu Cong pointed out at a UN meeting that the US and Israel had brazenly launched military strikes against targets inside Iran, causing a sudden escalation of regional tensions. He added that China is deeply concerned about this development, and that China consistently advocates that all parties should abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and opposes and condemns the use or threat of force in international relations." 

"Though Fu said that the US and Israeli strikes on Iran had led to a sudden escalation in the regional situation, he too avoided using the word “condemn”. In contrast, Russia’s foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the US and Israel for launching “a preplanned and unprovoked act of armed aggression” against Iran, which violated “fundamental principles and norms of international law”."

Yu Zeyuan, Think China   

While China may be a trifle more circumspect in its reaction to the U.S.-Israel joint attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran,than Russia, both allies of the Islamic Republic, condemnation in whatever form it takes is rather absurd in light of China's constant harassment and threats against Taiwan, with its intention of 

'unification', clearly against the breakaway republic's best interests and in view of China having flouted international law in Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang. As for Russia's characterization of the U.S.-Israel's 'preplanned and unprovoked act of armed aggression', that fairly well describes Russia's annexation of Crimea and full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

 

Xi Jinping's strategy of warning his population against America's aspirations of world dominance by armed force has been nicely validated, in his view, by recent events. Previous U.S. interventions in conflict areas around the world motivated Mr. Xi to direct his military elite of the necessity to construct a world-class military for China to perform the function of a "Great wall of Steel" as a deterrent to any potential invasion plans by the United States of America. This, while Beijing continues to threaten its near neighbours in its drive toward control of strategic water, air and ground; contested areas where it seeks dominance.

 

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping react after posing for photos ahead of a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025, in Busan, South Korea. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

There can be no doubt that the spectre of raw-brute American military forces reaching out to challenge the Iranian regime and in the process summarily decapitating its executive head, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may have caused a certain amount of heartburn in Beijing. Despite practical assurances that the U.S. would never assume that a similar type of attack might succeed in China, a global powerhouse rivalling that of the U.S. According to political scientist Zheng Yongnian of Hong Kong's Chinese University, the U.S. manipulated Israel to serve as a conduit for war with Iran.

 

"Beijing now sees more clearly the extent of American capabilities", leading it to take a "sober look at the balance of power", offered Shen Dingli, international relations expert in Shanghai. The People's Liberation Army posted a graphic on social media listing lessons from the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran; stressing the importance of 'superior firepower'. China must guard against 'the enemy within' topped the military's list, in reference to the concerns over foreign spying ... of which just incidentally, China itself has become extraordinarily skilled at, in other countries worldwide. 

 

According to Chinese analysts, the United States has emerged as a more unpredictable and dangerous challenger to China's own aspirations, making it imperative that China become increasingly vigilant. "The decision to strike while talks were underway conveys a disturbing precedent: Diplomacy is not a forum for sovereign equals but an instrument subject to the whims of the dominant power", an editorial in Chinese state media pointed out. Perhaps somewhat akin to China's own use of its very own special 'hostage diplomacy'.

 

The EuroAsian Times

 

"From Beijing's perspective, the United States may frame its actions as a pursuit of peace, but what it really offers is peace through domination or containment."

"Xi doesn't want that for China. He wants peace through Chinese victory."

Kirsten Asdal, Asdal Advisory Group 

It'll Take Awhile To Live This One Down : Learning On The Job

"[The uproar] represents a] co-ordinated effort to distract from the successful actions taken by President Trump and his administration to make America's enemies pay and keep Americans safe."

White House statement 

"[The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg is] deceitful, [a] discredited so-called journalist."

"Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say about that."

Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth 

"[It was] the only glitch in two months [of his administration]."

"Michael Waltz has learned a lesson and he's a good man."

"It was one of Michael's people [staffer] on the phone. A staffer had his [Goldberg's] number on there."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

 

"In the amazing story of the Signal group coordinating Yemen airstrikes, Vice-resident J.D. Vance once again comes out as driven by deep anti-European resentment."

Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt

 

"U.S. Vice-President and Secretary of Defense loathe Europe [as they try to extort money out of it]."

Mike Martin British Parliamentarian

At the White House on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said his critics were inflating the incident. “They’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” he said.  Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Quite obviously that old self-help book "How to make Friends and Influence People" is not a go-to tract in the White House library to which old diplomatic hands can refer new White House personnel and elected officials to, for the efficacy of putting their best foot forward when dealing with friendly nations. The members of the Trump administration appear to share a deep-seated hostility toward just about all the member-democracies of NATO and the G7 nations. Evidently stemming from the burden that Europe and other democratic allies place upon the United States as the most powerful country on the globe, to ensure security for all.

