Ashfaque Swapan

Today, Americans are terrified of a pandemic virus whose infection rate has spiked up again. With just four percent of the world’s population, the US already has a quarter of the world’s Covid-19 deaths.

Last year, when about 150 people—a substantial chunk from out-of-state—gathered in Atlanta for a convention, the event had an intriguing twist: The first ever World Bengali Literature Conference, as the event billed itself, focused exclusively on Bangla literature.

US President Donald Trump could give Caligula a run for his money. The deranged, violent Roman emperor had once made his donkey a consul, but Trump is no slouch when it comes to outrageous behaviour.

The sheer brazenness of the Republican volte face following the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is breathtaking. In 2016, eight months before presidential elections, US Senate Republicans balked when US President Barack Obama wanted to fill a vacancy in the US Supreme Court. They invented a new “principle” that in an election year, this should wait until elections.

Americans elect their president through a crazy-quilt mosaic of elections conducted by a bewildering variety of local jurisdictions spread out over the entire country, and its wheels may come off come November.

“Owning the libs and pissing off the media. That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it,” said long-time senior congressional Republican aide Brendan Buck on what the Republican Party stood for today, while in conversation with Politico reporter Tim Alberta.

It’s hard to believe a full 45 years have passed since you became the victim of one of the most barbaric political murders in living memory.

Online juggernaut Amazon owns Kindle, the 600-pound gorilla in the US electronic book space. Its global presence is also formidable.

In “The War of the Worlds,” HG Wells’ science fiction novel, the world is brought to its knees by a vastly more technologically advanced species. The tides are turned after the humble bacteria triumphs where man failed, felling the Martians.

In the long tortuous history of the battle for the emancipation of Blacks that continues to this day in the US, progress has sometimes been so slow, and recalcitrant racist biases have been so resistant to change, that the tardy progress or lack thereof has been a cause of bitter frustration.

Sometimes you wonder in bafflement.

A horrified world is watching as the US goes up in flames. An appalling racist murder by police has triggered protests in more than 140 US cities. Rioting, looting, cities ablaze, police brutality, night curfews in major cities—it’s all happening. The federal administration is ratcheting up tensions by unleashing the US military.

As the world reels from the biggest health crisis we have seen in our lifetime, some countries have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic better than others.

The voluntary organisation Bidyanondo is a stirring example of what amazing things goodwill can achieve. It’s youthful founder, Peru-based Kishore Kumar Das, has a richly deserved, devoted following of millions.

Here we are, in the middle of a global pandemic, desperately trying to figure out how to survive. The US now has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading nation both in terms of number of deaths and identified cases.

After a spirited, valiant battle for the Democratic nomination for US presidential elections in November, Bernie Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, called it a day.

It is one of the less salubrious facts of life that at times of profound concern and insecurity, charlatans, cranks and confidence tricksters come out of the woodwork.

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” — Warren Buffett, US investor and business magnate

The primary process for choosing a presidential candidate in the US can be inordinately long drawn and unwieldy.

As citizens of Dhaka vote for Dhaka’s twin city corporation elections today, this is a good time to take stock of their significance. We underestimate the importance of these elections at our peril.