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Time of India
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Trump tells Russian official to 'watch his words,' but he bites back instead
Donald Trump (AP file photo) In a midnight social media post, President Donald Trump called Dmitry Medvedev a "failed former President of Russia" who had better "watch his words." Less than three hours later -- morning by then in Moscow -- Medvedev responded. He said Trump should picture the apocalyptic television series "The Walking Dead" and referred to the Soviet Union's system for launching a last-ditch, automatic nuclear strike. "Russia is right about everything and will continue to go its own way," said Medvedev's post on the Telegram messaging app. It was the second time this summer that Trump and Medvedev, Russia's head of state from 2008 to 2012, traded blows on social media. The exchanges have been striking not only for the verbal brinkmanship on display between the world's nuclear superpowers, but also for the mismatched stature of the figures involved. While Trump commands the world's most powerful military, Medvedev is widely seen as a social-media attack dog relegated to the periphery of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. The viciousness of the overnight exchange highlighted the volatility and opacity of a geopolitical relationship in which Trump and Putin set policy largely on their own. And it put on display the combustible mix that can occur when the Kremlin's long-standing willingness to use nuclear threats meets Trump's penchant for late-night diatribes on the internet. Hanging in the balance is the future of Ukraine, three years into Russia's full-scale invasion. "In wars, traditionally diplomatic messaging is something that's done with a lot of care and discipline," said Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University in Washington who specializes in the U.S.-Russia relationship. "The consequences of screwing up can be so huge." Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, said there was something symbiotic about Trump and Medvedev fighting on social media. Medvedev, who had styled himself as a pro-Western liberal when he served as president more than a decade ago, has recast himself as an uncompromising soldier in Russia's showdown with the West. But attacking Medvedev may also be useful to Trump, Golosov posited, by allowing him to show he's getting tough on Russia without attacking Putin directly. In June, Trump attacked Medvedev for saying countries could send nuclear warheads to Iran, adding: "I guess that's why Putin's 'THE BOSS.'" This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump tells Russian official to ‘watch his words,' but he bites back instead
It was the second time this summer that Trump and Medvedev, Russia's head of state from 2008 to 2012, traded blows on social media. The exchanges have been striking not only for the verbal brinkmanship on display between the world's nuclear superpowers, but also for the mismatched stature of the figures involved. While Trump commands the world's most powerful military, Medvedev is widely seen as a social-media attack dog relegated to the periphery of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The viciousness of the overnight exchange highlighted the volatility and opacity of a geopolitical relationship in which Trump and Putin set policy largely on their own. And it put on display the combustible mix that can occur when the Kremlin's long-standing willingness to use nuclear threats meets Trump's penchant for late-night diatribes on the internet. Hanging in the balance is the future of Ukraine, three years into Russia's full-scale invasion. Advertisement 'In wars, traditionally diplomatic messaging is something that's done with a lot of care and discipline,' said Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University in Washington who specializes in the US-Russia relationship. 'The consequences of screwing up can be so huge.' Advertisement Nuclear saber-rattling by Medvedev and by Putin himself was a common feature earlier in Russia's invasion, as the Kremlin sought to deter the Biden administration from supporting Ukraine. Putin tamped down that rhetoric after Trump took office, hoping to take advantage of his Russia-friendly stance. But as Trump grew frustrated with Putin's unwillingness to budge on Ukraine, the language from Moscow has begun to shift again. Putin himself has said nothing about Trump's recent threats of new sanctions, and the Russian president's spokesperson has said little but acknowledged that the Kremlin is paying attention. Others, like Medvedev, have taken a harder line. 'Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,' Medvedev posted on the social platform X on Monday, in English, after Trump warned that he could impose new sanctions in as little as 10 days. Evoking the US presidential campaign, in which Trump criticized President Joe Biden as risking World War III, Medvedev added: 'Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!' The use of Trump's derogatory moniker for his predecessor reflects what some analysts believe to be the Kremlin's bet that Trump's core supporters will prevail on him to avoid escalating America's conflict with Russia. Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, said there was something symbiotic about Trump and Medvedev fighting on social media. Medvedev, who had styled himself as a pro-Western liberal when he served as president more than a decade ago, has recast himself as an uncompromising soldier in Russia's showdown with the West. But attacking Medvedev may also be useful to Trump, Golosov posited, by allowing him to show he's getting tough on Russia without attacking Putin directly. In June, Trump attacked Medvedev for saying countries could send nuclear warheads to Iran, adding: 'I guess that's why Putin's 'THE BOSS.'' Advertisement 'Trump wants to criticize someone in Russia,' Golosov said, but is still hoping to make a deal with Putin over Ukraine. Medvedev, he added, 'is the perfect target.' Medvedev is active on social media in a way that Putin and most other senior Russian officials are not. Medvedev set up a Twitter account in 2010 on a visit to Silicon Valley, when he was president and positioning himself as a tech-forward, reformist leader. Long a loyal ally of Putin, Medvedev ceded the presidency back to him in 2012. Putin removed Medvedev from the prime minister post in a government reshuffle in 2020 and gave him the largely symbolic role of vice chair of the Russian Security Council. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev accelerated his reinvention as a far-right hawk, often threatening nuclear apocalypse more explicitly than did Putin and his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. Analysts of Russian politics say that Medvedev's reinvention came in part out of necessity because his past reputation as a liberal made him vulnerable amid the wartime power struggles within the ruling elite. But his social-media hostility is almost certainly blessed by the Kremlin, analysts say, because it amplifies the threat of Russia's nuclear arsenal and helped Putin style himself as a relative moderate. This article originally appeared in
Herald Malaysia
11-07-2025
- General
- Herald Malaysia
Catholic University in Erbil looks ahead to 10-year anniversary
The Catholic University in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, was founded to provide an education to minority groups fleeing ISIS. Now, it aims to promote peace by teaching about Mesopotamia's religious history. Jul 11, 2025 Students at the Catholic University in Erbil By Joseph TullochChristians in Iraq want to be 'not just a statistic', but 'a light in society'. That's how Fr Karam Shamasha describes the inspiration behind the founding of the Catholic University in Erbil. With the university's ten-year anniversary approaching, Fr Shamasha, its Provost, spoke to Vatican News about its original goal of educating Iraq's religious minorities, its new department of Oriental Studies and Comparative Religion, and his plans for its second decade. The following transcript has been edited for style and brevity. Vatican News: How did the Catholic University in Erbil get started? Fr Karam Shamasha: The university began in 2014, when Iraqi Christians were being displaced from their villages by ISIS. In 2015, His Excellency Archbishop Warda, the Archbishop of Erbil, saw that the Church was helping people by feeding people, protecting them, giving them places to stay, and decided that we had to educate them, too. So he started the Catholic University in Erbil. We began contacting people around the world to help us make this dream a reality. In the beginning, we had help from the Italian Bishops' conference, and other organisations. At first, we had students from the minority groups, like Yazidis, Christians, and so on. They had been displaced by ISIS, forced to leave their houses. Today, we have around 725 students. Most of them are Christian, around 60%, around 30% Muslims, and the other 10% are Yazidis and other minorities. So we have all the colours of Iraq, all the ethnicities. We hope to be a light, the place where people can learn about virtue. We don't want to just provide a normal education. The majority of Iraqis are Muslims, and the Christians are very few – we're getting to be as few as 200,000, and the number is always decreasing. But we really want to be a light in society, not just providing education, but also peace-building, and building relations between different groups. What sort of reactions have you had to your mission? In the beginning, people thought it was a little bit strange that we were trying to build something Catholic in a Muslim-majority region. But our view is: this is our land, and we want to be here, not just as a statistic, but as a light in society. It would be terrible, for all Christians, if in the future there were no Christians in Iraq. So the fact that we now have a university, a Catholic university – that's not a small thing for us. It's the only university in the Middle East with that kind of name. There are many Catholic universities in Lebanon, in Palestine, and so on, but none of them have the title 'Catholic University of X'. In September, the university will celebrate its tenth anniversary. What does that feel like, and what's your vision for the next ten years? We're so excited about the anniversary, and very grateful for all the people that helped us to get here. For the next ten years, we want to integrate more into the world of international Catholic higher education. A few months ago, we were able to get membership of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, and I'm now working to connect with the International Federation of Catholic Universities. As I said, we don't want to just provide a normal education. We want to provide a very high-quality education based on the Catholic intellectual tradition. In our mission statement, we say that very clearly. We also really want to provide a good education in Oriental Studies, about Mesopotamia and the origins of Christianity and the other religions. We've already opened a department of Oriental Studies and