 

In all fairness, it wasn't Europe that imposed this burden on the United States. This is a holdover from World War II when Europe was under attack by Nazi Germany and its Axis members in a brutal conflict that the entry of the United States for the Allied side turned the tide after Imperial Japan, part of the Nazi Axis, had attacked Pearl Harbour in an act of war. The American military involvement in stemming the  tide of fascism and eventually ending the war with the world's only nuclear strikes, resulted in the acknowledgement of its singular status as the world's policeman. A role that the U.S. was pleased to take up, cementing its legacy as world power without equal.

 

That status appears to have grown stale; the U.S. is fed up with being taken for granted, for being the shield that protects other internationally law-abiding nations from harm threatened by those countries of the world for which territorial expansion through force of arms and conflicting ideological roots create chaos and war. Now, under the second Trump administration, the message was sent that all countries formerly dependent on the protection canopy of the U.S. had better shore up their own defences for the burden will no longer be accepted by the United States of America.

 

An America that is prepared to react militarily only when it perceives threats aimed directly toward it.  And since the Houthi rebels in Yemen have complicated international marine traffic, and threatened both the U.S. and Israel (which Washington deems deserving of a place under its canopy), just as its sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a close looming threat with its nuclear and rocketry development, itself earning close scrutiny and threats, the American military has been ordered to disable the Houthi war machinery and by extension the nuclear plans of Iran.

 

Atlantic editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in 2023. Credit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

An inadvertent, and quite amateurish online meeting on the Signal platform between Trump associates and Cabinet members saw the erroneous inclusion of The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg who was by inclusion made privy to the strategic military plans. As a journalist his first instinct was to use the data he was exposed to, once the initial shock of receiving it had passed. And as he published the timeline of the almost comedic misadventure, the shock to the public, the news media, and the political opposition was that of outrage at the sheer clumsiness of making sensitive plans available through sheer sloppiness.

 

From the European perspective, however, it was the revelation of senior executive Cabinet members sneering at Europe that drew the most attention. President Trump's inner circle shares his contempt for Europe's leaders, are wholly sympathetic to the president's decision to downgrade relations with embattled Ukraine, while make friendly overtures to Moscow. When the U.S. spurned Europe's fears of Vladimir Putin's outright threats to the stability of eastern Europe through his annexation of a fifth of Ukrainian territory, NATO members reeled in disbelief.

 

As for the documents revealed through an inadequate lapse of intelligent judgement, retired French Army Lt. Gen. Michel Yakovleff with his own history at NATO headquarters, described the U.S. officials involved in the debacle as "a bunch of incompetent, arrogant idiots" with "no clue" about operational security. "When you have that level of incompetence, anything is possible", he stated.

 

European leaders were stung by the revelation through the Signal chat that JD Vance questioned whether the U.S. expending military assets on securing nearby shipping lanes would be just another example of "bailing Europe out again". To which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replied: "I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's PATHETIC." 

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stands by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 21, 2025. Photo by Carlos Barria/REUTERS

Canada, Bringing Up The Rear On COVID Vaccinations

"The slow arrival of COVID-19 vaccines is the latest setback for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in confronting the biggest challenge of his political career. His overarching responsibility is to reduce the number of infections and mortality from the pandemic and mitigate its devastating impact on the economy."

"Tragically for the country, that delay extends the time Canadians are at risk of exposure, illness and death."

Joe Oliver, former Canadian Minister of Finance and of Natural Resources

Nurse Venus Lucero administers the first Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Ottawa Hospital to Jo-Anne Miner at a vaccination clinic, Tuesday December 15, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 

Justin Trudeau may have lingering memories of his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau opening up to China in 1968 that has led him -- much as he recalls his own visits as a toddler with his parents going to Cuba -- viewing both countries with affection. Trudeau the elder had a fondness for 'socialism' and  his son appears to harbour a fascinate wonder -- let's call it curiosity with a bit of envy thrown in -- for dictatorships. He once, before becoming leader of the Liberal Party and ultimately the country's current prime minister, expressed his admiration for China's 'basic dictatorship', capable of 'turning on a dime'.

Pierre Trudeau gets a little assistance with his chopsticks from Chinese premier Chou En-Lai during a meal in China in an October, 1973, visit to mainland China.

