David Smith, Guardian:

Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, added: “The strategy is pretty obvious. The White House does not trust the president to go out unscripted and doesn’t want to leave the president to his own devices. They just don’t trust him to get out the story clean without a problem.”

But the cautious approach could backfire on 79-year-old Biden, he warned. “It could potentially in the back of voters’ minds question his competency, his energy, his ability to handle the job. It raises questions as to why are you secluding the president, why are you hiding the president, why won’t you let him talk to reporters?

“Are you afraid he’s going to say something bad or is going to come across poorly?

…

Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “The average voter can’t tell whether Biden is doing a press conference or an interview or a speech. It all blurs together to them. But when the midterm election comes closer, that will be problematic. Biden is still a drag on the Democrats. The more that he shifts focus on to anything else, the better off Democrats will be.”

FAZ:

Soweit in der Bundesrepublik der Revolte der Studenten historische Bedeutung zuerkannt wird, gilt das Todesdatum von Benno Ohnesorg als ihr eigentlicher Beginn.

—Ulrich Chaussy, »Rudi Dutschke«, (München: Droemer, 2018), 226.

Friederike Hausmann (damals Dollinger) kümmert sich im Hof des Hauses Krumme Straße 66/67 um den schwer verletzten Ohnesorg. Unter dem Kopf Ohnesorgs sein Transparent mit der Aufschrift: „Autonomie für die Teheraner Universität“.

Jan Oberg:

Most people who conducted security politics decades ago were well-educated and experienced compared with most of today’s security political decision-makers.

This overall intellectual disarmament coupled to ever-higher levels of military armament and the recent talk about the use of nuclear weapons creates a new and extremely dangerous reality for us all.

Ω Ω Ω

Given what they stand for, neither Kissinger nor Burns is – so to speak – my cup of tea. However, in an era in which every discourse of peace has disappeared – or, been disappeared – perhaps some people might listen to people like Kissinger and Burns whose profession has always been more war than peace – but on a solid intellectual foundation?

Their cohesive way of reasoning in a low voice – Kissinger in particular with his world perspective and geo-political professionalism and both with a larger perspective – contrasts most of those who make security political decisions today who often display a frightening lack of knowledge, conceptual foundation and ability to look at things in a larger perspective – time as well as space.

There is a clarity of mind growing out of a reservoir of comprehensive knowledge and personal experience.

Ω Ω Ω

Interesting is also Kissinger’s emphasis on how counterproductive it would be – actually, is – for the United States to behave in a way that makes Russia and China come more strongly together against the US. One does not get the impression that there are any NATO or EU decision-makers who have looked that far in time and space while meting out the punishment of Russia right after its invasion of Ukraine.

Philadelphia Inquirer:

John Ross, Globetrotter:

Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, accounting for almost three times as much of world exports as Ukraine, 18 percent compared to 7 percent.

Second, and even more important, is the situation with fertilizers. Russia is the world’s largest fertilizer exporter, and Belarus, which is also facing Western sanctions, is also a major supplier—together they account for more than 20 percent of the global supply. Fertilizer prices were already rising before the Ukraine war due to high fuel prices—fertilizer production relies heavily on natural gas—but sanctions by the West, which prevent Russia from exporting fertilizers, have made the situation worse.

David Laborde, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, pointed out that “the biggest threat the food system is facing is the disruption of the fertilizer trade.” This is because, he said: “Wheat will impact a few countries. The fertilizer issue can impact every farmer everywhere in the world, and cause declines in the production of all food, not just wheat.”

Most British diplomats and Foreign Office experts could not see the Soviets as fully European—it was customary to suggest that they displayed Oriental features, torn between extremes of humanity and cruelty. They presumably inclined toward tyranny, possessed a peasant mentality, were disorganized, and could work only in short bursts of frantic activity. “The Russian temperament,” wrote Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the British ambassador in Moscow, “still finds sustained exertion distasteful.” Occasionally the treatment of the Soviets as inferior Slavs gave way to their castigation as Jews, resulting in a curious blend of Orientalism, anticommunism, and anti-Semitism. Alexander Cadogan, for example, offended by Soviet accusations that the British were involved in secret negotiations with Germany, noted in his diary in January 1944: “This is quite monstrous. We tell the Russians everything and play square with them. They are the most stinking creepy set of Jews I’ve ever come across.”

—Serhii Plokhy, Yalta, (London: Penguin, 2010), 63.