As news happens, political cartoonists around the globe take up their brush pen or pencil and come up with images and often a few choice words to comment on the events of the day. Each week, The World’s Carol Hills selects a group of cartoons that reflect on issues in the news. For cartoons prior to June 2009, please click here.
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Global Political Cartoons
Global Political Cartoons: The Killing of Osama bin Laden
Political cartoonists have used humor and contemplation to comment on the killing of Osama bin Laden. In these cartoons you’ll see everything from baffled Pakistani security officials to long-form death certificates.
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Global Political Cartoons: The death of Osama Bin Laden
Cartoonists around the globe react to news that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed by US Special Forces in Pakistan. (Cartoon: Cam Cardow, Canada).
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Global Political Cartoons: April 8 – 14, 2011
It’s a week of troubled leaders — some clinging to power, others forced out. One so disgraced he was made to parade around in his undershirt. Also, the burka police in France, and Canada’s cheesed off hockey fans.
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Japan tragedy finds expression in cartoons
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Lisa Mullins speaks with The World’s Carol Hills about how political cartoonists around the globe have responded to the tragedy in Japan. They’ve used the red disc on the Japanese flag to convey everything from radiation hazard symbols to mushroom clouds. Download MP3
Global Political Cartoons: March 12 – 18, 2011
The Land of the Rising Sun has become for some The Land of Rising Radiation Levels. The aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami has cartoonists morphing the red disc in Japan’s flag into everything from a radiation hazard symbol to a skull.
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Global Political Cartoons: March 5 – 11, 2011
The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan spawn multiple images of a famous Japanese woodblock print. The tangled role of oil in the world’s response to Libya, and the space shuttle Discovery retires into the arms of another beached phenom.
Global Political Cartoons: February 26 – March 4, 2011
Muslim world protests, February 12-18, 2011
In the wake of Egypt’s successful political revolution, pro-democracy protests continue across the Middle East and North Africa. From Bahrain to Libya, citizens are taking to the the streets and using social media to communicate and coordinate.
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Iran’s cyberwar
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced new initiatives to improve cyber-freedom in countries like Iran. Lisa Mullins speaks with Iranian cartoonist and editor Nikahang Kowsar of Khodnevis.org about what the best use of the money would be and how both Iranian online activists and Iranian authorities use social media to thwart each other. Download MP3PBS Tehran Bureau
Global Political Cartoons on The World
Egypt through the eyes of other cartoonists
Cartoonists outside the Middle East are commenting on events in Egypt just as much as those in the region. A few more references to the imagined back and forth between Hosni Mubarak and Barack Obama but just as many pyramids, dominoes and pharaohs. Take a look.
Middle Eastern cartoonists on Egypt (updated Feburary 4, 2011)
Political cartoonists across the Middle East are drawing pyramids, camels, chairs, empty chairs, pharaohs, heiroglyphs and contemporary images like smartphones and tweets to comment on the political revolution unfolding in Egypt.
Global Political Cartoons: January 15 – 21, 2011
Tunisians say they want a revolution, ‘well, you know, we all want to change the world’. What’s still not clear is what the Tunisians want to change into. HU Jintao? He’s the Chinese president WHO went TO Washington TO DO some diplomacy TO WOO NEW sources of MOO-lah. And Queensland underwater.
Political cartoons from South Africa
Jonathan Shapiro, known by his pen name, Zapiro, is the most widely recognized political cartoonist in South Africa. His cartoons challenge the leaders of this new democracy. The World’s Carol Hills reports on how Zapiro’s insistence on political accountability comes in part from where he started his career, as an anti-apartheid activist.
South African political cartoonist Zapiro
Jonathan Shapiro has been known as Zapiro since he was a teenager. South Africa’s best-known political cartoonist learned the power of visual expression in the 1980s as a propagandist for the anti-apartheid movement. Today, he’s regarded across South Africa’s diverse population as the moral compass of his country, trying to keep the still-developing democracy well, democratic.
Global Political Cartoons: December 31, 2010
We close out 2010 with “friends” (as opposed to friends), the Euro continues to dance in distress, and the skunk at the garden party that just won’t go away: Wikileaks.
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