China, with its immense population and huge business opportunities in trade and investment, in fact, seems to fascinate the Liberal Party of Canada altogether. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien went to great ends, embarking on huge trade missions to China, forging personal 'friendships' with business leaders in China, and using those invaluable contacts when he retired from public life and joined a high-powered legal firm where he could boast of his contacts, and bring along corporate leaders in private business delegations to China. His influence no doubt resonated with Trudeau junior.

Canada's more current and less felicitous entanglements with China have turned the relationship beyond frosty, with Beijing making use of diplomatic hostage-taking of Canadian citizens to emphasize its displeasure that Canada has taken the CFO of Huawei Technologies into custody on the basis of an extradition request by the United States. Relations between the two countries have plummeted to a new low, Beijing slinging crude insults and threats and the Trudeau government fearing to state unequivocally that Huawei will not be involved in Canada's 5G upgrade as part of the Five Eyes Intelligence group.

Despite this toxic background, the prime minister still saw fit to sign an agreement with CanSino Biologics based in Tianjin, for joint cooperation on a COVID vaccine, with Canada's National Research Council. An agreement that collapsed ultimately when authorities in China refused to permit vaccine samples to be exported to Canada for testing as agreed upon. This was Canada placing its eggs in the wrong basket. And then playing catch-up by belatedly contracting for vaccines being produced by British and American pharmaceuticals.

 

Paramedics transport a resident from Midland Gardens Care Community in Toronto on Jan. 5. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

Not to be forgotten was the Liberal government's generosity in ransacking the nation's own short supplies of PPE in sympathy with China's efforts to control its first wave of the novel coronavirus, sending those supplies off to China. When it soon afterward came Canada's turn to discover first-hand what it was like to face PPE shortages at a time of infectious chaos within the Canadian population, orders were placed with Chinese manufacturers of PPE, and though the initial shipments were held back by Chinese authorities, when later shipments did arrive, they were discovered to be faulty and useless.

When the Trudeau government finally realized it must source vaccines elsewhere than with its agreement in co-developing a vaccine with a Chinese pharmaceutical company which had links with the People's Liberation Army, it found itself at the tail end of a line-up of countries anxious to secure vaccines for their own populations. And that's when it went overboard, to contract with a number of pharmaceutical companies and in total secured access to 414 vaccines, vastly exceeding the numbers required for a population of 38 million people. 

That having been accomplished, by the end of January the country plans to be in the position to have on hand sufficient vaccines to inoculate roughly two percent of the population. Compare that with 13 percent in the U.S. and 22 percent in Israel. By early April the United Kingdom expects it will have successfully vaccinated its entire population -- while Israel which has completed a million vaccinations expects to have completed inoculating its entire population of nine million by March at the very latest.

 

The first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are delivered to the Maimonides CHSLD, Monday, December 14, 2020 in Montreal. The long-term care facility is slated to be one of the first in Canada to administer the vaccine. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

"In Canada, we have military generals in charge of our rollout, but they don’t seem to have much sway."

"We rushed to get the first vaccines into health workers and elders because that made for good photo opportunities. But getting the subsequent vaccines to more people seems to have been treated with shocking lassitude."

"There is nothing more symbolic of this disdain than the fact that Canadian politicians were sunning themselves in places such as Hawaii, St. Barts and Barbados while vaccines languished in freezers back home. What’s unfortunate, however, is that the antics of scofflaw politicians have generated far more media attention than the slow vaccine rollout that will ultimately cost lives."

Andre Picard, The Globe and Mail

“You DON'T Gotta Eat Here...especially not twice!”

