United States

Weird is the new catchword of the American presidential elections. It is weird that Donald Trump – a convicted felon – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird that J.D. Vance – an anti-abortionist who claims that America is run by a miserable “bunch of childless cat ladies” – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird because both those images sound totally “un-American” and thus unlikely to win the votes of the American electorate. So it is weird that those two men have been nominated for the two highest offices in America.

Not weird is that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Kamala Harris to be her running mate in the presidential elections. Governor Walz is – as they like to say – as American as apple pie.

For a start he is from the mid-West which is often viewed as the traditionally American part of America. He attended Nebraska State College where he met his wife Gwen. They have two children – very American.

He taught high school social studies and coached the football team. The team went on to win the state championships. That is very, very American story almost worthy of a based-on-a-true-story Netflix film.

Walz was in the National Guard for 24 years, and reached the rank of Master Sergeant. Military service is almost a requirement for American politicians.

He served six terms in Congress before being elected Governor of Minnesota in 2018. He was re-elected in 2022. It was while he was Governor that Republicans have veered away from his all-American roots and towards what they might regard as weirdness. Walz legalised marijuana, passed strict gun laws, affirmed abortion rights, introduced free school meals and free college tuition. The liberal democrats love him. Which could explain why he is also chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

Walz is also credited with coming up with the catchword “weird” to describe Trump and Vance. President Biden had been focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. Walz reckoned that threat talk was a bit of a stretch for most American voters. “Weird” is easier to understand.

Bangladesh

From Nobel prize-winning micro-banker to leader of Bangladesh is quite a leap. But at the tender age of 84 Professor Muhammad Yunus has made the jump.

He replaces Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed who has fled the country after an estimated 400 people died in student-led riots against her quota system for the civil service.

Yunus probably doesn’t need the headache of running a country of 170 million people. He already secured the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the micro-finance banking system which has lifted millions out of poverty.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank pioneered micro-credit which is acknowledged as one the factors that transformed Bangladesh from the world’s second poorest country to the 38^th wealthiest.

Micro-credit is used by people who are too poor to borrow money from established banks. The amounts that Grameen Bank loaned were tiny. Perhaps enough to buy a mobile phone so that a farmer can check market prices before deciding whether to take the long journey to market. Or perhaps a fishing net, a plough or a bicycle.

Yunus developed the germ of the idea while a Fulbright Scholar in America. He put into practice in 1983 with the aim of to creating “economic and social development from below.”

However, Yunus and his bank have had problems. He was accused of extortionate interest rates and strong-arm tactics to recover loans. After he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 a Norwegian television documentary alleged that he transferred money from the Grameen Bank to an affiliate organisation.

Up until that point Yunus and Sheikh Hasina had enjoyed close relations. She had hailed him as “banker to the poor.” After the television documentary, the Prime Minister removed Yunus from his leadership of the bank and increased government regulation. Shortly afterwards, Yunus went political and established his own party—Citizen Power.

Sheikh Hasina countered by accusing Yunus of “sucking blood from the poor.” She also said he was un-Islamic, promoted homosexuality and embezzled money from the bank’s pension fund. In January of this year he was sentenced to six years in jail for labour violations, fraud and graft. He was out on bail when the student riots broke out.

The ultimate cause of the riots was a quota system which reserved a large portion of entry-level civil service jobs for the veterans of the 1971 war of independence and their descendants. This, of course, reduced the number of sought-after government jobs available to young graduates.

The deeper cause was Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly autocratic rule. She started out as poster-lady for democracy but as opposition to her policies grew she responded with extra-judicial killings, disappearances and a clampdown on the press.

When she fled to India in her helicopter Sheikh Hasina left behind a political vacuum. In previous similar situations the military simply stepped in. They wanted to on this occasion but President Mohammed Shahabuddin called a meeting of the student leaders and the army. The students said they would continue rioting unless Muhammad Yunus was appointed “chief adviser” to an interim government while elections were organised.

Ukraine

Good week for the Ukrainians.  But can they keep it up?

To start with they managed to sink a Russian submarine while it was in the harbour at Sevastopol for maintenance work. The Russians cannot afford to lose submarines. They now have only three in the Black Sea fleet.

In fact, the Ukrainians are doing better at sea than on land. Since the start of the war they have sunk 15 Russian warships. And this week, they claim to have driven the Russian navy out of the Sea of Azov which separates southern Ukraine and Russia.

The other bit of good news is the arrival of F-16 jets in Ukraine. Their appearance in Kyiv marks the end of a long battle between President Vlodomyr Zelensky and his western backers to beef up Ukraine’s air defences. The F-16s will be used to combat Russian bomber drones, glide bombers and piloted bombers who have been successfully targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure. They will also provide much-needed air support to Ukraine’s frontline troops and take the fight to Russian bases.

It is the latter where the Ukrainians have scored their biggest victory this week. They crossed the border into Russia, attacked an airfield and secured a 600-square mile foothold in the Russian oblast of Kursk. In doing so they have completely wrong-footed the Russians who over the past few months have made only incremental gains along the Ukraine-Russian front line.

The Russians are reported to be rushing into the Kursk Oblast to try to drive out the Ukrainian invaders. In doing so, they are, of course, taking troops away from the 620-mile front line with Ukraine. But then the Ukrainians diverted troops to attack Kursk. Can the Ukrainians hold onto their 600-square mile foothold in Russian territory? Have they made a big mistake in taking troops out of the frontline? Are the Russians making the same mistake?

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain". To subscribe to his email alerts on world affairs click here.