'100 days of Trump admin show positive trend for Indo-US ties'

April 29, 2017

Washington, Apr 29: The first hundred days of the Trump administration have shown a positive trend for the Indo-US relationship and the upward trajectory of ties was expected to continue with bipartisan support for it, a former top Indian diplomat has said. On the eve of US President Donald Trump completing 100 days in office, former Indian Ambassador to the US Arun Singh said the Indo–US relationship during this period has broadly proceeded along expected lines.

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"As the engagement of the past hundred days has shown, India is clearly seen as an important interlocutor, with some convergence of interest, and potential for an even stronger mutually beneficial partnership," he told PTI. Beginning in the last phase of the Bush administration and almost all but two years of the Obama administration, Singh was a key player in driving the Indo-US relationship in the last one decade.

During the campaign, President Trump had spoken positively about India and expressed support for consolidating the Indo-US relationship further. Trump has spoken several times on phone with Prime Minister Modi, Singh said. India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar have had consultations with senior US officials during their visits this year, he noted. US National Security Adviser Lt Gen H R McMaster recently visited India and also called on the Prime Minister.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met with US Treasury and Commerce Secretaries earlier this month in Washington, Singh said, referring to the high-level bilateral visits. "We can expect the positive trajectory to continue since there is now bipartisan support in the US for the relationship," Singh said. At the same time, he said acknowledged that there will "no doubt" be some areas of concern. "The eventual US decision on H-1B visas will have consequences for our technology workers and companies. Reduction in US tax rates, if realised, could draw capital into the US and away from other countries," he warned.

"Large US deficit, on account of tax reduction and infrastructure spending, could raise interest rates globally, which would also have consequences for India," the former Indian diplomat said. Responding to a question on Trump's foreign policy in the first 100 days of his administration, Singh, who retired from the foreign service late last year, said 100 days is perhaps too short, and certainly an artificial, 24/7 news cycle driven timeline, to assess the enduring and defining parameters of the foreign policy of any new administration.

"This initial phase is also usually marked by tension between the compulsions ofproposals made during the campaign aimed at rousing the base and getting out the vote, and the constraints subsequently imposed by limits of power and realisation of larger consequences," he said. These hundred days have thus seen the fulfilment of some campaign promises, reversals on others, and several critical issues still being evaluated, Singh noted. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on January 20 and completes hundred days in office today.

"As promised in the campaign, President Trump has taken the US out of TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), convinced Canada and Mexico to agree to a renegotiation of NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement), and initiated the process of potential action against steel and aluminium imports into the US. There has also been some focus on dealing with ISIS," Singh said.

On the other hand, unlike the pre-election threats, China has not been declared a currency manipulator, no additional tariffs have been imposed on imports from China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping was lavishly welcomed in April at what is now being described as the 'southern White House' at Mar-a- Lago in Florida, he noted.

"The two agreed to come up with a 100-day plan to address the major trade imbalance. China is also being described as an important interlocutor for addressing the North Korean nuclear and missile challenge," he said. On April 6, Trump authorised missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, using Presidential prerogative under the US Constitution.

"Earlier he had repeatedly called upon his predecessor not to do so, and to consult US Congress before any such action," Singh said. Relations with Russia have not been improved, he observed, adding that attempts to do so immediately have become controversial in view of the raging controversy about alleged Russian intervention in the US elections to benefit Trump.

"This will now be further complicated by the missile strikes in an area where Russian forces were also present, although Russia had been given some prior notice," he said. "President Trump has, similarly, now spoken of strongly supporting NATO, which he had earlier described as obsolete. He has now referred to sharing vital security interests with allies, while continuing to complain about alliance commitments, and asking allies to contribute more," the former Indian Ambassador said. During his illustrious foreign service career, Singh also served as India's ambassador to Israel and France apart from the US.

He said, on Afghanistan, policy options were being studied by the Trump administration. US National Security Adviser had recently visited Afghanistan, Pakistan and India for discussions, Singh said, noting that the outcome of the current more strident approach to North Korea remains to be seen.

"The Administration is also constrained at the moment because a large number of posts in the Departments of State and Defence, as well as in the National Security Council, still remain to be filled," he said.

The decision making process has so far been White House centric, and the attempt has been to project a robust, muscular approach based on America's strengths, including military, and less on projection of 'American values' or 'soft power', he opined.

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News Network
January 12,2020

Washington, Jan 12: US president Donald Trump said Saturday the United States was monitoring Iranian demonstrations closely, warning against any new “massacre” as protests broke out after Tehran admitted to shooting down a passenger plane.

Iran said earlier it unintentionally downed a Ukrainian jetliner outside Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, in an abrupt about-turn after initially saying that it had crashed due to mechanical failure. The firing came shortly after Iran launched missiles at bases in Iraq housing American forces.

President Hassan Rouhani said a military probe into the tragedy had found that “missiles fired due to human error” brought down the Boeing 737, calling it an “unforgivable mistake.”

Trump told Iranians -- in tweets in both English and Farsi -- that he stands by them and is monitoring the demonstrations.

“To the brave, long-suffering people of Iran: I've stood with you since the beginning of my Presidency, and my Administration will continue to stand with you,” he tweeted.

“There can not be another massacre of peaceful protesters, nor an internet shutdown. The world is watching,” he added, apparently referring to an Iranian crackdown on street protests that broke out in November.

“We are following your protests closely, and are inspired by your courage," he said.

The new demonstrations follow an Iranian crackdown on street protests that broke out in November. Amnesty International has said it left more than 300 people dead. Internet access was reportedly cut off in multiple Iranian provinces ahead of memorials planned a month after the protests.