SOOO I convinced my family to give it a try for my sister's 18th birthday dinner. The 8 of us were seated and a highchair was provided for my 16-month-old son. The highchair was F-I-L-T-H-Y! We hadn't been greeted by our waitress yet so we asked a waiter from another section to come clean or replace the chair. He brought a new chair...that just as dirty lol. My mom politely asked that he wipe it down with a cloth. Thank you, kind sir, for doing so. We were greeted by our waitress, who was, yup...the same darn waitress my husband and I had a week prior! I thought, maybe she was just having a bad night last Friday as well....I thought wrong. Drink orders were taken...it was10 minutes before they made it to the table and she forgot 2 of them...another 5 minutes for those. Then we sat...and we waited....and glasses got empty and orders weren't taken. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was a whole 1/2 hour period when our waitress didn't come by our table at all! When she was finally ready to take our food orders, we skipped the appetizers and went straight for main courses. Everyone ordered something different - pulled pork, ribs, brisket, chicken...classic Southern fare. My son has an allergy so I asked the waitress to consult with the chef about the chicken fingers. She proceeded to argue with me about whether or not there may be dairy in them. Rather than just ask the chef herself; very unprofessional. While most restaurants are not able to guarantee an allergen-free environment, all of them ar able to provide a list of ingredients. That is all I wanted...but I got attitude instead. I was not the only one to get attitude either, my dad asked for a pitcher of ice tea for the table and she replied (and I quote) "Just hold on a sec" as she waved her finger at him! The food finally came and 3 out of 8orders were wrong...either the wrong bbq sauce, wrong side dishes (like beans instead of cornbread). There was no butter or ketchup on the table, replacements for incorrect orders took WAY too long...and overall there were alot of LONG faces at the table. But atleast there was live entertainment - a drunk (yes DRUNK) woman wearing a D&S t-shirt, stumbling around the restaurant...O-M-G!

D_S_Southern_Comfort_BBQ-Ottawa_Ontario.html# Review by J_FoodLover_11

So really, after a rant like that, the second displeasured review written of the same food establishment, why on Earth would anyone return only to find themselves in the very same situation over again? Glutton for punishment? Willing to give an erring server and food establishment a second chance? Who knows! Spelling and syntax errors aside, it made for an amusing read, if somewhat puzzling for the stated reason that anyone who would return to a restaurant that so spectacularly failed their expectations first time around must either have a short memory or couldn't be bothered finding an alternative.

To that anyone sensible might respond indeed OMG!

But restaurateurs themselves appear to be in a state of revolt in response to customers' entitled expectations, it seems. Consider that dentists and doctors and other service providers of health aid will charge clients who fail to live up to their obligations to appear on schedule for appointments, but what recourse do restaurants have when, having booked a table well in advance, those scheduling the reservation fail to appear and the restaurant is left in the lurch? Which explains why many no longer take reservations. Patrons must appear and wait to be seated.

And those diners who think they can peruse a menu and, finding nothing they deem attractive enough to order on it, persuadingly convince the server and the chef to accommodate them by providing an alternative plate, while succeeding in the past, are no longer capable of doing so. It's not necessarily that the chef is rigidly immovable in declining to provide anything not advertised, but that this kind of accommodation transcends by a good degree the customary offering of a range of dishes appealing to diners yet expecting the chef to focus on their particular taste as a polite obligation to commerce.

And is it not rather unreasonable when a customer, dining alone, finds the table they've been escorted to uncongenial to their seating preference, and insists instead in being seated at a customer-empty table set for eight? Where once a restaurant might graciously have opted to move that diner to the eight-seating table, they've now opted-out. It seems the profit margin is not that great to accommodate the need to change a tablecloth on a large table that has serviced one picky diner.

The moral of this story might lie in the morale that sagged with frustration over bending into pretzels to satisfy a clientele for whom no efforts at accommodation are quite sufficient. And now restaurateurs appear to be declaring by their unwillingness to continue being manipulated by fastidiously entitled diners whose wishes go beyond inconveniencing a business, that what you see is what you get. 

The food establishment is in the business to make a profit. And while servicing the customer's wishes can be performed to a degree, it has its limits. And if the restaurant now rejects payment by credit card that too obviously is a rejection of a taken-for-granted payment process that it deems inconvenient and costly to itself. That, and the assertive declaration that separate bills for friends sharing a table and ordering separately, is entirely too much trouble; one bill is to suffice, and use a little math to figure out who owes what. 

Singapore, food court, Shoppers in Marina   123RF

Displaying Bigotry -- Paying the Price

"[Cruise staff] were very elusive. They said they got an email from the immigration department in Tunisia stating Israelis were not allowed to get off the ship. They were not given any reason why Israelis were not allowed off the ship -- they indicated that in previous months when they had been to Tunisia, Israelis were allowed to get off -- and that they didn't know why this was happening."
Canadian Ed Glina, Norwegian Jade cruise ship passenger

norwegian cruise lines

Mr. Glina, a Canadian citizen, was incensed enough over the incident that he chose to remain behind, on board the cruise ship in company with the dozen Israelis refused permission to enter the Muslim country. In so doing he was expressing his humanity, and exhibiting in fine fashion the stance his country takes in facing religious bigotry, and in particular that very special bigotry called anti-Semitism, that blights human relations.

