Dutch Daily: ‘World Searching For Leader Amid Coronacrisis’

(Worthy News) – By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Special Correspondent

AMSTERDAM (Worthy News)– With roughly half the world in lockdown and many politicians weak or ill, the largest Dutch daily concludes in a headline: “World searching for LEADER.” De Telegraaf (The Telegraph) also expresses that “Nobody takes the lead in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.” Its commentator, Frank van Vliet, complained: “While the world is on fire, international politicians are running in one direction to put out their fire. No leader has taken the lead, and solidarity is lacking. They did not read author Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers because “one for all and all for one” has been replaced by “own people first.”

The story in the mass-circulation paper comes while some Christian groups view current events like the blueprint for the time when the Anti-Christ appears as the new world leader. They claim that temperature checks on foreheads, calls for digital identities to track (potential) patients and cashless payments could be part of the coming era predicted in the Bible. Back in De Telegraaf, Van Vliet writes that “organizations built for international solidarity such as the United Nations and the European Union don’t intervene. They say countries themselves are responsible for health care.” Unlike during the Ebola disease crisis in 2014, the United Nations Security Council has not met to discuss the coronavirus outbreak, “even not via video conference,” he reports. “That’s because the president of China is at odds with fellow Security Council member America.”

While ordinary people” fearfully wash their hands, their national leaders try to keep their hands politically clean,” Van Vliet warns. He writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin initially told his nation “to sleep at night calmly.” At the same time, German chancellor Angela Merkel remained in the background, he notes. “Germans want her to play a mother role again. Eventually, actions were taken by her government, but the death toll is rising.”

The virus was, politically speaking, good news for French President Emmanuel Macron. He faced massive protests over policies but is now perhaps more popular than ever following a nationally televised coronavirus speech, De Telegraaf adds. But across the channel, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson downplayed the seriousness of the new coronavirus pandemic almost till he was struck by the virus, COVID 19, Van Vliet suggests. And in the United States, President Donald Trump made clear that his cry “America First” is more than just a slogan. “Without first talking to traditional allies, he closed air connections with Europe,” Van Vliet writes. De Telegraaf also reports that the leaders of Brazil and Mexico are either “dancing the Samba” or “kissing babies and shaking hands in crowds” without really tackling the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the president of China, where the new coronavirus COVID 19 was first reported, is “already beating himself on the chest for tackling the crisis.” Pointing to Europe, Xi Jinping “may now claim that his draconian measures to combat the virus were a shining example,” Van Vliet claims.

“The truth is that China’s leadership kept the virus hidden from the public far too long. Whistleblowers were thrown into prison. But that has already been forgiven by a large part of the population.”

However, he warns: “The Chinese totalitarian system wins the propaganda war if Europe and the U.S. can’t get the virus under control quickly. From an economic view, it’s still uncertain whether China remains the manufacturer of the world after corona” despite its supplies of millions of protective masks and equipment. “‘ Made in China’ is not a recommendation at the moment,'” De Telegraaf stresses.

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