On Saturday evening, police dispersed students who had converged on Amir Kabir University in Tehran to pay tribute to the victims, after some among the hundreds gathered shouted "destructive" slogans, Fars news agency said.

State television reported that students shouted "anti-regime" chants, while the news agency Fars reported that posters of Soleimani had been torn down.

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News Network
January 30,2020

Jan 30: The death toll rose to 170 in the new virus outbreak in China on Thursday as foreign evacuees from the worst-hit region begin returning home under close observation and world health officials expressed “great concern” that the disease is starting to spread between people outside of China.

Thursday’s figures cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in the epicenter of the outbreak in Hubei province and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The news comes as the 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the Hubei province city of 11 million where the outbreak originated, are undergoing three days of testing and monitoring at a Southern California military base to make sure they do not show signs of the virus.

A group of 210 Japanese evacuees from Wuhan landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on a second government chartered flight, according to the foreign ministry. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever. Three of the 206 Japanese who returned on Wednesday tested positive for the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a parliamentary session. Two of them showed no symptoms of the disease.

France, New Zealand, Australia and other countries are also pulling out their citizens or making plans to do so.

The World Health Organization emergencies chief said the few cases of human-to-human spread of the virus outside China — in Japan, Germany, Canada and Vietnam — were of “great concern” and were part of the reason the U.N. health agency’s director-general was reconvening a committee of experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

Dr. Michael Ryan spoke at a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday after returning from a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government leaders. He said China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge” posed by the outbreak.

To date, about 99% of the cases are in China. Ryan estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2%, but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.

In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10% of people who caught it. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.

Scientists say there are many questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how easily it spreads and how severe it is.

In a report published Wednesday, Chinese researchers suggested that person-to-person spread among close contacts occurred as early as mid-December.

“Considerable efforts” will be needed to control the spread if this ratio holds up elsewhere, researchers wrote in the report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More than half of the cases in which symptoms began before Jan. 1 were tied to a seafood market, but only 8% of cases after that have been, researchers found. They reported the average incubation period was five days.

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News Network
June 4,2020

Jun 4: A malaria drug President Donald Trump took to try to prevent COVID-19 proved ineffective for that in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease.

Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus.

The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though -- about 40% on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems.

 “We were disappointed. We would have liked for this to work,” said the study leader, Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota.

“But our objective was to answer the question and to conduct a high-quality study,” because the evidence on the drug so far has been inconclusive, he said.

Hydroxychloroquine and a similar drug, chloroquine, have been the subject of much debate since Trump started promoting them in March.

Hydroxychloroquine has long been used for malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, but no large studies have shown it or chloroquine to be safe or effective for much sicker patients with coronavirus, and some studies have suggested the drugs may do harm.

Trump took a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine, along with zinc and Vitamin D, after two staffers tested positive for COVID-19, and had no ill effects, according to results of his latest physical released by his doctor Wednesday.

Federal regulators have warned against hydroxychloroquine's use except in hospitals and formal studies because of the risk of side effects, especially heart rhythm problems.

Boulware's study involved 821 people in the United States and Canada living with someone diagnosed with COVID-19 or at high risk of getting it because of their job -- doctors, nurses, ambulance workers who had significant exposure to a sick patient while not wearing full protective gear.

They were randomly assigned to get either the nutrient folate as a placebo or hydroxychloroquine for five days, starting within four days of their exposure. Neither they nor others involved in the research knew who was getting which pills.

After 14 days in the study, 12 per cent on the drug developed COVID-19 symptoms versus 14 per cent in the placebo group, but the difference is so small it could have occurred by chance, Boulware said.

“There's basically no effect. It does not prevent infection,” he said of the drug. Even if it were to give some slim advantage, “we'd want a much larger effect” to justify its use and risk of side effects for preventing illness, he said.

Results were no different among a subgroup of participants who were taking zinc or vitamin C, which some people believe might help make hydroxychloroquine more effective or fight the coronavirus.

There are some big caveats: The study enrolled people through the Internet and social media, relying on them to report their own symptoms rather than having them tracked in a formal way by doctors.

Participants were not all tested for the coronavirus but were diagnosed as COVID-19 cases based on symptoms in many cases. And not all took their medicines as directed.

The results “are more provocative than definitive,” and the drug may yet have prevention benefits if tried sooner or in a different way, Dr. Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote in a commentary in the journal.

Others were glad to see a study that had a comparison group and good scientific methods after so many weaker reports on hydroxychloroquine.

“This fits with everything else we've seen so far which suggests that it's not beneficial," said Dr. Peter Bach, director of a health policy center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

This study was in younger relatively healthy people, but the results “would make me very discouraged about trying to use this in older people” who are most vulnerable to serious illness from the coronavirus, Bach said.

“If it does work, it doesn't work very well.” Dr. Dan Culver, a lung specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, said there's still a chance that giving the drug sooner than four days after someone's exposure to the virus may help prevent illness.

But the study “takes 'home run' off the table” as far as hopes for the drug, he said.

The study was mostly funded by David Baszucki, founder of Roblox, a California-based game software company, and other private donors and the Minnesota university.

Boulware also is leading a study testing hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19. The study is finished and results are being analyzed now.

On Tuesday, the journal Lancet posted an “expression of concern” about a study it published earlier this month of nearly 15,000 COVID-19 patients on the malaria drugs that tied their use to a higher risk of dying in the hospital or developing a heartbeat problem.

Scientists have raised serious questions about the database used for that study, and its authors have launched an independent audit.

That work had a big impact: the World Health Organization suspended use of hydroxychloroquine in a study it is leading, and French officials stopped the drug's use in hospitals. On Wednesday, the WHO said experts who reviewed safety information decided that its study could resume.

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