Tunisia was, before its 'Arab Spring' revolution -- the North African country that was the first to be subjected to mass protests succeeding in bringing down its former corrupt government -- a socially free and cosmopolitan society. Where a small number of Tunisian Jews still live, but became extremely concerned when the old government fell and the new one entered; 'moderately' Islamist, the media gushes. But one that imposes new 'values' on its society.

It is a country where Jews once lived in abundance, where they had lived for over a thousand years, under Muslim rule and where tolerance evaporated once the State of Israel became a reality, when Tunisian Jews, like those from countries all over North Africa and the Middle East were banished, their properties appropriated by the state without recompense. Jews are accustomed to living on tenterhooks. But, like any other individuals, they too seek out holiday opportunities.

Cruise officials on the Norwegian Jade left voice mails for Israeli passengers giving warning against disembarking at the port in Tunis. When they complained to the captain, they were advised that there was nothing that could be done about the situation. The Norwegian cruise company spoke to Tunisian officials but nothing came of their overtures.

"The singling out of Israeli citizens in this manner is concerning and inconsistent with principles of openness, tolerance and religious freedom that are enshrined in Tunisia's new progressive constitution", Adam Hodge, press secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird wrote, in a statement.

"The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development is working closely with Canada's embassy in Tunisia to determine the reason for this refusal. Canada's ambassador in Tunisia has registered Canada's concerns about this incident to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the Interior Ministry. Neither ministry was aware of any new Tunisian policy concerning Israeli tourists seeking to enter Tunisia."

Over a dozen Middle East and North African countries will not permit entry to Israeli citizens, while a handful refuse entry to any tourists of any nationality who may have an Israeli stamp on their travel documents. Prior to the Arab Spring event Israelis often went off on holidays to Tunisia. That was the old Tunisia; this is the new, liberated Tunisia.

"For me, it was a surprise because we were coming here because we wanted to be in Tunis", said Yaacov Zacharia, 67, one of the Israeli passengers. He had never before found himself in such a situation. He found the ship's staff polite. The passengers had met with the captain, and he too was kind, but no solutions were to be found.

Mr. Glina gave his opinion that the ship's captain should have chosen a friendlier port. Alternatively the captain could have made a general announcement to the entire passenger list. "We understand that there are a lot of politics involved but our position with the captain was that he was colluding with a selection process that was unacceptable."

Evidently the cruise ship line may think so too.  They have cancelled all visits to Tunis. Norwegian Cruise Lines announced the cancellation of all future visits to the North African port, and have asserted they have no intention of returning. "We want to send a strong message to Tunisia, and ports around the world that we will not tolerate such random acts of discrimination against our guests", announced Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian Cruise Line's CEO.

"We are outraged by this act and the fact that we were not notified in advance of this practise." A day before the ship's scheduled arrival in La Goulette, Tunis on Sunday they were informed that no Israeli passengers would be permitted to disembark.

Bravo, Norwegian Cruise Line.

  Spot the difference? Michelle Obama’s dress gets Iranian photoshop restyle

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Now you see it, now you don't: What Michelle Obama wore at the Oscars (left), and what Iranians were made to think she wore (right). (AFP)

 

inShare

By AL ARABIYA

It’s not a game of spot the difference, though it would be an easy one to figure out if it were.

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama was given a quick makeover by Iranian media on Monday, during her appearance at the Oscars.

Her shoulders and chest area were covered up by a speedy photoshop snip of her Oscars dress while she appeared at the ceremony via a video link from the White House to announce that Iranian hostage thriller “Argo” had won best picture.

The Iranian audience watching the live broadcast was shown the “Iranian redesign” of Michelle’s dress, with the censor made to conform to the country’s restrictions on images of the female body in the media.

Fars, which is affiliated to the Islamic republic's elite Revolutionary Guards, changed the U.S. first lady's dress to stand by rules stipulating that Iranian women shown on Iran's state television should have a hijab that covers their hair, arms and legs.

“The length of the censor's ruler varies for foreigners. A foreign woman travelling inside the Islamic republic should comply with the same restriction on Iranian women, but those shown on TV, such as dignitaries or actors, are tolerated without the hijab, up to a point. Men enjoy relatively more freedom, but only sportsmen are allowed to be shown with bare legs on TV,” the Guardian reported on Monday.

