HAMBURG: Mr Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s closest adviser on foreign policy, yesterday [Feb 15] criticised Europe’s lack of defence efforts and said NATO was “out of joint”.

In an article published yesterday in the Hamburg Sunday newspaper “Welt Am Sonntag”, Mr Kissinger blames two major factors for this. A change in the international situation — particularly the undermining of the predominance of Big Powers and the emergence of a multiplicity of political poles — and unilateral policy changes by the United States.

NATO was a dynamic and creative institution during the first one and a half decades of its existence, but today it has become out of joint, he said. When the organisation was founded, the main threat to world peace came from a possible attack on Europe by the Soviet Union but the view has strengthened during the past few years that trouble spots outside Europe constitute just as great a danger, he said. — Agency

[Meanwhile, as reported by an agency in Kishoreganj,] Sheikh Mujibur Rahman yesterday [Feb 15] said that the coming general elections in the country would decide the “fate of Bangla Desh” and asked the people to remove the parasites from political life permanently through ballots this time.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2020