Don McCullin photo show looks at 6 decades covering conflict

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Don McCullin photo show looks at 6 decades covering conflict

2019-02-05 00:48 Last Updated At：01:10

Don McCullin's most famous photographs scorch with the physical and emotional brutality of conflict: a shell-shocked American soldier in Vietnam, a starving woman and child in Nigeria's breakaway Biafra.

But don't call him a war photographer. Asked about the term Monday, McCullin says: "I hate that."

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Veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor looks at photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor looks at landscape photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Sunday Times Magazine photo essays by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin are displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Visitors look at and walk past a 1970 photograph of a homeless Irishman in the Spitalfields area of east London by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor takes a photo of a 1968 photograph of a starving albino boy in Biafra by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin's Nikon F camera that was hit by a bullet in Cambodia is displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Landscape photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin are displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

British conflict photographer Don McCullin's photograph, center, of a shell-shocked U.S. marine from the Battle of Hue from the Vietnam War in 1968 is displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

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Veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor looks at photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor looks at landscape photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Sunday Times Magazine photo essays by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin are displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Visitors look at and walk past a 1970 photograph of a homeless Irishman in the Spitalfields area of east London by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

A visitor takes a photo of a 1968 photograph of a starving albino boy in Biafra by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin's Nikon F camera that was hit by a bullet in Cambodia is displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Landscape photographs by veteran British conflict photographer Don McCullin are displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

British conflict photographer Don McCullin's photograph, center, of a shell-shocked U.S. marine from the Battle of Hue from the Vietnam War in 1968 is displayed at the launch of his retrospective exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. The exhibition includes over 250 of his black and white photographs, including conflict images from the Vietnam war, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Lebanon and Biafra, alongside landscape and still life images. (AP PhotoMatt Dunham)

Still, a major new exhibition of the British photographer's work is full of damaged people, ravaged landscapes and scarred cities from Beirut to Belfast. His black and white images powerfully capture the emotions of war.

The retrospective of more than 250 images runs from Tuesday to May 6 at Tate Britain , the country's foremost gallery of U.K. art.

But don't call McCullin an artist.

"I hate that, too," he says. "I'm not an artist. I'm a photographer, and that's all there is to it."

Romanian lawmakers narrowly approve new pro-European coalition during period of political turmoil

2024-12-24 03:56 Last Updated At：04:00

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers on Monday voted narrowly in favor of a new pro-European coalition government led by incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

The move could usher in an end to a protracted political crisis in the European Union country following the annulment of a presidential election by a top court. Parliament approved the new administration in a 240-143 vote in Romania's 466-seat legislature.

The new coalition is made up of the leftist Social Democratic Party, or PSD, the center-right National Liberal Party, PNL, the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party and national minorities. It caps a month-long period of turmoil in which far-right nationalists made significant gains in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election, a week after a first-round presidential race saw the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu emerge as the front-runner.

“It will not be an easy mandate for the future government,” Ciolacu, whose PSD party topped the polls in the parliamentary election, said in a statement Monday.

“We are aware that we are in the midst of a deep political crisis," he said. "It is also a crisis of trust, and this coalition aims to regain the trust of citizens, the trust of the people.”

Romani's 16 ministerial positions will be shared among the parties, which will hold a slim majority in the legislature. It's widely seen as a tactical partnership to shut out far-right nationalists whose voices found fertile ground amid high living costs and a sluggish economy.

Ciolacu, who came third in the first-round presidential ballot despite polls indicating he would win the most votes, has served as prime minister since June 2023.

After parliament’s approval, President Klaus Iohannis swore in the new government and warned the new Cabinet that it's entering a “difficult new period” in which “for many Romanians, there are major concerns.”

Romania was plunged into turmoil after Georgescu’s surprise success in the presidential race, after allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference emerged. Days before the Dec. 8 runoff, the Constitutional Court made the unprecedented move to annul the presidential race.

“We go through complicated times, but I think we all learned from mistakes of the past,” Ciolacu said. “I hope that together with my colleagues in the coalition, we’ll find the best solutions to get past the challenges we have in front of us.”

Ciolacu said that the new government would aim to quickly organize the rerun of the presidential election in which the new coalition has agreed to put forward an agreed common pro-European candidate.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said that the new government made up of the same political parties will likely embrace “soft populist” rhetoric such as economic patriotism, anti-austerity, and a peace solution in neighboring Ukraine to counter the rise of far-right populism.

“This will be a way to answer the concerns of many Romanians who voted for populists … but will not solve the fundamental problem of trust,” he said. “The only decisive factor now will be who and how convincing the pro-European candidates will be against this popular revolt.”

George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, which came second in the parliamentary election, said that all lawmakers from his party on Monday would vote against the Ciolacu government.

In 2021, the PSD and the PNL also formed an unlikely but increasingly strained coalition together with UDMR, which exited the Cabinet last year after a power-sharing dispute.

Stephen McGrath reported from Warwick, England.