“When Iranian media are obliged to use a picture that contravenes these rules, it is not unusual for Photoshop to come to their rescue,” the report added, noting that the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton has also fallen victim to similar Photoshop redesigning on Iranian television.

Meanwhile, Iran's state television was quick to dismiss Argo as an "advertisement for the CIA" and some Iranians called the award a political statement by America for its unflattering portrayal of the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

State television also said Michelle’s involvement "increases speculation that awarding this movie was politically motivated."

Argo has not appeared in any Iranian cinema.

The age of Obama

Time roughs up presidents. Photos of Barack Obama on Election Night 2008 look like they were taken much longer ago. Now his face has deeper creases and crow’s feet, while his hair has turned white. “You look at the picture when they’re inaugurated and four years later, they’re visibly older,” said Connie Mariano, White House physician from 1992 to 2001. “It’s like they went in a time machine and fast-forwarded eight years in the span of four years.”

By Ned Martel, May-Ying Lam, Grace Koerber and Kat Downs

Dec. 2012  The Washington Post

Jan. 2009

Watch Obama change during his four years in office  Click play to watch a one-minute timelapse of photographs of the President

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Why presidents age quickly

Presidents face unabated, unfathomable stress. “You see it over a term,” said Ronan Factora, a physician specializing in geriatric medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s a good study of chronic stress on a person’s overall health.”

Obama and his national security team monitor the hit on Osama bin Laden. (Pete Souza/White House; Photo altered to obscure a classified document.)

Changes in skin or hair are gradual, he said. “If you do have a stressful event, nothing is going to happen right away.” Nothing visible anyway. Inside the body, the pituitary gland jolts the adrenal gland, just above the kidneys. Hormones start coursing. Adrenaline cranks up heart rates and blood pressure. Cortisol, another hormone from the same gland, causes inflammation and preps the body for converting sugars into energy. 

“It’s not intended that people would be chronically exposed to these levels,” said Sherita Golden, a physician at the Johns Hopkins Medical Bloomberg School of Public Health. Cortisol strains the circulatory system, battering artery walls. The hormone also thins the skin, makes muscles waste and bones lose mass. The immune system weakens, and viruses that cause colds and cold sores take hold. Sleep turns fitful. 

“Your cognition slows, you may feel more depressed, your ability to concentrate goes down,” Factora said. “And it just builds on itself — a real cascade.”

The only known cure

There is one known treatment: exercise. “It is the best benefit a physician can recommend,” Factora said. “There is no drug that can present as many benefits as exercise can.”

Obama plays basketball during his 2008 campaign. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Obama is a fiend for exercise. In hour-long workouts, he has been known to hit treadmills hard, weight train with arms and legs, build quickness through “plyos” or plyometrics — exercises that involve explosive movements. He also throws footballs, shoots basketballs and thwacks at golf balls.

His predecessors exercised, too, some of them fiercely. George W. Bush ran till his aging knees made cycling a better option. Presidents Carter and Bill Clinton jogged, while Ronald Reagan rode horses and split logs with such vigor, he once cut his thigh. President Gerald Ford performed a daily exercise regimen while still in his robe and PJs. 

Good exercise leads to better thinking, brain-mapping has shown. “Exercise actually brings more blood flow,” explained Linda Fried, an epidemiologist and geriatrician at Columbia University. “Parts of the brain are activated and they’re associated with complex thinking and problem-solving.” Workouts also force a president to — truly, finally, deeply — rest. Only then can the relaxed brain start to make creative associations.

Infirmity and vice

The job has compounded certain human frailties. Most famous perhaps is the lethal case of pneumonia that 68-year-old William Henry Harrison caught at his inauguration. Woodrow Wilson’s stroke certainly limited his leadership of the country, and Franklin D. Roosevelt worked around the problems related to his polio more ably than might have been expected.

But daily habits also affect presidential well-being in lesser-known ways. Dwight D. Eisenhower was so dedicated to his form of exercise that he played 800 rounds of 18 holes over eight years as president, according to Evan Thomas, the author of “Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World.” Then, in 1955, Eisenhower had a heart attack, and two years later, a stroke. Intestinal surgery came in between, all as he was staving off nuclear war and realigning Southeast Asia.

“Toward the end,” Thomas said, “he was taking an extra sleeping pill at night” — the powerful, old-school kind, with barbiturates. And that was on top of a nightly scotch, never more than five ounces, except when it was, Thomas said. “A couple of times he says to his doctor, ‘Let’s get drunk.’”

