The New York Times International - 30.08.2019

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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | FRIDAY,AUGUST 30, 2019

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into a full-blown international crisis,

Brazil is only one of many significant ar-

eas where wildfires are burning. Their

increase in severity and their spread to

places where fires were rarely previ-

ously seen is raising fears that climate

change is exacerbating the danger.

Hotter, drier temperatures “are going

to continue promoting the potential for

fire,” said John Abatzoglou, an associate

professor in the department of geogra-

phy at the University of Idaho, describ-

ing the risk of “large, uncontainable

fires globally” if warming continues.

In South America, the Amazon basin is

ablaze. Halfway around the world in

central Africa, vast stretches of savanna

are going up in flame. Arctic regions in

Siberia are burning at a historic pace.

While the Brazilian fires have grown

Wildfires contribute to climate

change, not only releasing carbon diox-

ide, a major greenhouse gas, into the at-

mosphere, but also killing trees and veg-

etation that remove climate-warming

emissions from the air.

There has been a drastic increase this

year in wildfires in some Arctic regions

that have rarely burned in the past.

Since July, fire has charred about six

million acres of Siberian forest. In

Alaska, fires have consumed more than

2.5 million acres of tundra and snow for-

est.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as

the rest of the planet, and some studies

have noted that, as it warms, “there also

is expected to be more lightning,” said

Dr. Abatzoglou. In remote areas, light-

ning is a significant cause of fires.

Some researchers warn that as fires

strike places where they were previ-

ously rare, it threatens to contribute to a

feedback loop in which wildfires poten-

tially accelerate climate change by add-

ing significant amounts of carbon diox-

ide to the atmosphere.

F IRES, PAGE 4

WAHYUDI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Clockwise from top: Dousing a fire at a palm oil plantation in Pekanbaru, Indonesia; a wildfire in the Sonoma Valley of California; and the aftermath of a blaze in Rondônia, Brazil.

VICTOR MORIYAMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES KENT PORTER/THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ablaze from Arctic to tropics

Climate change appears

to be a factor in wildfires

in places that rarely burn

BY KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS

A tangle of drips in all directions; a
hazy rectangle in a field of dark pig-
ment; a rigid zip down an empty can-
vas.
To be an Abstract Expressionist in
New York’s buoyant first postwar
years, it helped to have a signature
look. Yet Lee Krasner was suspicious
of paintings where telltale marks were
like alternative autographs — even
when the autograph was her own
husband’s.
She was proud not to have a single
style. You had to figure out each paint-
ing on its own, she said, or you end up
with something “rigid rather than
being alive.”

Tough, diligent and deadly serious

about the history of art, Krasner might

have been the most intelligent of the

painters who convinced the world in

the late 1940s that New York had dis-

placed Paris as the epicenter of mod-

ern art. That intelligence expressed

itself through an art that ricocheted

across styles and media, from tightly

massed collages to huge abstractions

of Matissean richness.

Intelligence, though, was not enough

to reach the celebrity tier of American

painting, and it even could be a hin-

drance if you were a woman in Ameri-

can art’s most macho era. Krasner

received little attention from museums

until her 60s, and she has rarely

stepped out of the shadow of Jackson

Pollock, her husband from 1945 until

his early death, in 1956.

It’s not wholly right to say she has

remained underappreciated. She is one

of the few female painters to receive a

full retrospective at the Museum of

Modern Art in New York: That show

opened a few months after her death,

K RASNER, PAGE 2

Stepping into a limelight of her own

ART REVIEW
LONDON

BY JASON FARAGO

Lee Krasner retrospective

separates the painter from

her widely known husband

A painting in “Lee Krasner: Living Color,” a touring retrospective now at the Barbican

Art Gallery in London. Krasner was once married to Jackson Pollock.

THE POLLOCK-KRASNER FOUNDATION/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK; BARBICAN ART GALLERY/GETTY IMAGES; TRISTAN FEWINGS

The New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.

Israel has carried out a series of attacks

across the Middle East in recent weeks

to prevent Iran from equipping its Arab

allies with precision-guided missiles,

drones and other sophisticated weapons

that could challenge Israel’s defenses.

The attacks represent a new escala-

tion in the shadow war between Iran and

Israel, which has broken into the open

and threatens to set off a wider con-

frontation.