Comparative Religions, and this is an area we're really focusing on – teaching our students about the origins of their own religions and other religions, and in this way contributing to peacebuilding. You said that 40% of your students aren't Christian, so this comparative approach must be something that students of other religions also really appreciate? Yes, definitely. In fact, when many people in Iraq hear that the Church is behind the university, they have confidence in it, and they feel sure that their children will be safe there, and will receive the best kind of education. This is also the mission of the Church, which is mater et magistra , mother and teacher. Providing an education is part of our mission, and we're working to be an education centre for students of all faiths. Part of that is this new department of Oriental Studies and Comparative Religion, dedicated to peacebuilding. We really want to be a place for spreading the light of good relationships among communities, and building the common good together. Changing the subject a bit: You're in Rome for the Jubilee with a group of parishioners, and you've all made the trip from Iraq. It's really wonderful to be here in these days. They are days of grace for every Christian. We came from Nineveh to Rome. It's not an easy thing to do, because Rome is a city full of martyrs, and in Nineveh, we also have a lot of martyrs. So our visit is almost like a hug between sisters. We bring with us all the suffering that we've lived there, and we came here to receive the hope that Pope Francis invited all Christians to receive when he announced the Jubilee year. And we want to go out from here and spread that light of hope. We travelled from the land of the martyrs, where as Christians we don't know what our future will be, to the city of the martyrs. We came here with a number of different families. I have 45 with me, of all ages, including youth, adults, the elderly. And we came with hope, because we come from a Church that sometimes feels isolated, but we know that the Popes have never forgotten about us in their homilies and in their words, and all of them have been praying for us, from the invasion in 2003 to the present day. And so we also came to say thank you, and to be in communion with the Church of Rome. We've seen pilgrims from all over the world here, and we're very happy to be a part of that.--Vatican News
TimesLIVE
02-07-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Angola, Cape Verde want Portugal to return looted artefacts, poll shows
A majority of respondents in Angola and Cape Verde believe Portugal should apologise for its colonial past and return artefacts and other items looted during that era, according to a survey released on Tuesday. Pollsters from Lisbon's Catholic University, in partnership with public broadcaster RTP and a commission commemorating the fall of Portugal's fascist dictatorship in 1974, surveyed more than 3,000 people across Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal. In Angola, 58% of respondents said Portugal should return artefacts such as masks, sculptures and ritual objects taken from its former colonies. Support was higher in Cape Verde at 63%. The survey showed 54% of the Portuguese supported the return of such items, but 58% said Portugal did not owe its former colonies an apology. In Angola, 59% thought Lisbon should apologise with 58% in Cape Verde. Portugal's colonial history, which spanned Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Brazil and East Timor, as well as parts of India, remains contentious.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Angolans, Cape Verdeans want Portugal to return looted artefacts, poll shows
By Catarina Demony (Reuters) -A majority of respondents in Angola and Cape Verde believe Portugal should apologise for its colonial past and return artefacts and other items looted during that era, according to a survey released on Tuesday. Pollsters from Lisbon's Catholic University, in partnership with public broadcaster RTP and a commission commemorating the fall of Portugal's fascist dictatorship in 1974, surveyed more than 3,000 people across Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal. In Angola, 58% of respondents said Portugal should return artefacts such as masks, sculptures and ritual objects taken from its former colonies. Support was higher in Cape Verde at 63%. The survey showed 54% of the Portuguese supported the return of such items, but 58% said Portugal did not owe its former colonies an apology. In Angola, 59% thought Lisbon should apologise with 58% in Cape Verde. Portugal's colonial history, which spanned Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Brazil and East Timor, as well as parts of India, remains contentious. From the 15th to the 19th century, nearly six million Africans were forcibly transported by Portuguese ships and sold into slavery, primarily to Brazil. Little is taught about it in schools. Most respondents in all three countries - 58% in Angola, 83% in Cape Verde and 78% in Portugal - do not think monuments related to colonialism should be taken down. In Portugal, 58% of respondents said a memorial to victims of transatlantic slavery should be built. A long-delayed memorial to slavery victims, planned for Lisbon's riverside, has been embroiled in controversy at a time global calls for reparations and reckoning with past wrongs - including within the African Union - continue to gain momentum. Portugal's far-right Chega party, which became the main opposition in parliament in May, has vowed to prevent any return of artefacts and payment of reparations.