To the best of the public’s knowledge, recent presidents have not exacerbated their stress through bad behaviors such as drinking. Obama, however, confirmed that he had to kick a cigarette habit of unknown intensity at some midpoint in his first term.

The side effects of smoking might show up as those lines in his face, the doctors said. While sun exposure can also make a face look withered, Obama’s darker skin has melanin to alleviate UV ray damage. That same coloring, however, can make his white hair look more pronounced.

A special lot

Obama had a fitness test on Jan. 12, and the White House said the results would be released by February. His previous physical was in October 2011; it showed that he had added one pound since his February 2010 physical (his 2011 weight: 181, very good for a man who was then 50 and 6-foot-1).

Like all presidents since 1992, Obama has been under constant medical watch: a military physician is on hand wherever a president goes. Burton Lee,whom the first President Bush brought to the White House to monitor his health, agreed with Mariano that presidents are a special lot. They push their bodies and minds, and thus they develop a greater capacity to fight off infection. They shake enough hands to fell a lesser creature, he said. 

But the mental intrusions — the sense that someone needs something from the president every moment of every day — are as insidious as the germs. “It’s just a phenomenally demanding job,” he said. “You never get one minute off.”

Despite the extraordinary stress levels, many recent presidents have lived well beyond normal life expectancy. Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford died at 93; Jimmy Carter and the George H.W. Bush are 88. Doctors are coming to understand that stress may have an upside. “Human beings need some degree of stress to keep their systems tuned,” Fried said. “Some people enjoy the stimulation of it and the excitement and couldn’t live without it.” 

Plus, human minds literally seek reasons to live. “Many people, as they get older, deeply care about future generations and the world’s survival,” Fried said. “If they have a chance to make a difference, that keeps people healthy.” 

2009

2001

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s Texas governor, George W. Bush was an avid runner, and sometimes invited journalists to pant alongside. But as president, Bush's knees literally got weak, and mountain biking became a better option, always on agent-protected terrain like his ranch in Crawford, Texas, or the Secret Service training site in Greenbelt. A teetotaler, the president went to bed early and exercised often, which helped stave off stress. Between meals, as a candidate, Bush famously chomped Cheetos, and as president, never lost his hankering for good Tex-Mex cooking.

1997

1993

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On many occasions, Bill Clinton's physician found it difficult to determine whether he was super-stressed or full-on infirm. They proved the two basic conditions of presidential life.
“We were worried about Clinton when he was being impeached,” she recalled. “He looked like he had it all together, but we worried.” All she and her colleagues could do was ask; all he would say was “I’m tired.”

Mariano could still clearly envision both the first President Bush and Clinton pushing on, with bags under their eyes, to the next campaign event. “One factor Bill Clinton had in his favor: he could power-nap,” she said. When his helicopter went up, his eyelids would go down. Then upon landing, he announce, “OK, I’m ready! Showtime!”

After a bout of heart disease, cardiac surgery and a new commitment to vegan dieting, Clinton has regained strength — if not weight. Doctors were hesitant to attribute his ailment to all that cortisol damaging his circulatory system. “We don’t have a genetic twin of President Clinton,” said Factora, and that twin would have to rest for the eight years Clinton did not in order to qualify as an experimental control.

1993

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The first President Bush didn’t just work out, he worked out vigorously,” said his physician Lee, citing four-mile runs and ball games with Marines at Camp David. Once he even played tennis with Pete Sampras. “He broke the Stairmaster at Camp David, he pounded it till it didn’t work,” Lee recalled. “If I’m on it for five minutes, you have to take me out on a stretcher.”

Like appearance, endurance is highly individual; one person crumbles in circumstances where another thrives. Plus, what one person actively avoids, another embraces. “The one thing I noticed is that presidents have very unusual personalities,” Lee said. “Each is a different person, but for all, there is no easy day.”

While abstemious in an era when other statesmen chain-smoked cigars, Abraham Lincoln saw his legendary strength dwindle. At the start, the hale president was an able horseman who wrestled soldiers and challenged them to strength tests. One such test required a three-foot axe to be held out from his body with one hand, which is much harder than it sounds, said David Von Drehle, the author of “Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year.”.

By the time of his death, the president had been wracked by insomnia and lost interest in food. He arrived at the White House as a sinewy 6-foot-4, 180-pound strongman. In the course of four years, he dropped 30 pounds. “He was sunken-eyed and grizzled, nothing like that bright-eyed lawyer of Springfield,” said Von Drehle. Lincoln sat for a famous series of portraits, and “by the last set of photographs, he looks 75 years old, but he’s 56.”

