PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, September 2: We look at papers’ coverage of the shadowy Venezuelan magnate who brokered the Washington-Caracas oil deal. In other news, the Pacific Islands Forum wants to talk climate change, but China’s anger at the presence of Taiwan is stealing the limelight. Finally, the Bayeux Tapestry is back in Britain after nearly a millennium, with perhaps some salacious secrets.
Web news outlet Axios chronologises Alejandro Betancourt’s dealings with Nicolas Maduro and Washington. He has been in cahoots with the US before against the former Venezuelan president, but was one of the Trump administration’s men on the ground even before the capture of Maduro, taking soundings from Delcy Rodriguez to establish how things might play out in the event of Maduro’s ouster. We also look at a Washington Post investigation, which shows that US officials intervened around the world to help Betancourt shake off his legal woes this spring, so that he could be free to work on their oil plans.
Read moreAlejandro Betancourt, the controversial Venezuelan oil tycoon Trump is banking on
In Palau, the Taiwanese presence at the Pacific Islands Forum has provoked the ire of Beijing, which has promised “consequences”. The Diplomat suspects that China even had a hand in the non-attendance of five out of the 18 countries’ leaders – enough to paralyse the bloc’s ability to make decisions with its unanimity-based model. The Conversation says that despite the need for these countries to focus on issues like transnational crime, energy and climate change, the Forum has been hijacked by the question of “what happens when the world’s great powers decide your part of the world is strategically important?” French paper L’Humanité, though, has nevertheless devoted a page to these 18 low-emission countries, which are vulnerable to rising sea levels, and their call for rich industrialised states to keep their promises about climate finance.
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to inaugurate the Bayeux tapestry exhibition at the British Museum this Wednesday. La Croix reminds us that the tapestry hasn’t been back to the UK since it first left, soon after its creation following the Norman conquest of 1066. Britain last requested a loan in 1966, to which the French said no! The Economist describes this loan as France “love-bombing” Britain, no less.
Finally, prepare to be scandalised by a story in the Daily Mail, as one curator at the British Museum has a new theory about a mysterious scene on the 70-metre-long tapestry, namely a clergyman stroking a woman’s cheek, with a nude man below. Could this be an allusion to an alleged affair between Emma of Normandy and the Bishop of Winchester? If true, it could – rather belatedly – undermine William the Conqueror’s claim to the English throne.