In one 18-hour period last weekend,

an Israeli airstrike killed two Iranian-

trained militants in Syria, a drone set off

a blast near a Hezbollah office in

Beirut’s southern suburbs and an

airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, killed a com-

mander of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia.

Israel accuses Iran of trying to estab-

lish an overland arms-supply line

through Iraq and northern Syria to Leb-

anon. The attacks, only one of which Is-

rael has publicly acknowledged, were

aimed at stopping Iran and signaling to

its proxies that Israel will not tolerate a

fleet of smart missiles on its borders, of-

ficials and analysts said.

“Iran is building something here in

the region,” said Sima Shine, a former

head of research for Israeli intelligence,

now a scholar at the Institute for Na-

tional Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“What’s changed is that the process

reached a level in which Israel has to act

differently.”

Iranian officials said the Israeli at-

tacks would not go unanswered. Maj.

Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of

Iran’s Quds Force, who oversees covert

military operations outside Iran, said on

Twitter that “the Zionist actions are in-

sane and will be their last.”

While Iran has not publicly acknowl-

edged the transfer of missile technology,

an Iranian with knowledge of Iran’s re-

gional efforts said that in the past year

Iran had shifted its focus from training

its proxy forces for ground battle in Syr-

ia and Iraq to equipping them with high-

tech weapons and training.

Leaders on all sides say they do not

want an all-out war, but the accelerating

pace of violent strikes, often with cheap

drones and other covert technologies,

has raised the possibility that even a mi-

nor attack could spiral into a larger con-

flict. And public taunting, saber-rattling

and domestic politics are all contribut-

ing to an atmosphere of volatility and

brinkmanship.

Israel acknowledged carrying out the

airstrike in Syria on Saturday, which it

said was to prevent militants from

I SRAEL, PAGE 4

Shadow war

between Iran

and Israel

flares up

JERUSALEM

Tehran accused of attempt

to supply regional allies

with high-tech weapons

BY DAVID M. HALBFINGER,

BEN HUBBARD

AND RONEN BERGMAN

LONDON To understand what hap-
pened in British politics on Wednesday,
it’s perhaps useful to turn to the work-
ings of a popular game show, “Morn-
ington Crescent,” that has been on the
radio here for several decades now.
“Mornington Crescent” is, on the
face of it, a complex strategy game. In
it, players take turns announcing sta-
tions along London’s transport routes
— the aim is to be the first to get to
Mornington Crescent, a tube station on
the northern line. It’s a raucous affair
— as players exclaim loudly at particu-
larly good moves by their opponents,
and cheer when someone wins. They
reminisce lovingly about games past.
It is also very complicated. Almost
every game occasions the introduction
of special baroque rules with names
like “Trumpington’s Variations” or
“Tudor Court Rules,”
according to which,
each time, players
obediently abide.
Regular listeners
will also be aware
that the game is
entirely made up.
There are no real
rules; at any point a
player could “win”
“Mornington Cres-
cent” simply by saying the words.
They never would of course. It is sim-
ply not done. But I was strongly re-
minded of that possibility this morning,
when Boris Johnson broke Westmin-
ster’s fragile conventions to announce
that he would, to stop his opponents
blocking a no-deal Brexit, simply sus-
pend Parliament until a no-deal exit
becomes almost inevitable.
He did not put it quite like that of
course. His reason, he said — barely
keeping a straight face — was to intro-
duce an urgent domestic agenda. But
the effect was clear. Mr. Johnson has
promised Britain will leave the Euro-
pean Union, deal or no deal, on Oct. 31.
His opponents are combing through
the system — its rules and conventions
— trying to find ways to thwart him.
Their latest idea was to force the gov-
ernment to seek an extension of the
deadline. Mr. Johnson responded by
simply shutting the system down.
This is, of course, extraordinary — a
minority government deliberately
preventing M.P.s from scrutinizing one
of the country’s biggest decisions in
memory — and steers close to authori-
tarianism. There is no conceivable
democratic mandate for crashing out
of Europe without a deal. Indeed,
various members of the 2016 campaign
to leave the European Union fre-

Did Boris

just break

Parliament?

Martha Gill

OPINION

One of the
world’s oldest
democracies
takes an
alarmingly
authoritarian
turn.

G ILL, PAGE 12

Here to steal your heart.

nytimes.com/mlpodcast

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