PHOTOS: Washington Post staff, Associated Press and AFP/Getty Images.

 Diplomatic Impunity?

"She was really sad. She really likes me. She said: 'Mark, don't worry about anything, I'll compensate you for your time off and everything'. She felt really bad. She had never seen her dog fall in love with somebody as quick as (with) me."
"I said: 'Milou, Milou. How's it going?' He's wagging his tail, he's all happy. I get down on one knee. "I was about to pet him and he friggin' locks onto my hand. ...I swung him once or twice while I was on one knee. ...I got up while I was still swinging him, and that's when I swung him into the wall and banged him. That's when he let go.
"It went so quick. I was so pumped. My adrenalin was so wild."
 Mark Liboiron

The 25-kilogram golden retriever Milou must have forgotten his unusual love for Mr. Liboiron, someone whose presence the dog had become familiar with, while renovations were taking place at the official residence in Rockcliffe Park of the newly-assigned German ambassador and his wife.  The contractor for whom Mr. Liboiron worked as a carpenter had been loathe to  contact Ontario's Workers Safety and Insurance Board.

Particularly as Mr. Liboiron had assured his employer that Ambassador Werner Wnendt and his good wife Eleanore had assured Mr. Liboiron that all would be taken care of, not to be concerned. It was immediate concern enough that he be taken to hospital for treatment. They believed the Embassy or the Wnendts themselves, from their assurances, would look after missed work compensation, prescriptions, rehabilitation, pain and suffering.

Mr. Liboiron took a week off work to recuperate, then was assigned light duties for a short period of time. His employer paid his salary of $5.000. He is still awaiting compensation from the German Embassy, a month and a half after the event. For the German mission appears now to feel no obligation to make good on the word of the German Ambassador's wife.

Nor does it appear as though Ambassador Wnendt or his wife feel any obligation to make amends to the carpenter and his employer for the attack on the man by their dog. The dog did have a reputation of being unfriendly to strangers. And Mr. Liboiron often took it upon himself to calm the animal while other workers it was not familiar with were about.

Mr. Liboiron appears to have suffered serious damage to his shoulder; his wrist muscles remain sore, while the punctures to his hand and two fingers are still in the healing stages. When the pain subsides, he has been informed, he will have to undergo a course of physiotherapy. To cope with his discomfort he takes anti-inflammatories and painkillers.

"We want to make it absolutely clear. We do not claim any diplomatic immunity. ...There are ways and structures here in Canada which we want to observe and go through, and find a proper solution. ...I think in a country like Canada ... you do not deal with these things by saying, 'I have diplomatic immunity", explained an Embassy spokesman.

The verbal assurances hastily proffered by the Ambassador's wife immediately following the attack are now denied both by herself and her husband. The solution seems simple enough; apology and compensation should be forthcoming. Surely the Embassy, furthermore, has insurance to cover just such unforeseen incidents?

Caught on camera: Egyptian ambassador slaps Cyprus airport officer

Saturday, 05 January 2013

By Al Arabiya
 

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Egyptian ambassador to Cyprus, Menha Mahrous Bakhoum, has appeared in a video swearing at and slapping a police officer at Larnaca airport, claiming she was subject to verbal and physical humiliation by airport security despite her diplomatic standing.

The incident reportedly took place on Saturday. A day later Cyprus Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis officially apologized to the Egyptian ambassador, according to Cyprus Mail.

Ambassador Bakhoum was at the airport to see off her family and she wanted to escort them beyond the passport control. A female police officer then asked her to remove her boots, but the Egyptian diplomat refused, prompting a dispute.

Ambassador Bakhoum then acted by slapping the police officer, resulting in her being manhandled by a group of male officers. They dragged her to a separate room in a bid to calm tempers.

Efforts to contain the situation, however, failed when ambassador Bakhoum reportedly grabbed the wig of a senior officer in protest at her detention, according to Cyprus Mail.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses publicly and sincerely its regrets and apologies for the treatment of the ambassador, which was not in conformity with the principle of inviolability of the person and respect of diplomatic representatives,” Cyprus Foreign Minister Marcoullis said in a statement.

The EU's airport regulations allow only a few heads of states and governments to pass beyond security checks. Diplomats and evens Cabinet ministers have to go through regular security scrutinies.